Just Pretending

by Leah Rooper, Kate Rooper

  For a moment, I’m too stunned to move. All I can do is follow her movement as she clips out of the room.

  Daniel and Madison look at me.

  “I can’t believe her,” I breathe. “First, signing apology cards on Christmas?”

  “Yeah!” Madison says. “You have nothing to apologize for! Half the guests thought it was a hoot, and the other half thought it was some strange Christmas play put on by the Prince of Eldonia.”

  Daniel smiles. “I always thought I would make a great actor.”

  “And then,” I say, angrily balling up the wrapping paper and tossing it away, “she has the nerve to take away my favorite present? Who does she think—?”

  “Wait,” Daniel says, holding up his hand. “Did you just say your favorite present? Cause I’ll have you know that basket of hair products I got you took a long time to put together.”

  “Shut up, Daniel!” Madison says and turns to me. Her eyes are wide, and her mouth is in that smile that usually means she’s figured out something the rest of us haven’t yet. “Eva…does this mean you still have feelings for Tyler?”

  “I…uh…” My arms go limp at my side. My heart hasn’t stopped skipping since I opened the letter and saw his name signed at the bottom.

  Madison gives me a soft smile. “He never meant to hurt you. I think he just got caught up in this whole thing. And he really is a good guy at heart. Right, Daniel?” Daniel doesn’t reply, and she elbows him in the ribs. “Right, Daniel?!”

  “I mean, I guess…” He sighs. “He’s the best guy I’ve ever known. I mean, he’s definitely an idiot for lying to you. But I don’t think he was the same Evans I’m used to when he was with you.” Daniel takes a deep breath. “I think he was someone better.”

  “I need to see him again.” The words fall from my lips, breathy and light. An urgency floods through me. “I need to see him.” I stand and square my shoulders. “But first I need to talk to my mother.”

  I find her standing in the hallway, lecturing one of the staff on the absolute atrocity of finding pulp in her orange juice this morning. My Falcons jersey is tossed on a table beside her.

  “Mother,” I say, “I need to talk to you.”

  Mother turns around. She clearly thought she had dealt with me for the day and had moved on to the much more exciting activity of terrorizing the castle staff. “What is it, Evangeline?”

  “I’m leaving with Daniel tomorrow morning. For Chicago.” I clasp my hands in front of me. “It’s a long flight, so I’ll be able to finish all the apology cards during that time. But today, I’m going to spend time with my brother, my friend, and you. Because it’s Christmas.”

  I know it’s going to be bad when she ushers away the housekeeper. Usually she likes to yell at me in front of them, so they “know what to expect.”

  Now it’s just Mother and me.

  “Flying to Chicago?” Mother arches a brow. “You’ve already made a mess of Christmas. What could you possibly need to do in Chicago? I can only imagine the further embarrassment you’ll bring to your father’s memory.”

  “You know what, Mother?” I say, walking up to her. “I am a mess. I’m sixteen years old, and I am a huge mess! But I’m learning, and I’m getting better. I’m going to make mistakes! That’s okay. And something else, Mother. You’re wrong, too. You were wrong about Daniel, and you’re wrong about me. If I’m going to rule Eldonia, I can’t do it trapped within these walls. I have to go out into the world, see my country the way everyone else does. I won’t stay locked up here.”

  She stares at me like she can’t see me, can’t hear me.

  So, I decide to make her hear me.

  “What’s best for Eldonia,” I say, my words sharp as knives, “and what’s best for me, don’t always have to be two different things. I’m going to attend university in the fall, and if I have to rearrange a couple meetings, then Duke Worthington and all the rest can just deal until I finish midterms. Because I am the queen and this is my country, and I will run it the best way I possibly can!”

  Mother is silent, her body as still as ice. “Is this about the commoner?” she finally says.

  “Don’t call him that,” I snarl. “You have no idea who he is. And yes, I am going to see Tyler.”

