Daphne and Bella stand underneath one of the basketball hoops, waving at me. They both look cute in short colorful cotton dresses—solid cranberry on Daphne and a burnt orange on Bella. I brace myself and march over to them. Before they can even say hi, I begin. “Listen,” I say, talking fast, “there is no Sebastian Colander, okay? Well, there is a Sebastian Colander. Just not one that I’m dating. I don’t have a boyfriend. I made him up. I lied and I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath. There. I got it out.
Daphne and Bella look at each other, confusion across their faces, and then look back at me.
“Tori,” Daphne starts slowly, “what on earth are you talking about?”
“Sebastian,” I repeat. “You know, my boyfriend, er, fake boyfriend.”
The girls look at me blankly.
Oh my god. They don’t know.
Okay, how does anyone not know? I thought everyone knew. Hadn’t I mentioned Sebastian to Daphne and Bella? I’m sure I had. Maybe. Well, now that I replay the last weeks in my head, maybe I hadn’t. Sheesh. Maybe it’s my own big head now thinking that everyone is talking and obsessing about me and my life when really people are just doing their own thing, living their own lives, and I’m like a brief pop-up ad on their Buddiez home pages. Something you only take in for a moment and never really think about again.
“So, let me get this straight,” I begin. “Not to sound like a loser or anything, but you guys like me? Me, me? Not me because I’m Sienna’s best friend or because we have boyfriends but just because of me?”
The girls look at each other and laugh. “Uh, yeah,”
Daphne confirms.
“But, Daphne,” I go on, “you made fun of my boots last year!”
“I did?” Daphne asks. “I’m so sorry. I was kind of mean last year. I was embarrassed because I wear a lot of knockoffs. That’s all my mom buys me. I was probably trying to call you out to distract you from calling me out. But I don’t care about that stuff anymore. I changed a lot this summer.”
I nod. “A lot changed this summer,” I agree. “Do you think we can maybe forget about all that stuff I just spewed out?”
“I already forgot,” Bella replies.
“Me too. Short-term memory loss,” Daphne adds, tapping her head.
“Thanks, guys.” I smile.
“Oh, guess what?” Daphne asks. Her eyes are bright like she can’t wait to spill some big news.
“What?” I ask.
“My mom has a friend on the school board, and I overheard them talking this morning about the whole Wittler thing. Turns out she’s been drinking at schools for years,” Daphne says dramatically.
“No way,” I utter.
Bella nods. Daphne must have already told her.
“This is the third school she’s been at in the last five years,” Daphne continues, holding up three fingers for emphasis.
“It’s the first time she got fired though,” Bella adds.
“Yeah,” Daphne picks up. “She got the last two schools to let her voluntarily resign so our school never knew when they hired her.”
“Oh, man,” I whisper, shaking my head.
“Principal Brown isn’t letting her off so easy though. Wittler’s in big trouble. She won’t be partying at any more schools, that’s for sure,” Bella asserts.
“We’re heroes,” Daphne says proudly.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I retort. I mean, I’m glad we got Wittler out of school, but I sure don’t feel like a hero, especially not with what I still have to tell Sienna tonight. Speaking of Sea, where is she?
I turn around and look at the gym doors just in time to see her walk in with Antonio. He is gorgeous, of course. And they look gorgeous together. Sienna has her hair down and loose around her shoulders, and even though she did wear her jeans and vest over a T-shirt, she looks more like a rock star than a seventh grader. Antonio is about five inches taller than her with jet-black hair and dark eyes. He’s wearing a tan polo shirt with worn-in jeans. He has an arm casually flung around her shoulder, and she looks like she belongs there.
“Will you guys excuse me?” I say to Daphne and Bella.
“Sure.” Daphne nods. “We’ll catch up with you later.”
I walk toward Sienna and Antonio, wringing my hands the whole way. Though I’ve played this scene in my head a hundred times today, I can’t be sure how it will come out of my mouth.
“Hey, Sea,” I say when I reach them.
“Tori! Hey!” She looks almost giddy. “Tori, this is my boyfriend, Antonio. Antonio, this is my best friend in the whole world, Tori.”
Antonio smiles. “Nice to meet you, Tori.”
“Nice to meet you,” I echo.
Sienna looks over my left shoulder and then around my right. “Where’s Sebastian?” she asks.
“I sort of wanted to talk to you about that. Alone, if you don’t mind. Sorry, Antonio,” I add, looking at him.
Sienna nods, giving me a concerned look. “Want to go to the bathroom for privacy?”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”
We walk quickly to the bathroom in the hallway, right outside our math classroom. My stomach churns the whole way. What I’m about to do is huge. What if Sienna says, You know Tori, I’m so cool now I don’t need a liar for a best friend? What if she never speaks to me again? I’ll be so totally devastated.
Sienna goes into the bathroom first, checking underneath the stall doors to make sure we are alone. I step up to one of the white ceramic sinks and crank on the cold. I splash water on my face, not even caring that I’m probably ruining the lip gloss and light mascara I put on only an hour earlier.
I rest my palms on the sink, close my eyes, and slowly count to five to relax. When I turn around, Sienna is leaning against the old rusty radiator giving me a concerned look.
“Okay, spill,” she urges.
“It’s just . . . This is so much harder than I thought it was going to be,” I mutter, more to myself than to her. I drop my head and stare at the floor.
Sienna puts a hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong, Tori? You look like you’re going to cry. Wait,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Did Sebastian break up with you?”
I don’t lift my head. Oooh. That isn’t bad. It actually might work. I can pretend that Sebastian dumped me right before the dance and . . .
No! No, I can’t keep lying to Sienna like this. I have to come clean. I have to tell her the truth.
