“Only way is to try, my love,” Scarlett says.
“How can I try after this? No one is going to take me seriously again. I already went down after nationals and qualifiers are coming up,” I ramble, talking with my hands.
“Yeah, no distractions for Amelia,” she says in a gruff haunting voice. She salutes me and I nod back at her.
“That’s right,” I say proudly.
“Even if it is with someone you reallyreallylike,” Scarlett murmurs.
“But thatsomeoneis a double Leo. I, personally, would not put all my eggs in that basket,” Kennedy says with a shrug.
“Yeah, and what’s Harry?” I challenge while she chews on more Cheerio's.
“How are things going with you two? You’ve been very secretive about that,” Scarlett asks curiously, turning away from me. Kennedy pauses her chewing, making a silly face before continuing.
“Things were doing okay until he gave me the ick,” Kennedy shudders.
“What did he do? Is he a double Leo like Miles?” I say hauntingly.
“He’s an Aries which makes sense. But the ick is worse than that,” she groans, throwing her head back.
“Oh gosh, what could possibly be worse,” Scarlett says rolling her eyes. She nudges me with her foot to look at Kennedy who has pulled her wild hair into her face. “What is it?”
She makes a loud groan as she moves the hair from her face before sitting up, looking at us with reddened cheeks and furrowed eyebrows. She crosses her arms, painting on a serious expression.
“So, we were in the den at his house, playing ping pong. Because I’m such an amazing player, I completely caught him off guard and the ball went flying over to his side,” she begins before screaming into her hands again. “Then he chased after it. Like, on all fours, scurrying after this tiny ball. It was tragic.”
Scarlett and I look at each other before we burst out laughing till my stomach hurts. It feels good to laugh like this. The reason why Kennedy has stayed single for so long is because she can be turned off by guys so quickly. The second she seems them do the walk back from bowling or holding their nose when they jump into a pool, she’s completely uninterested. To her, once she’s got the ick, there is no turning back.
“You’re so dramatic,” I say when my laughter settles.
“I’m not! He’s lucky I didn’t get up and leave. It was repulsive,” she replies with a shudder.
*
Ithought I could see the future. I thought I could see all the bad things happen. I did for a while – I saw the bad things coming but I luxuriated in them regardless because how good it felt. I did it because it was something new, different and an incredibly exhilarating feeling to be with him.
But then it stopped working.
Even when I helped him get better in Palm Springs my worst-case scenario was that he would get caught underage drinkingnotthat he would overshare to Mason Greer. I don’t care that I was half naked in some of the pictures. I don’t care that he slurred about us having sex. I only care that he said that I am incapable of loving him or anyone. Just because I don’t believe in something, and I don’t want to purposely experience it doesn’t make me unable to do it.
Thatis what upsets me the most when I get into bed that night. When all the lights are off, and the only light is coming from my phone where the video plays on loop as I scroll through the comments. It’s then that it all comes crashing down on me.
He is the one who told me that I wasn’t insane or crazy for being afraid of love. He made me feel like it was okay and that he could accept that even in our fake relationship. He comforted me and told me I didn’t need to be scared and that it was a practical thing.
For as long as I could remember, I’ve felt that way about love. Since my parents’ sudden divorce, love didn’t feel like this sacred and out of reach thing to aspire for. It felt like a burden that I didn’t want to bear. It felt like a watered-down emotion that people have been holding on to for centuries to make their relationships seem more serious.
I had a feeling in the back of my mind — the sort of feeling I tried to suppress over that week — that he wouldn’t be able to accept it. I was more shocked than anything when he acted like it was fine. Augustus made sure that I knew it was a weird thing to feel. That it wasn’t natural.
A large part of me hoped that Miles wasn’t like that – that he would still care for me in the same way. It was his subconscious talking that day at the bar. It was what he really felt but didn’t want to tell me. There is no denying the attraction between us. The constant pull towards each other. But that had always existed within our fake dating plan even when we tried to ignore it. It needed to be acted on and we were both willing to dip our toes in for a second. What I didn’t expect to find lingering in there was love which is the last thing either of us need.
He’s the kind of distraction my friends encourage but the kind of distraction I can’t afford to pursue.
CHAPTER 42
MILES
Have you ever been so completely drunk that you end up talking to the gossipiest person in the world? Because I have. It’s just my luck that the morning after I have the best sex of my life that I would run into Mason Greer in Palm Springs while I was out of my mind. After moping about how I thought Wren had hated me, I royally fucked up the last bit of trust that Wren and I had built. I had only just asked her to be my girlfriend – for real – and she’s already gone.