  “And what are you going to do?” she says with a mocking laugh. “Knock on the door and say you missed your prince? You cannot seriously expect to have a serious relationship with someone like him.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I say. “I know he made a mistake, but I’ve made plenty, too. I’m going to be there for him. That’s what we do for the people we love. We forgive them and give them a chance to do better.”

  “What did you say?” I’ve never heard Mother’s voice so quiet before.

  But mine has never been so loud. “I said I love him.”

  “Evangeline…”

  “I may not know every truth about him. But I know what counts. And the rest…well, it will be wonderful to discover.”

  “You can’t possibly—”

  “Mother.” I fling my arms out to the side. “It is you who cannot possibly imagine! I don’t think you were listening to me before. I am the queen. I make my own rules. My own laws. My own decisions.” I stare at her, feeling all the fire of my existence rally within me. “Now, I say goodbye.”

  “Typical Evangeline,” Mother says, ice on her lips, trying to dowse me. “A ridiculous decision for a queen.”

  My whole life, I’ve had things handed to me. Staff to wait on me hand and foot. But I kept looking out the window, longing not to be outside of it all, but a part of it.

  But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching all that hockey, it’s that you can’t give up when times are hard. Daniel’s team didn’t just come to him. He worked hard for them, and they worked hard for him. And that feeling that I have when I’m with Tyler—that feeling of home—couldn’t be fake. He didn’t just make me feel like I belonged—he made me feel like we created something new together.

  And that is worth fighting for.

  “I’m not just a queen.” I grab the jersey from the table and throw it over my head. “I’m also a Falcon.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tyler

  Every minute is longer than the last. Every breath hurts more than the one before. And I wonder if all the moments of pure joy I experienced with Eva were worth this.

  Yes, yes, a hundred times yes! a voice inside shouts. If this is all the love you ever get, it was worth it.

  I lie on my bed, staring at the same ceiling I’ve stared at almost every day for my entire life. The ceiling I stared at after we learned Mom died. The ceiling I stared at after I got accepted to the Falcons. The ceiling I stared at while I cradled Millie in my arms as she cried on Mother’s Day. The ceiling I stared at, my head on Dad’s shoulder, when he told me funny stories about customers at the store. The ceiling I stared at the night I got home from meeting Eva and realized my world had completely changed.

  It’s been four days since I’ve left Eldonia, and I feel fractured. Like I didn’t just lose Eva and Daniel. I’d lost Tiberius, who had become so entangled with me that I didn’t know the difference between us anymore.

  I close my eyes and I can see her face—splattered with paint, a shy smile, but eyes glittering with passion. She was brave, and she’d made me brave, too. And I was so afraid to lose both of us that I betrayed her trust.

  I turn onto my side. There are a million things to worry about right now. We have a practice tonight, and I know Coach is going to make it a rough one. The Falcons have a lot of ground to make up if we want to get into the playoffs. My email has been bombarded by the colleges I inquired about, reminding me about due dates for applications.

  I feel horrible. I doubt Daniel will ever talk to me again. I didn’t just lose Eva. I lost my best friend, too.

  I didn’t realize how much I had to lose until I lost it.

  I hear the doorbell ring but ignore it. Dad or Millie can get
it. They’ve been pretty good at giving me space. I told Millie the whole story the night I got home, and Dad just thinks I got dumped.

  I can hear Millie’s voice in the other room, talking excitedly. Maybe she’s got a friend over. Great. I dig in my bedside table for my headphones.

  Then I hear a woman’s voice respond to her.

  I know that voice. The aristocratic accent, the musicality in her words…

  I know that voice.

  I leap from my bed and sprint to the living room.

  There she is. Like a porcelain statue, the light glints off her skin. She stands in our living room wearing a bright red cape over a black dress. Her lips are ruby red, offset by her dark hair. Her gloved hands are filled with presents.

  Millie leaps up and down, bursting from the seams. She turns and sees me, and squeals, “Tyler, look! Look who came to see you!”

  Eva looks up at me through her dark lashes. She smiles, sadly, shyly. “Hello…Tyler.”

