You only think you like me, Finn, because of our—our arrangement. I can’t bear to say the words fake relationship out loud. You wouldn’t have anything to do with me if it wasn’t for that.
Ye think, he says, sounding outraged. Tha’ this is because of our arrangement? I want to laugh at the scandalized way he whispers this word back to me. He shakes his head. How low ye must think of me, Violet.
It’s not you, I tell him, trying desperately to salvage whatever the hell is happening here, unable to shake the feeling like sand slipping through my fingers. It’s me, remember? I don’t know how to be somebody’s girlfriend.
Ye could be my girlfriend, he says this like it’s nothing. You’re already doing it, ye ken? You’re just yourself with me. So aye, it can be done.
I try to ignore the flutter in my chest. It can be done. As if it was that simple. I’m aware that this is starting to hurt, the painful sting of rejection feeling like tears in the corners of my eyes.
But it isn’t real, Finn. I’m not sure whether I’m convincing him or myself. We’re only pretending, remember?
He flicks his eyes to mine, and I see genuine hurt there. Something about this last comment has sobered him up. I can see the wheels turning in his head. He steps forward and reaches for my hand. The move is so tender and I’m certain he’s going to kiss me this time—but I flinch and pull my hand away.
Pinocchio, I say. I’ve never used the safe word before—never needed to. But I can’t bear to continue down this path with him.
He doesn’t want me, not really. And it would never work. It could never work.
The look he’s giving me is anguished. This isn’t real, I repeat to myself. He’s drunk and so are you.
Come on, I say, reaching out to take his hand back, this time on my own terms, and dragging him up the steps and into the Airbnb.
I remind myself again, once for each step, like a prayer I hope goes unanswered.
Not real. Not real. Not real.
Chapter 28
FINN
I CANNOT SAY I RECOMMEND spending half a day trapped in the back of a car, hungover as shite, with five other extremely hungover people—one of them who you drunkenly tried to lay bare your feelings to the night before.
I don’t dare glance to my right, where Violet is sleeping tucked into the side of the van. What a bloody numpty I’ve been. The night gets a little blurry towards the end, but parts of our conversation are seared into my memory.
It isn’t even real, Finn.
Violet’s words play on an infinite loop in my head.
We’ve passed the bridge over Iona, and are coming up to the sign for Christmas Island, so I know we’re only minutes away from being dropped off now. I want to shut myself up in the cabin to sit alone and brood and not talk to another living person for the rest of the day.
Our arrangement.
That’s not the first time she’s used that phrase, and I fucking hate it.
I’m not sure, exactly, when the thin line between real and not real got so unclear for me. The problem, always the problem, is that I really, really fancy Violet. I actually thought this whole pretending to date thing was going to be a hell of a lot harder, but it’s easy.
Pretend or not, she and I just seem to work.
But the horrified look on her face last night tells me she doesn’t feel the same.
And it doesn’t really matter anyway, does it? Because I live an entire ocean away—farther than that, if she goes back to B.C. A world away, in that case. And I can’t leave Scotland, not when I think it would break my mother’s heart. And Violet has her own family obligations, whether she wants them or not.
I feel like the wind’s been knocked out of me, or like I’ve dropped several floors in a lift, my stomach swooping. I thought it was bad when I realized Gemma didn’t see things the way I did—but it’s nothing compared to this.
I thought Violet felt things shifting between us as well.
We’re only pretending, remember?
I cannot believe I’ve gotten it so wrong.
