Accidental Forever: Fake Romance Box Set

by Hazel Parker

  As soon as five o’clock came and she clocked out for the day, she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket and scrambled to answer it when she saw Chandra’s name on the screen.

  “I’m so sorry about today,” she said in lieu of a greeting, which was overlapped by Chandra’s angry declaration of, “Stop texting me.” Abby had only sent a few texts over the course of the day, she’d thought, but maybe she’d gotten carried away.

  “Please don’t hang up,” Abby pleaded before it could happen, and to her surprise, Chandra remained on the line, a long, silent moment falling between the two of them.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Chandra reminded her.

  “I know. You don’t have to. You could just listen while I talk.” Chandra made a dissenting noise on the other end that told Abby that she was not interested in that option. “Or you could yell at me, and I stay quiet.”

  “Fuck you,” Chandra returned. “Abby, fuck you. My brother? Seriously? Why?”

  “I know,” Abby lamented, “and I’m so sorry. I messed up. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Then why did you?”

  Abby hesitated. That was something that she hadn’t even quite asked herself yet. Why had she done it? It wasn’t as if she were keen on hookups even in less questionable situations, and even though Devon was cute, Abby had self-control.

  “Because I make terrible life choices,” Abby tried. “I just keep screwing things up, and I don’t know how to stop.”

  “You’re not playing the pity card with me,” Chandra accused, which made Abby’s ears feel hot.

  “It’s not a card,” she denied. “I’m trying to be honest with you.”

  “No, you’re trying to make me feel bad for you. You’re going through a hard time, and I get that, Abby; I do. But you don’t get to use it as an excuse to hurt people.” Abby spent a moment in stunned silence. There were a million things she wanted to say—to defend herself, to apologize for her choices, to reassure Chandra that this would never happen again and preserve the relationship. However, with so many things she didn’t know how to articulate fighting to be spoken, Abby found herself unable to even begin, which made her frustrated.

  “You have no idea what this is like for me,” she finally decided upon. It wasn’t the best choice, as it didn’t communicate any of the things that she’d wanted to say, but the one thing it did do was make Chandra incredibly angry.

  “Oh, poor Abby, such a victim” she mocked harshly. “Bad things happen to everyone, asshole. If you’re going to cope with them by sleeping with my brother, then maybe you’re just not the person I thought you were.”

  “Maybe I’m not,” Abby couldn’t help but snap. Bad, she immediately thought; take it back before Chandra hangs up.

  “You can be so selfish sometimes. Get over yourself. You know what? If you and Devon want to keep sleeping together, be my guest. I’m not going to pick up the pieces when it blows up.” She hung up the phone without allowing Abby the chance to counter, but that was probably a good thing, she thought, because she wasn’t in the mood to say anything nice anymore. If Chandra wanted to act like she was the only adult here, trying to keep two horny teenagers’ hands off one another, then so be it. All bets were off, now, and if it was petty Chandra wanted, then petty she’d get.

  Abby stormed out of her office without caring who saw. Heading straight for Devon’s truck, which was, of course, parked patiently outside waiting for her, she slammed the door behind her without so much as a greeting.

  “Whoa, hey, how was work?” Devon asked, clearly confused by the energy but not wanting to pry.

  “Fine,” Abby replied sternly. “Hey, you know what I could use? A distraction. Let’s do something fun.” Devon smiled his cute, sweet smile and it was almost enough to calm her down.

  “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

  “I don’t know; bowling, mini-golf, a movie; whatever.” Devon shifted his truck into gear happily.

  “I know just the place,” he declared, and Abby didn’t care where it was, so long as she’d have access to her phone.

  Devon ended up taking her to an arcade, one of those old school ones with a lot of coin-operated video game units, pinball machines, and ball-toss games. It wasn’t the kind of place Abby might have found herself if she’d been in charge of choosing the destination, but it looked fun, nevertheless, and she felt a little less angry just being inside the warm arcade.

  “This is one of my favorite places in the city,” Devon explained. “It’s kind of retro, so I’m not even sure if you’re into this kind of thing. If you don’t like it, we don’t have to stay. I just thought—”

  “No; Devon, it’s great,” Abby curtailed, not about to let him second-guess himself for doing something nice. When he grinned, his eyes lit up with excitement as he led her toward the back of the arcade to a basketball game with real balls and a hoop.

  “I bet I can get more shots than you,” he challenged, and she laughed.