  In every daydream, my deepest wish was just to have her say my name. My real name. To have her look and see me for me.

  But now my heart is racing, and I look around desperately. She had to come to this neighborhood, drive through the dirty streets with the broken chain link fences and the vandalized convenience stores. She had to stop in front of our tiny house and walk up the crumbling stone stairs through the un-shoveled walk. And now she’s inside—she can see our torn-up couch with the stains, our tiny TV, the ancient desktop. She can see how small our place is, the dirty carpet, the stack of library books at the door because we can’t goddamn afford to buy any.

  And she can see me, in my ripped-up pajamas, my hair a mess, my eyes puffy and glazed. Everything here is so raw and open, like a wound, and she can’t be here, she can’t see us like this. She can’t see me like this!

  “What are you doing here?” I say. My voice comes out in a rush. “What are you doing here?!”

  She looks taken aback. “I…I came to see you. Tyler.”

  “You can’t be here,” I say, and my voice is too high, too urgent. “How did you know where I live?”

  Eva shifts uncomfortably. “I asked Madison for your address. I wanted to surprise you…”

  I grab at my hair. “Why would you come here?” I look around again, panic rising in my chest. What is she seeing?

  “I…wanted to apologize,” she says, her voice weak. “For how we left things. Tyler—”

  “You can’t be here!” I say again, and finally feel like I can move. I rush toward her. “You have to leave.”

  “Ah, you must be Eva!” a deep voice says. I turn to see Dad coming out of his bedroom. “I’m so glad to meet you—”

  A wild rhythm plays in my heart as I see Dad walk toward her. He’s wearing an old “Fred’s Sports Shoppe” T-shirt, and his face is unshaven. He’s got tomato sauce on his pajama pants. It’s one in the afternoon, and the three of us are still in our pajamas.

  “Stop!” I scream to my dad. He freezes, and Millie rushes to his side, snatching his hand. I whirl on Eva. “What are you still doing here?! You have to leave.”

  Eva gasps and takes a step back. “I’ll just leave these here…” She looks around awkwardly, presumably for a place to put the presents. But our house is so small and cluttered, there’s no free space.

  “What?” I snap. “You didn’t think we could afford presents, so you had to bring us some? We don’t need your charity!”

  Eva looks even more confused. “It’s not charity…it’s Christmas.”

  “You have to leave.” I put my hand on her back and lead her to the door.

  She stumbles out the door into the deep snow at the top of the stairs. “Please…there are things for Millie…” She loses her grip on the presents, and they fall down the stairs to the snow.

  “We don’t need your pity,” I snarl. “We’re not some charity case.”

  Eva’s eyes are shiny, and her mouth is open. She runs down the stairs and falls to her knees, trying to gather all the presents. Then she sits in the snow, and I see a tear fall down her face. She is a crimson mark on the white ground.

  “Where’s Dwayne?” I say, looking around. It’s hard to see through the fast falling snow.

  “I came here alone,” she says. “I thought…I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

  “You came alone?” I cry. My mind cycles through all the things that could have happened to her in this neighborhood. “What the hell, Eva? You can’t come here alone! You can’t be in this part of town—”

  “I can do anything I want,” she snaps, staggering to her feet. “Tiberius told me that.”

  “Yeah, of course you listened to him,” I say bitterly. “He was a prince after all.”

  “What is wrong with you?” she says, her voice nearly lost to the wind. “I’m here, Tyler! Here for you. Not for Tiberius, not for some prince—”

  “Well, then, you’re wrong,” I say, my gaze focused on the collapsed fence that circles our yard. It’s actually better she’s here in the winter. The snow covers the weeds and brown grass. I know the queen is used to a garden full of roses. “You don’t belong here.”

  “Tyler…” She starts to move up the stairs but a growl from me stops her in her tracks. “I came here to be with you. I forgive you. Tyler…” Her eyes shine bright and brilliant and beautiful. “I am in love with you.”

