Pretending

by Shanna Clayton

  With one last wink, he’s gone. I suddenly find myself alone in the dark bedroom.

  With him.

  I shuffle my feet. I’ve been in this room before. Once. I hadn’t been prying…

  Okay, maybe I was prying a little bit.

  So what. I’m curious. I’ve lived with the guy for the past three years, and I barely know him. Besides, it’s not like he keeps anything personal in here anyway. Not unless you count the drawer full of condoms or the set of dumbbells in the corner. I shake my head, remembering my disappointment. I always held a starry-eyed image of Wesley Kent, figuring he’d be one of the most fascinating, adventurous, intelligent people to walk the planet. If he had any of his dad in him, he should’ve been all those things and more.

  Sadly the most noteworthy item in this room is the picture Wesley keeps of his brother, Sam, buried in the back of his closet behind his clothes. From what Harland told me, they were inseparable. Sam died in a car crash a few years back, and Wesley never recovered from the loss.

  I can relate. Loss and I are old friends. Harland and my mom were all I had, and now they’re both gone. That picture of Sam is the only thing that makes sense about Wesley Kent. It’s the type of thing you stuff in the back of the closet to make their absence easier to deal with. All my mom’s things are tucked away in a drawer somewhere too.

  Daring a glance at Wesley, I decide to move closer. I know I should turn and walk away, but I can’t help myself. An overpowering need to look at him up close takes over my body and propels me to the edge of the bed.

  Whenever we cross paths, I usually avert my eyes and go about my business as if he’s not there. Ignoring him is the easiest way to deal with him ignoring me. But he doesn’t know I’m here, and I can’t let this chance go to waste.

  Moonlight spills in from the window, giving me just enough of its glow to take in his face. I let out a small breath; he’s so damned gorgeous it’s a shame. Everything about him is lean and chiseled, and it makes me wish things were different between us.

  Sleep softens the hard lines of his face. The squareness of his jaw becomes a little less rigid. His eyes aren’t open, but I remember the color vividly. It’s a dark shade of blue, almost black but not quite. Like the night sky.

  I’m not sure why, but I lean even closer, until my face is only inches from his. He smells like alcohol mixed with a clean, intoxicating scent that sparks a desire to grab his shirt and nuzzle my face against his neck.

  This is crazy.

  I keep waiting for someone to barge in and stop me, but no one does. Maybe it’s my curiosity again, I don’t know, but something draws me to Wesley. There have always been two versions of him—the one Harland told me about and the one I’ve been living with. It doesn’t matter that we have no involvement in each other’s lives. Part of me still holds out hope the boy in Harland’s stories will come to life. I feel like I’m waiting for that day to happen, sitting on the edge of my seat in suspense, always on the lookout for a flicker of the real Wesley to appear. There’s got to be more to this guy than an empty shell of a bedroom.

  Again, this is crazy.

  This is the real Wesley. He’s drunk, sleeping, and pretty beat up. I should leave.

  Steely fingers grasp my arm, wrenching me back. I gasp, and my heart slams against my chest. Wesley is awake. His blue eyes lock onto mine. They look wild, like he doesn’t know where he is or who I am. I stare back at him, not sure what to do. Should I say hello and ask him how he’s been? Because I doubt that’d go over very well. Thankfully his hand goes slack, and he falls back onto his pillow.

  I run from the bedroom, not bothering to shut the door behind me. I don’t slow down until I’m far across the house. After several seconds, my heart rate returns to a steady pace. I’m not sure what the heck just happened.

  One thing’s for sure. Next time I hear a strange noise at night, I’m staying in bed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DOLL

  “Gwen, please don’t do this to me. Not today.”

  This isn’t the first time I’ve chased after Gwen Hubbard, begging for her help. It’s irritating and embarrassing, especially since we’ve had this same fight too many times to count. Keeping up with her stubborn pace makes me want to scream. I hold it back and remind myself that she means well.

  “You are a waste of my talents!”

  “Come on, Gwen. You’re being ridicu—”

  “A waste of my training!”