My eyes meet Sienna’s. “Sea, I have to tell you something. And you may not be very happy with me after I tell you.”
“Okay,” she replies slowly.
“Um, this is hard. It’s sort of like this: You know Sebastian Colander? He’s not exactly my boyfriend.”
Her eyes grow wide, but she doesn’t say anything.
I start talking faster. “I made him up. There never was a Sebastian. Well, there is a Sebastian, but he didn’t show up until much later and it was a total freakin’ fluke. I don’t know that kid that was on TV. He never was my boyfriend. I was hurt and mad because you went away for the whole summer, and at first you wrote me but then your e-mails got shorter and shorter, and then they stopped altogether. Like you couldn’t even be bothered with me anymore. I was so lonely and bored. I missed you so much. And then you come back looking all”—I wave my hand at her—“different. I felt left behind, I guess.”
I pick up a paper towel from the edge of the sink and twist it. Sea is still looking at me with no discernible expression on her face. “Then,” I go on, “you said you had a boyfriend. And, don’t be mad, but I thought you were lying. I could have sworn you made him up. So I was trying to outdo you and have a better fake boyfriend. I don’t know why, it was stupid. I was totally stupid.”
I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry for not believing you and I’m sorry for lying to you. And I really hope that you’ll forgive me.”
I look back
down at the floor and wait for her reaction. I tighten my grip on the paper towel, ready for Sienna to totally yell at me and say my lies ruined our friendship or storm out of the bathroom. But she doesn’t do either.
I take a chance and look up. I study her face, and there is the slightest hint of a smile.
“What?” I ask.
“Um, that’s not Antonio out there waiting for me in the gym,” Sienna says. “His name’s Eddie. He’s the son of one of my dad’s co-workers. He looks like an Antonio, though, doesn’t he? I had to give him my iPod to come to the dance with me tonight.”
“What?” I repeat.
Sienna hops up on the counter between two of the sinks. “There is no Antonio. I made him up too.”
I cover my mouth with my right hand. Oh my god! I can’t believe this. “But why?” I finally say, through parted fingers.
Sienna crosses her legs at the ankle and swings them back and forth. “I don’t know. I guess I decided that this was the year things were going to change for me. I figured if I came back from vacation seeming glamorous and important, everyone would think I really was. You have to admit it worked.”
“Well, yeah. But couldn’t you have filled me in on your plan?” I whine.
Sienna frowns. “I’m sorry. You’re right. But in my defense, I really never planned on going on and on about Antonio, but when you started talking about Sebastian so much I got competitive. I wanted my boyfriend to be better than yours.”
“He so wasn’t,” I say.
“Totally was,” she counters, and we dissolve into giggles.
I abruptly stop laughing. “But wait,” I say, putting a hand in the air. “What about the last part of the summer. Why did you stop talking to me, Sea?”
“Oh, Tor,” she begins, twisting up her face. “Not talking to you was the worst part of the entire summer. But I knew I couldn’t. If I’d kept talking to you, you would’ve known that Antonio was a fake and I wasn’t doing anything fun. That all I did was collect seashells, eat ice cream cones, shop at lame little gift shops with my mom, and play chess with my dad. I needed you to believe my stories too or no one else would. I figured once you saw me—saw that I looked and acted different—you’d buy the boyfriend story too.”
“Really?” I reply quietly. “Because my summer totally sucked without you, you know.”
“I’m so, so sorry,” Sea says. Her bottom lip quivers like she might cry, and I don’t want her to do that.
“I’m sorry too,” I say, and add quickly, “I mean, for everything.”
Sienna jumps off of the counter, and I throw my arms around her neck.
“Oh, Sea, I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you don’t hate me. I really thought you were never going to talk to me again,” I say.
“I could never hate you, Tori.” She squeezes back and then pulls away. “But let’s promise to never lie to each other again. Okay?”
“Deal.”
Sienna glances at the bathroom door. “We better get back to Eddie, huh? He’s probably wondering what happened to me.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” I agree, and we head for the door. “Oh, wait.” I grab her arm. “What do we tell people if they ask?”
Sienna thinks. “I’ve got it! Let’s tell them that our boyfriends were getting in between us, and we decided our friendship was the most important thing.”
I nod. “Yeah. Sounds perfect. And it’s not a lie.”
Sea smirks.
“One thing I learned from all this,” I say, “is that I’m not ready for a boyfriend, real or fake.”
“Me neither,” Sea says as we head for the gym.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It’s amazing how many people go into making a book and how lost I’d be without them. First, I have to thank my amazing editor, Janine O’Malley, for sticking with me and offering lots of encouragement and wonderful insights. A heartfelt thank-you to the awesome FSG team for all that you’ve done for me. I’m thankful for my big wonderful family and my amazing friends—you guys are the best fan club ever! And a special thank-you to my four super cuties, Teegan, Maya, London, and Gavin, who think Mommy just drinks lots of coffee at the Starbucks at night even though she says she’s writing books. Okay, I do both. Big hugs to my husband, Athens, for encouraging me to put off stuff that can be done later (yes, you evil dishes) and to get back to my writing. I am deeply grateful to my first readers, Deena Lipomi, Mandy Morgan, and Kristin Walker, who, besides being some of my favorite writers, are lightning-fast readers and so smart and right-on with their notes. And for keeping me sane (and really, this isn’t the easiest, we writers are weird), the 2009 Debs, the Author2Author girls (Deena, Emily, Kate, and Lisa), and all my Twitter, Facebook, and LiveJournal buds. And I couldn’t possibly forget to leave off without one last giant thank-you to my seventh-grade fake boyfriend and the BFF who stole him away from me: SMOOCHES and thanks for the inspiration, guys!
My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours Page 11
