by Siera Maley
She shot me a venomous look, and I glared back, resisting the urge to back down. Arguing with Sarah made me nervous, and it always felt like she’d won even when she hadn’t.
“I have it under control,” she told me. “He’s only dating Christine because he thinks he can’t have me.”
“Except he already has had you, hasn’t he?” I bit out, and then turned and walked away before she could see how quickly I’d regretted that comment. I hated hurting her feelings, but it was hard to talk to her anymore at this point without bickering with her. Things felt so different between us now. Like there was so much tension between us that we had no choice but to snap at every opportunity.
Something was going to give soon, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for the fallout.
Connor caught up to me in the hallway a few days later, after the final bell of the day rang, to tell me, “So Jake said today that I should tell you he’s already gotten a surprisingly large amount of positive feedback with the Winter Formal thing. You and Sarah will probably get enough votes to be nominated in a few weeks, and then all you have to worry about is winning a head-to-head vote.”
“Since when do you talk to Jake?” I asked, my eyebrows furrowing.
“Oh, uh… well, we don’t. He just told me to tell you if… you know, if I saw you. He knows we’re friends.”
“But we aren’t really friends,” I deadpanned, still a little confused as Connor trailed after me.
“You know what I mean. He knows we talk.”
“And apparently we aren’t the only ones who talk,” I said, shooting him a knowing look.
He rolled his eyes, casting a paranoid glance at the students around us. “C’mon, Katie. Stop.”
“I didn’t say anything,” I insisted. “It’s all in your head. I have no idea what you’re thinking about, because everything in my head was totally innocent.”
“Whatever,” he dismissed, and sped up a little to catch me by the wrist and stop me in the hallway. I faced him, wary, as he asked, “Hey, what’s up with you and Sarah? North Pole, much?”
“What does that even mean?” I shook my head and tried to keep walking, but he stopped me again.
“It means you guys are good at faking it at our lunch table, but I can tell she’s still pissed at you, and she’s not talking to me at all. Is she really still upset about that day you came over?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah, maybe. She’ll get over it eventually.”
“Well… you could tell her I just wanted to talk, you know. If she was mad because she thought I wanted to hook up, or whatever.”
“Thanks, Connor. I will.”
“No problem.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and took a few steps backwards, away from me. “Work it out. I need stuff for my spank bank and if you guys break up I’ll be running low on mental images.”
“You’re gross,” I said flatly, meaning it, and he grinned and turned to jog away. “Posturing asshole,” I mumbled.
I was still shuddering when I began my walk home five minutes later. I turned out of the school parking lot and got only a few feet down the sidewalk when I heard a voice calling after me, “Hey! Katie! Wait up!”
I paused and turned around to see Austin hurrying to catch up to me. I blinked, confused, but he just waved a hand as he came closer, then slowed to a stop right in front of me, panting.
“Hey,” he breathed out. “Sorry, I just saw you walking and thought you might want a ride?”
I stared at him, taken aback. “Wait, you wanna give me a ride home?”
“If that’s okay.”
I searched his face for some sign that he was joking, but he seemed sincere. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder and told me, “I parked nearby, so it’s not much of a walk to my car.”
“Okay,” I finally agreed. Austin was ultimately harmless, and he looked like he genuinely didn’t mind spending some time alone with me.
We turned back together and began the walk to his car, and I could hear him still struggling to slow his heavy breathing. “I, like, sprinted after you,” he told me with a small laugh. “It was kind of on instinct.”
“So you don’t have some massive, life-changing news for me? I’m disappointed,” I admitted.
“Well, I could rub my new girlfriend in your face,” he suggested, “but I thought that’d be rude. And ultimately pointless, considering you probably don’t care what I do or who I date.”
“I care,” I said. “I’m glad you found someone else.” Silently, I wondered if it was the girl from the party, but I didn’t ask him aloud. I guess it didn’t really matter much who it was.