  “I bet you can, too,” she agreed, “but I never back down from a challenge. You’re on, Morales.” He inserted a dollar into the machine to release the balls and Abby reached for her phone to take a picture, something she was in the habit of doing. Ever since a New Year’s Resolution a few years ago to take a picture every day, she’d been much more active on social media, something that Trevor had cut her off from entirely. This time, however, the intention wasn’t so innocent. Chandra followed her on all her photo sharing sites, and if she posted a picture of herself with Devon, looking to all the world like they were on a date, she knew that Chandra would see it and be furious. It would hurt her, maybe as much as the things she’d said to Abby had hurt, though probably not quite so deeply. More than anything, it would probably just piss her off, and that was something Abby didn’t mind doing right now.

  She snapped a few pictures of herself smiling with Devon clearly displayed in the background, aiming and shooting at the hoop, before adding a few ambiguously platonic heart and sparkle emojis to the photos and uploading them. Without giving it another thought, Abby slipped the phone back into her pocket and turned around to play with Devon.

  “I’m not sure if you saw, but I got thirteen baskets in thirteen seconds, so try to beat that,” he bragged, putting another dollar into the machine so that Abby could take her turn. She lost miserably.

  After messing around the arcade for maybe an hour, Devon took Abby back home, both of them hungry but in a considerably better mood than either had been in all day long. On the way home, they stopped for groceries and baked a frozen pizza for dinner. It wasn’t until Abby was almost ready for bed that she remembered the photo that she’d uploaded online and decided to see whether Chandra had commented on it or messaged her to yell at her.

  While Chandra hadn’t liked the photo itself, that wasn’t too surprising and didn’t mean she hadn’t seen it. Abby instantly remembered a time a year and a half ago when Chandra had gone through a bad breakup with a girl that she’d suspected had been cheating on her. The woman had blocked her profile so she couldn’t see her posts, but Chandra was curious, needing to know whether she was posting pictures with someone else already. She’d shown Abby how to make a fake profile using a model’s picture and a fake name so that she could snoop without her ex knowing. With that in mind, Abby searched the list of names in the comments section for someone she didn’t know and, lo and behold, found one among the first comments.

  “Cute!” the comment read, but it was followed with a picture of a skull and crossbones that told her that not only was this Chandra, but that she was pissed. Now, after having decompressed a bit, she wasn’t quite as spiteful as she’d been earlier, and she felt a little remorseful for posting the pictures. After all, she was in the wrong, here: she shouldn’t have slept with Devon, and Chandra had every right to be mad, even if Abby thought that she was overreacting. She clicked on the profile and scrolled a little, finding, as she expected, a pretty new account with very few pictures, all of which had been clea
rly stolen from professional photography websites. That was the oldest trick in the book, and Chandra had been the one to teach it to her, so it probably wasn’t even supposed to trick her; it was supposed to be a way to reach out without having to sacrifice her pride and admit she’d flown off the handle. Chandra had blocked her from her main profile, another thing that didn’t shock her, so instead of texting or calling again, she pulled up the profile that had commented on the picture and tapped on the direct message button.

  “Chandra, I’m really sorry. I made a HUGE mistake sleeping with Devon, and I shouldn’t have done it. It was a moment of weakness, and it won’t happen again. Being all fucked up in the head right now isn’t an excuse; I know that. All I can say is that I’d take it back if I could, but I can’t. I’m begging you to forgive me. Please.”

  A long moment passed, so long that Abby actually became sure that Chandra wasn’t going to reply to the message and plugged her phone into the charger, then turned her lights off and laid down in bed. Just as she closed her eyes, she heard the slight buzz of a message on her nightstand, and she reached out for the phone.

  “You’re sure it didn’t mean anything?” the message read, and Abby practically giggled with elation: Chandra was speaking to her again. Honestly, she’d expected the apology to take a lot more time than this, considering how stubborn Chandra could be, but she wasn’t complaining.

  “Absolutely nothing. You can trust me: this will NEVER happen again. Ever. You know I love you, right?” she responded, hoping that she could appeal to the side of Chandra that had been her best friend for so long. She waited and waited for a reply, but it took so long to come that she ended up setting the phone back on the nightstand without one. Perhaps she’d just entered into the “make-up” phase, where Chandra would be pissed but on speaking terms, and she wasn’t quite ready to fully jump back into their normal displays of affection. Whatever the case, she’d sleep much easier knowing that her foot was at least in the door, here, rather than being indefinitely left out in the cold. There was a chance to save this, and she wasn’t going to mess it up this time.

  Chapter Ten: Devon

  Devon stared at the ceiling for most of the night wondering why he didn’t want to be sleeping alone. He’d known that the night with Abby was a mistake, a one-time deal that was never going to happen again because it shouldn’t have happened the first time. Rationally, he knew that. So why did he want nothing more than to knock on her door and invite her back to the futon?