  I’d love to remind Gwen she’s on the clock right now, but it would no doubt send her into a blind rage. This is a prime example of why one should never hire best friends. Boundaries disappear completely. Seriously, what made me think this would work?

  Let’s see, Gwen needed a job, Kent House needed a maid, and it is nice having a friend around.

  Most of the time.

  Now, not being one of those nicer times.

  Gwen quickly makes her way through the main hall, tossing her long dark hair over her shoulder with a huff.

  “Gwen, wait!” I call out, staying fast on her heels.

  “Why?” she sneers over her shoulder. “Talking to you is a waste of breath.”

  I stop in the middle of the hall.

  Ouch.

  That was low, even for her. “You don’t mean that.”

  She turns towards the library and shoves the doors open. I follow her inside.

  Shelves upon shelves of endless books tower from the floor to the ceiling. Renowned for their explorations, the Kent men filled this library with a massive collection of artifacts and treasures, most of which were discovered before treasure laws. Some I think were found later but were brought here to Gainesville in secret and then passed off as having belonged to the family for centuries. They sit in glass cases all around the room, an array of world history tucked away in the middle of nowhere instead of some big-city museum.

  I stop by the fireplace, placing a hand on my hip. “Gwen,” I plead, breathless. “I really don’t want to argue with you today.”

  She turns to face me, her dark brown eyes glaring beneath perfectly arched jet-black brows. “I know exactly what you’d like, Doll. You can forget it. I’d like nothing more than to throw all that crap out the window.” She crosses her arms and taps her foot against the carpeted floor. Apparently she didn’t mean the “waste of breath” comment; the foot tapping is a sign her rant has only just begun.

  Wonderful.

  “First of all, you know my momma is an amazing hairdresser. She took pains to teach me her skills.”

  “Yes, yes. You’re very talented. This isn’t news to me.” Gwen and I went to the same high school back in Savannah. We’ve known each other since we were kids.

  She points a finger at me and narrows her eyes. “I’m not finished.”

  I manage not to groan. “Go on then, of course.”

  “I’m old school southern, babe. I can sew a stitch like nobody’s business, and when it comes to makeup—I’m a freaking artist.”

  “Can you get to the point?”

  “My point is that everyone knows we’re best friends. But when they see you…” She eyes me up and down, shaking her head disapprovingly. “It’s bad for my image.”

  I can’t believe she just body-checked me—and with that disgusted look on her face! My hands curl into fists at my sides.

  Making myself look this way has become so routine I don’t even think about it anymore. My old hoodie that does a good job of hiding everything suddenly feels much heavier. I adjust the bulky fabric over my hips. I’m hiding beneath it, and we both know it.

  “Does it really matter?” I ask Gwen. “No one knows you help me.”

  “Yes, it matters,” she says matter-of-factly. “People who know me know I would never allow one of my friends to look like this, much less my best friend. If that isn’t bad enough, I’m helping you make yourself look like something you’re not. Well, no more. I’m done with all that craziness.”

  For a second I think she’s blu
ffing. Then she squares her shoulders and angles her chin. The girl means what she says, dammit.

  “Fine,” I grind out through clenched teeth. “Just give me back my glasses. I’ll do my hair and makeup myself.”

  “Your vision is twenty-twenty, Doll. You only wear those hideous grandma lookin’ glasses to look like a googly-eyed freak.”

  “That’s not true.”

  I wear them because they round out the almond shape to my eyes.

  She cocks her head to the side, giving me the I’m not stupid look. “Before we moved here, you wore sundresses and shorts centimeters away from landing you in detention. Your hair was always down, a smile always plastered to your face. When I first started this, I thought it would be a one-time-only thing.”

  It was supposed to be a one-time-only thing. It just didn’t work out that way.

  “Is this about your dad?” she asks me point blank. “Is he back in town?”

  I flinch at the mention of my dad. Most of the time I don’t acknowledge I have a father, much less say it out loud. He chose to walk out of my life, and that’s fine with me. The world is full of dead-beat dads. I was just unfortunate enough to land one of them. It didn’t matter what he wanted though—he wasn’t going to deny me the chance to meet him. That’s how this whole thing started, to give me that chance. Even though it was from a distance, it suppressed the need I had in me to see his face and know what kind of person he was. It made me invisible.