“She’s really cool. I think you’d like her. You should meet her, you know… eventually. She goes to a different school.”
“How eventually?” I asked, casting a curious look his way. He was talking like he planned on having me in his life at some point in the future.
“I don’t know. We’ll see.” He shrugged his shoulders, and we reached his car. I slid into the passenger’s seat and inhaled. I’d been in this car almost as much as I’d been in Sarah’s, but it felt different now. I could smell the faint remnants of a perfume that wasn’t mine, but that was nice. I liked that it wasn’t the same.
“Remember how to get to my house?” I joked.
“I think so,” he said, playing along. “You know, I’m surprised Sarah doesn’t give you rides every day. I used to.”
“We’ve been going through a rough patch,” I told him. I don’t really know why I bothered, given that I hadn’t had more than one or two real conversations with Austin in four months. But he’d always been a good listener. Easy to talk to. And it was funny… Austin had been a real boyfriend and Sarah was a fake girlfriend, but what I was going through right now with Sarah felt a lot like the beginning of the end of Austin and me had. So I guess it seemed like he’d understand better than anyone else would.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, and I sensed that he genuinely meant it. He was different from the Austin I’d talked to in the parking lot right after Sarah and I had begun our fake relationship. This Austin acted like he had a new girlfriend. He was happier. Lighter. “You’re not breaking up, though, are you? You guys have been inseparable since, like, second grade.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just don’t want the fighting to end up getting worse and worse. Like how it was-”
“What, when we ended things?” he finished.
“Yeah,” I said. Then I let out a sigh. “You know, I’m starting to wonder if all romantic relationships should just be avoided. Becoming a couple just complicates everything. Maybe I should’ve just stayed single forever; that way I’d never wind up disappointed or heartbroken.”
“But that’s no fun,” he countered. “The good times are worth the bad ones, if you’re really in love.”
“What, so if you could do it all over again, you wouldn’t change us dating? Even though it ended so terribly?”
“Of course not. I liked being with you. I mean, the whole dumping thing sucked, and it was really hard gathering the confidence to ask someone else out because I was terrified of more rejection… but, I mean, I’ve been with Nicole for just a few weeks and it was already worth the risk of having her turn me down.”
I stared at the dashboard in front of me as he slowed his car to a stop at a red light. I tried to make sense of his logic. “So you’re a ‘you miss one-hundred percent of the shots you don’t take’ kind of guy,” I said.
“Totally,” he laughed out.
“But that’s not an accurate metaphor,” I insisted. “I mean, you miss a shot in a game, so what? That’s not that bad. What if, like, I jumped out of a plane with a parachute on, and so then if it didn’t open, I’d die? And the phrase was: ‘Your parachute can’t open if you don’t pull the chord’? Like, I’d rather just stay on the ground and avoid jumping altogether. No chord or parachute necessary.”
“But where’s the fun in that?”
“I don’t like heights,” I told him. That made him laugh again.
“The rush is worth the fall, Katie! Nobody ever got anywhere because they sat at home being worried they’d get hurt. You need to fix things with Sarah. If she loves you and you love her, it’ll work itself out. I think that’s what we didn’t have.”
“And you have that with Nicole?” I asked.
He shrugged. “No idea yet. But I’d rather test the waters with her than never date again because of a fear of getting hurt.” We reached another red light, and he faced me, a knowing look in his eyes. “You know, Oscar Wilde said it best: Hearts were made to be broken, Katie.”
And I know he meant it to be inspiring, and that he was trying his best to help. But right then, sitting there alone with him and so very confused about my own feelings, I just thought that that was the lamest and most depressing thing I’d ever heard.
Chapter Eleven
The first one to find out the truth about Sarah and me – bar Owen, of course – was Jessa.
After all of the kissing and Sarah’s speech in room 405 and the constant hand-holding, most of which was in some way initiated in an effort to keep Jessa in particular from finding out the truth, she was the first to find out anyway.