  “You can’t love me,” I say. “You wouldn’t be able to handle this.”

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Tyler,” she says, giving me that fiery gaze I have pictured so many times before. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t handle—”

  I shake my head and gesture to my house. “You want to be part of this? Huh, Your Highness? You want to live in a junkyard like this? Have a dad who can’t pay his bills without having his teenage son work his ass off? Have a little sister who you can’t look at sometimes because you feel guilty you can’t even buy her a single damn book?” My voice is choked and raspy. “This is a garbage life, Evangeline. A garbage life. I can’t even read a goddamned sentence. What could I offer you, huh?”

  “I don’t care about that. I only care about you.”

  “Is that why you ignored me every single time I tried to talk to you as just me, Tyler? You can tell yourself whatever you want, but I know the truth, Your Highness.”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “You don’t belong here,” I say. “We don’t belong together.”

  Tears pour down her face, and she storms up the stairs. “I won’t quit.” Her fingers clasp my shirt. “I won’t quit because it’s hard. I won’t quit because we’re different. Say the word, and I’m in this, Tyler.”

  I look down at her, her face a breath away from mine. Her hair pours out from her hood, swirling in the wind like dark waves. I soak her in. I won’t see her again. “It’s okay, Your Highness.” I take a step back, and her hands fall from my shirt. My throat is tight, and my eyes sting. “I won’t make you love a nobody.”

  “You’re not a nobody. Not to me.”

  “Then you still don’t see me.”

  Her gloved hand grasps my arm, and she forces me to turn. Her other hand reaches for my face. “Tyler, please—”

  I clasp her wrist, stopping her movement.

  “Go back to your castle, Evangeline,” I say. My body trembles and shakes as I hold on to her. “It’s better this way.” I let her go and turn my back on her.

  This isn’t the image I want to be burned into my mind. I don’t want to see her looking at me with tears in her eyes. I want to see her laughing on a reindeer-pulled sleigh, I want to see her covered in paint, or panting in my arms. Tears run down my face, and I grip the snow-covered banister.

  Maybe you can’t offer her the world, a thought says. But you can offer her yourself, as broken as you are. You can offer her that and see if it’s enough.

  But that’s just it. I could never be enough for her. And before long, she’d realize that.

 
It’s better this way.

  And yet, I can’t make myself walk through the door. I have to have just one last look.

  I turn around…and she’s gone. There are only footprints in the snow.

  I step inside the open door and collapse against the wall. I can’t hold back the tears. They pour from my face in angry drops, and my legs are weak. I sink to the ground.

  Dad and Millie are standing in the living room, staring at me.

  A thought, ugly and shameful, surges through me. I left the door open while we fought…while I said all those things…

  “D-Dad,” I gasp. “I…I didn’t mean it…”

  Dad doesn’t look me in the eye. “I know we didn’t have everything we wanted…but I always thought we had everything we needed.” He takes Millie’s hand. “Come on. Let’s give Tyler some space.”

  Millie stares at me as she puts on her jacket and her boots. Stares at me like she doesn’t know me anymore.

  Then Dad and Millie leave, walking past me sitting on the floor.

  And I am entirely alone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tyler

  The puck whizzes past me once again, and I hear a groan go up from my team.

  “Let’s see some hustle, Evans!” Coach roars as I shuffle across the ice to get the puck.

  But I just can’t bring the energy tonight. How can I care about practice? It doesn’t matter what I do.

  Not after what happened earlier today.

  The first practice after Christmas break is always tough, but there’s so much pressure on us this year. If we don’t win our next game, our dream of getting in the playoffs, let alone winning the championship, will be over.

  But this practice has been an absolute mess. I don’t know what’s wrong with us…what’s wrong with me. Even though I was never as talented as Tremblay or Bell, I always managed to keep up. But right now, I can’t even land a single pass.

  I guess it doesn’t help that Daniel hasn’t said a single word to me tonight. I wonder if Eva told him what happened earlier. I wonder if she’s okay.