  “This isn’t about him, Gwen.”

  “Then why, Doll? Seriously, give me a reason. Maybe if you explained yourself—”

  “No.”

  Her shoulders slump. She pulls my glasses out of her pocket and stuffs them into my hands. “Whatever.”

  I beat myself up a little as she walks away. Why can’t she just let this go? She doesn’t need to know how reliant I’ve become on the way I look. Somewhere down the line, looking this way has become my shield. People don’t notice me now, and when people don’t notice you, they can’t hurt you. Trying to explain that to Gwen wouldn’t do either of us any good. She would just try to fix me, and as weird as it sounds, I don’t want to be fixed.

  “Gwen, stop.” I follow her behind a bookshelf.

  She stops and looks back, waiting for me to speak.

  “You have your secrets too,” I point out.

  “Like what? We’ve been friends since we were ten. I tell you everything.”

  “If that’s true, why do you hate Charlotte Hart?”

  At the mention of Charlotte’s name, Gwen tenses up and breathes through her nostrils. “Charlotte Hart is a bitch. That’s all there is to it.”

  I roll my eyes. I won’t buy that crap for one minute, and she knows it.

  “Listen,” she sighs. “It’s a little hard for a chubby girl like me to understand why you would want to keep all the goods hidden away. You’re beautiful, Doll. Why do you try so hard to look ugly?”

  I look over at a glass case a few feet away, unable to meet her gaze. Chubby is not how I would describe Gwen, and it’s not how I thought she saw herself either. She’s curvier than me, but in an enviable proportioned way. Her hip to waist ratio is the stuff video vixens could only dream of, but more importantly, she exudes confidence. It’s hard to believe the word chubby ever came out of her mouth.

  Maybe that’s why it’s hard for me to look at my situation from her point of view. She thinks I’m acting crazy. Okay. I can admit my behavior is sort of crazy, but everyone has personal stuff.

  Still…this is Gwen. If I don’t give her some insight soon, it’s going to impact our friendship. “I’m not trying to make myself look ugly. It’s not a self image thing.” I make sure to clarify that part because it’s the truth. “I just want to stay...unnoticed.”

  “Why?”

  “Can’t we just leave it at that? For now?”

  Or forever. Forever works even better.

  Gwen watches me closely, thinking. I shuffle my feet, waiting for her to say something. “All right, I give in. We don’t have to talk about it today,” she adds. “Just…know that I’m here if you ever need me.”

  Nodding, I let out a deep breath. Good friends say that sort of thing. It really is the most perfect thing to say. I’ll probably never want to bring this subject up again, but it’s nice knowing I have the option.

  Gwen’s eyes light up and she grabs my arm. “I’ve got an idea.” She pulls me towards a case we’ve spent a lot of time gawking at in the past. Locked away beneath the square of glass is a necklace glittering with diamonds and rubies. At the base is a stunningly brilliant ruby in the shape of a heart.

  The Zumina-al-Shimaz, or the Heart of the Beloved in English. It’s my favorite of all the Kent House pieces. I researched the necklace, searching online and through all of Harland’s old books, obsessively trying to find more information about it. When I couldn’t dig up anything, I invited the curator of a local museum over to visit. The curator recognized the ancient piece right away, a gleam in his eye, because the Kent men had uncovered a precious gem.

  The necklace had been passed down through generations of sultans in ancient Arabia only to be lost sometime during the sixteenth century. It was tradition for each Sultan to give his favorite wife the necklace, claiming her as his beloved. Symbolically, it meant she who wore the Zumina-al-Shimaz held the sultan’s heart.

  Gwen thinks the sultans were all pigs. When I told her about the tradition, her reply was, “Polygamy is a bullshit excuse for men to sleep around. Favoritism does not make it better, Doll. Think about how the other wives felt.”