At the LAMBDA meeting that occurred the day before Winter Formal nominations, she spent almost the entire time glancing back and forth between Sarah and me. There was a look in her eyes that was a strange mixture of smugness and anger, and when the meeting ended, Sarah, still eager to keep her distance from me, immediately left.
Jessa, Jake, Violet, and I stayed late to work on Sarah and I’s campaign, and when Jake and Violet left the room an hour later to go print out a second flier design, Jessa and I were left alone in room 405, her shuffling through a few photos Sarah and I had brought while I stood alongside her uncomfortably. It was strange, looking at the photos now. Most of them had been taken long before we’d ever pretended to be a couple, but a lot of those still looked like we’d already been together when they’d been taken.
Jessa finished looking the through the stack and let out an amused, “Very convincing.”
I was lost in my own thoughts, not really paying attention to her, and mumbled an, “Mhmm.”
She turned to me and arched an eyebrow. “Did you even hear what I just said?”
I blinked myself into the present and stared at her. “Sorry, what?”
She set the photos down and folded her arms across her chest. “I said that you guys are convincing. You and Sarah.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
She pursed her lips together, and her eyebrows rose higher. “Are you gay, Katie?”
“No,” I retorted defensively, and then abruptly turned red. “I mean, yes. I just… I wasn’t thinking, I meant-”
“I know what you meant,” she interrupted with a shake of her head. “I think a part of me always knew. Just a gut feeling.” I swallowed hard and stayed silent. I had an unpleasant inkling, deep in my chest, that we were caught no matter what I said.
It turns out I was right.
“I saw Sarah with Sam Heath out by the bleachers yesterday,” she told me. “Either you’re getting cheated on or I was right all along, so.”
“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” I said quickly, but she held up a hand to cut me off.
“I don’t really care what you wanted. You’re gonna hurt people regardless. And maybe this wasn’t just some scam for you like it was for Sarah; I don’t know. But what you both did is so insulting. And you deserve what’s coming to you.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. There was nothing I could really say to defend myself. She was right.
So I asked her, “Are you gonna tell Jake and the others?”
She glanced away from me, back to the photos, and lifted the stack of them again. Then she let out a slow breath, and tossed them back onto the table.
“Tell Jake and Violet I didn’t feel well and went home. I can’t be a part of this.” I followed her with my eyes as she brushed past me and headed for the door. “But you two winning those crowns will be good for those of us who are actually gay. As much as I’d love to be proven right and to see you both humiliated, I’m not sure I want to give that up in exchange. But I do reserve the right to change my mind, especially if you don’t actually win.”
She paused, and then turned to look back at me. Then she shrugged her shoulders. “Plus… at least you’re dedicated to playing the part well. Between kissing her, kissing me, and that really defensive ‘no’ you just gave me, you almost seem like an in-denial closet case. I guess karma’s a bitch.”
She smirked, and then disappeared from the doorway. As her footsteps faded, I stood alone in the center of the room, heart pounding hard in my chest. And then, instinctively, I reached for my phone.
My fingers shook as I found Sarah’s number, and I felt tears in my eyes even though I didn’t really know what was wrong with me. Jessa’d just told me she probably wasn’t going to tell anyone as long as we worked hard to win the crowns, and yet here I was, freaking out anyway.
The phone rang once, twice, three times. And then, on the fourth ring, there was the click of Sarah answering, followed by heavy breathing. I heard a quick, “Shut up,” and a low male voice say something in response, and then Sarah’s was loud and clear as she asked, “Hello?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words didn’t come. I couldn’t stop hearing the heavy breathing. I felt like hyperventilating myself. It was like my brain was suddenly overloading with thoughts I’d been fighting for months to keep out, and I stood there in silence, the phone pressed to my ear so hard it hurt as I recognized Sam’s low rumble of a voice. “Just hang it up, c’mon,” he murmured.