  After a full eight hours of tossing and turning, Devon finally managed to shut his eyes what felt like only minutes before Abby came out of her room, dressed for work. He really must’ve been heavily asleep if he didn’t hear her getting ready.

  “Good morning,” she greeted, something that was quickly becoming his favorite part of his daily routine. Her cheerfulness cut through the tiredness just a little.

  “Morning,” he replied, his voice gruff from the little sleep he’d gotten. Abby was fluttering around the kitchen happily, seemingly in a much better state of mind than when she’d gone to bed. “You seem like you’re in a better mood,” he pointed out as he filled his mug with black coffee and didn’t even bother to dilute it with milk before taking a long sip.

  “I am,” she said, smiling widely. The dark tan of her lipstick made her whole face look warm and happy.

  “Any particular reason?”

  She nodded, speaking around a mouthful of cereal. “Chandra and I are on speaking terms again.”

  Devon raised an eyebrow incredulously. “You mean she called you back? Already?”

  “Well, no,” Abby admitted, “but she did message me online. She let me apologize to her, and she replied.” Devon blinked in surprise, and Abby shrugged at his obvious shock. “I couldn’t believe it, either,” she agreed, “but you were right. Our friendship is stronger than one stupid mistake.” He tried not to flinch when she called it that.

  “I’ve never known Chandra to get over something that fast, especially something big like this,” he pointed out. “In high school, she once held a grudge for a year and a half because one of her friends went to the movies with a girl she liked.”

  Abby frowned. “That’s kind of a big deal in high school, though.”

  “It was his cousin,” Devon said, and Abby laughed.

  “Well, Chandra has matured a lot since then, I guess. She knows how sorry I am. I think that she’s ready to let it go.”

  “That doesn’t sound like her,” Devon maintained, “but maybe I’m wrong.”

  With a self-satisfied smirk, Abby stood from the table and put her dishes away in the sink. “You are,” she confirmed. “I’m going to go brush my teeth; then I’ll be ready to go to work. So throw some pants on, will you?” Devon looked down and remembered that he’d slept in his boxers last night, thinking that maybe some of the restlessness was from being too warm and that he hadn’t even registered it as half-naked until Abby had pointed it out. He could eat breakfast later, he decided, taking a few more large gulps of coffee before tossing on a pair of jeans and meeting Abby at the coat rack.

  Of course, it was always on the days where he wanted nothing more than to take a nap and watch television on the couch that he found himself with the most work to do. He stopped at a gas station on the way back from dropping Abby off to both fill up his tank and to grab an energy shot from inside, one of those little caffeine bottles that were supposed to have vitamins in them so that one could enjoy the rush of a caffeine high without the crash later. Though he was pretty sure it was bullshit, he was prepared to try anything that would allow him to keep his eyes open and his mind focused on the audio recordings on his computer that needed transcribing.

  The morning passed in a hazy, caffeinated blur. After several hours of work, he remembered that he’d forgotten to eat, but he didn’t want to waste any of his precious little energy on cooking, so he grabbed his phone to order some Chinese takeout. Once he’d unlocked the screen, he noticed that he’d gotten a text from Abby, a picture message. Too curious to wait until after he’d ordered food, he downloaded it to open it, and as soon as he saw what it was, he found himself feeling concerned and confused.

  It was a picture of a small vase of flowers that had been ordered to Abby’s work, delivered right before she’d gone on lunch break. Attached to the case was a note, but from the angle at which Abby had taken the picture, he couldn’t see it.

  “Chandra sent me flowers?” the text portion read. Even Abby, it appeared, was a little suspicious about that.

  “Yeah that’s not normal” he replied.

  “It seemed weird to me, too,” Abby admitted in her reply. “What do you think she means?”

  “Idk, what’s the note say?”

  A moment passed, then he received another picture. The note, zoomed in so that he could actually see the text written on it: “From Chandra: Love you, too <3”

  Devon shook his head. Though he’d been willing to suspend his disbelief that Chandra might forgive this faster than he thought she would, this was completely out of character. Chandra had been hurt, after all, so why would she be the one to send apology flowers? He didn’t want to distract Abby at work by telling her that he had doubts, so he chose not to reply to the message. Instead, lunch all but forgotten, he dialed Chandra’s number. As expected, her phone went straight to voicemail.

  “Chandra, hey, it’s Devon. This is important, so hear me out,” he started, knowing that her instinct would be to listen to a few words of the message to make sure it was disposable and then delete it. “Abby said that she got some message from a fake account on some app that she thinks was from you. She also thinks that you sent flowers to her work? I don’t know all the details, but something isn’t adding up, so I just need you to tell me whether or not you’ve been talking to her. You don’t even need to chat with me. Just a yes or no. Okay, call me when you get this.”