  She’s got a point, but I don’t care. It’s sort of romantic. According to legend, the creation of the necklace came about by a sultan who wanted to prove his loyalty to his fourth wife. The sultan’s previous marriages had been arranged, but it was the fourth he chose for himself and fell in love with. So he carved the ruby himself, letting the fourth wife know she was his heart’s true mate. It’s said that Allah was so moved by the sultan’s gesture, he blessed only the fourth wife to bear his children—which is the nicer way of saying she didn’t let the sultan mess around on her after that. Nothing says romantic like kicking your culture’s customs to the curb for love.

  “So what’s your idea?” I ask Gwen, my eyes still roaming over the necklace.

  Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she says, “I think you should wear it.”

  I have to look her in the eye to see for myself if she’s really serious. “Are you crazy? I can’t wear that thing.”

  “Why not? You could wear it to Charlotte’s party!”

  “Graffiti Bash?” Okay now I know she’s lost it. “Yeah, let me go ahead and take a priceless necklace to a party where everyone vandalizes each other. Awesome idea.”

  Gwen scrunches her lips to the side. “Good point. Didn’t think of that,” she admits. “Wait! What about that formal thingy you go to every year?”

  She means the Pretty in Pink Ball, which helps raise money for breast cancer research. I never saw myself going to charity balls, but I go every year. I’m not even sure why; I’m extremely skeptical about cancer research. Bitter might be the appropriate word. It seems like the research never ends. No one ever finds a real cure. Even if they do, it’s too late to save my mom. It’s too late to save Harland.

  I think I go as a sort of tribute. My two hundred bucks might not help find a cure, but it helps me remember my mom. It helps me honor her.

  “So?” Gwen asks again. “Will you wear The Heart?”

  “No,” I say, emphatically shaking my head. “It’s not mine.”

  “Of course it is. Everything in this house is half yours.”

  “It’s not half mine yet. Nothing is until Wesley and I both complete our bachelor’s degrees. Those are the terms of Harland’s will.”

  Harland wanted Wesley and me to earn his fortune. As long as we both complete our degrees, we split everything equally, and then we can go on our merry ways.

  The thing is, I don’t
want Harland’s money or this house. Gwen would flip a switch if she knew, but I plan on handing all of it over to Wesley once the four years come to an end. It’s the right thing to do. Wesley is his son. Harland had only been dating my mom for seven months before she passed away. He didn’t owe me anything, and he’s given me far too much already. The only reason I’m here is because I promised him I’d finish school, and this is my only means to pay for it.

  “For once, take something you want, Doll,” Gwen says, still eyeing the necklace with awe. “It would look amazing on you.”

  “No way.” I steer her away from the case. “I’m not wearing it. End of story.”

  She opens her mouth to say more but stops as the door to the library clicks open. The cook, Hannah, slinks inside the room, adjusting the straps of her bra that’s showing through her skin-tight tank top.

  “Since when does she ever come in the library?” Gwen asks me, her tone laced with insinuation. Hannah doesn’t do anything without ulterior motives. I’ve never seen her pick up a book, so I seriously doubt that’s what she came here for.

  She chooses this moment to glance up at us, faking a display of surprise. “Oh I didn’t know anyone else was in here.”

  It’s such a bald-faced lie that I almost roll my eyes. She followed us, and I have a pretty good idea as to why. Tormenting me is on that girl’s list of favorite hobbies, and I think she feels more comfortable doing it now that Wesley is back in the house.

  “Fancy seeing you about, Hannah,” Gwen says, the twang in her southern accent more pronounced. “Shouldn’t you be preparing Mr. Kent’s lunch at this time of day?”

  “My, my, you’re right, Gwen. Must’ve lost track of time.”

  “Glad to remind you.” There’s a sweet smile on Gwen’s face I recognize as anything but sweet. The two of them have been known to get into it over the messes Hannah leaves in the kitchen. Their arguments have gotten so heated, they can be heard across the house.

  Although I haven’t said a word yet, Hannah gives me her attention anyway. Sharpening her green eyes on me, she looks like she’s up to something. Great. I can only imagine what it is this time.