There was a pause as Sarah moved her phone away from her ear and told him to shut up again. I guess she checked the caller ID, finally, because her tone immediately turned concerned and she asked, “Katie?”
“Oh, shit,” Sam snickered quietly, and I heard a lot of abrupt shuffling. “Hang up!” he said, a bit louder.
“H-Hey,” I forced myself to stutter out. Anything to distract myself from him. “Sorry. You’re with Sam. I should go.”
“No,” she interrupted quickly. “Don’t go. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Sorry. Again. Wrong number.”
“You’re full of shit,” she replied.
I heard more shuffling, and then, “Oh, c’mon! Where’re you going?” from Sam.
“I’m fine, Sarah,” I repeated. “You can- I mean, you should stay with him, if that’s what you want.”
“Not if you need me,” she insisted. She was being so nice, and I didn’t know why. We’d mostly just been fighting lately, and she’d seemed to care so much more about Sam than about me.
“I just, uh…” I shook my head, hoping it would somehow rid me of the shaking in my voice. “Something happened and I’m a little- I’m okay, though.”
“You don’t sound okay. Where are you? Did someone say something to you?”
“It’s fine.” I was just trying hard not to let my imagination get the better or me. To convince myself that I’d only interrupted them kissing. It was taking a strange toll on my chest to think of what else they could’ve been doing. And it hurt even worse when it really, genuinely sank in that they’d obviously done it before in the past few weeks anyway.
“I swear to God, Katie, if you tell me you’re fine one more time I’m gonna call your mom and get her to come help me look for you. Are you still at the school?”
“Fucking hell,” I heard Sam sigh out in the background. “Just leave, then.”
“Excuse me?” Sarah asked, moving the phone away from her mouth. I don’t think either of them realized I could hear their conversation.
“I said you can leave,” Sam retorted. He sounded annoyed. “Go take care of your girlfriend, then.”
There was a long silence, and then Sarah’s voice was loud next to her phone’s m
outhpiece again. “I’m gonna come pick you up. Give me fifteen minutes.”
Violet and Jake didn’t get back before Sarah, so I wrote them a note and left it on the table by the photos of us. Sarah watched me write it, her eyes moving back and forth between the paper beneath my fingertips and the stack of photos beside us, where Jessa’d left them on the table.
“I like this one,” she finally said, lifting the one on the top of the stack with a small smile. “This was one of the ones you picked out?”
“If you don’t recognize it,” I mumbled. She’d provided most of the photos we were using, but I’d thrown in a few good ones. The one she was looking at was from sophomore year of high school. We were outside, posing for a picture by my mom’s car just before a trip to the movies. Sarah’s arm was wrapped around my waist, and I’d picked it because my eyes were on her and I had this indescribable expression on my face. Like I idolized her or something. I probably had back then.
“I love the way you’re, like, staring at me in this picture,” she murmured, setting the photo back down. “I wish a guy looked at me like that, you know?”
“Boys stare at you all the time,” I told her, finishing the note and setting it aside. “You’re just always too busy looking at Sam.”
“Not always,” she said, her gaze unmoving on me now. “What happened today?”
“Why do you care all of a sudden?” I asked her.
“I’ve always cared. You just stopped asking to hang out, and we stopped talking these past few weeks. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t drop everything if you needed me.”
I looked away from her. “Yeah, I guess. Gotta keep the girlfriend thing convincing.”
“Uh, more like gotta make sure my best friend’s okay,” she corrected, her tone defensive.
“You didn’t care that I was okay when you were throwing me into this stupid plan just so you could sleep with a guy you didn’t know. Well, mission accomplished: Was it worth it?”
Her jaw tensed as she clenched her teeth together, and for a moment, I couldn’t quite read her. She looked angry, but I didn’t sense it radiating off of her like I had in the past few weeks. Then she relaxed a little, and nodded her head. “Yeah. It was.”
