Kit Kat & Katie Did

by Lauren T. Hart

  DW: Short answer: I met you.

  I never should have asked. The words ‘I met you’ carved into my heart like a rusty knife on a freshly painted picnic table. My chest literally ached. Asshole. It wasn’t like I could just go out and meet another Dominic.

  KF: Did you love Lindsay?

  DW: Not really. I cared about her. I gave a shit, but I wasn’t in love with her. Sometimes I thought maybe I could fall in love with her, one day, if she was a little more chill, a little more mature, a little less wild. Basically, if she just changed everything about herself, I thought maybe. Maybe. Lindsay was fun, she was carefree, she had no fucks to give, and didn’t care what other people thought. These are all the things that drew me to her, all things I wanted, maybe even needed, in my life. They were also the same things that destroyed us in the end.

  DW: Can I ask why you’re asking?

  KF: Asking for a friend.

  DW: Liar.

  KF: Curious, I guess.

  DW: Still lying. But it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.

  KF: It’s just complicated and I’d just rather not go into it right now, but I appreciate the insights. Thanks.

  DW: I don’t own you, Kat. I love you, but I know you’re not mine. But even if I did and even if you were, all I want is for you to be happy, even if it’s not with me.

  Fucker. Couldn’t he just be an asshole? Would it really be so hard for him to say something in one of our phone conversations that would persuade me into believing he wasn’t worth my time?

  KF: Remember the aloof guy I told you about, the one who didn’t want to be my friend?

  DW: Vaguely.

  KF: At first, I only wanted us to be friends. It’s just where I’m at as far as relationships go. But he’s kind of wonderful and despite my best efforts, I fell for him. Hard. Unfortunately, he’s made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t feel the same.

  DW: I’m sorry. I know how that feels. It sucks. Probably the best advice is just to let him go, but I know that’s easier said than done.

  KF: Julian said basically the same thing.

  DW: I say let him go, but it’s not what I’d do. Someone wonderful like that, I’d do everything I could to keep them in my life, even if I knew we were never going to be together. I think maybe some love is forever. What’s a little heartbreak if you still get to have that kind of wonderful? Assuming that’s the case, if this guy can’t see how truly amazing you are, maybe he’s not a great as you think he is?

  KF: Maybe I’m not as “truly amazing” as you think I am.

  DW: Prove it.

  I knew I could. A simple selfie without make-up and hair extensions ought to be enough. Instead I just put my phone down and cried. “Not yet,” I said to the empty garage.

  ・❀・❀・❀・

  Dear Diary,

  Being a beard is weird and quite honestly not something I thought I’d ever be doing. Being someone’s fake girlfriend isn’t the weird part, as odd as that sounds, it’s all the stuff involved in become a fake girlfriend. Like, who makes plans to become boyfriend and girlfriend? I mean, beards do, I guess, but it’s still bizarre.

  Right now we’re keeping it casual, just being friends, and he’s hanging out with the various string of girls who are actively pursuing him and repeating ad nauseum to pretty much everyone how he’s just not ready to be in a relationship right now, especially after how insane Alexa turned out to be. It’s all true, but we both know it can’t last forever. Especially with Valentine’s Day coming up, and the ever growing number of leech-like single girls who see Ryan as the most desirable of the eligible bachelors at Parkwood. It’s so gross.

  I’ve been privy to a few conversations about how cute and amazing he is, though there isn’t a general consensus as to which of his features makes him so attractive. I’d have to say it’s his smile — when his dimples show — gorgeous. But then there’s always the bullshit — about his clothes, about his car, his old car since he doesn’t have a new one yet, about how rich his parents are. It’s sort of infuriating. I wonder when I became so protective of him?

  Maybe when we became real real friends that are about to become fake partners.

  At least, he’ll be a nice distraction from the one I actually love.

  It’s complicated,

  -Kat

  ・❀・❀・❀・

  It was cold and gray, but the sun was out. Dominic had sent me a picture of him and Ryan at lunch. They were both sporting orange wedge smiles. The accompanying text didn’t really seem to fit though.

  DW: I sort of hate that I have friends who think you’re fake.

  The text came in during lunch, but I didn’t see it until after school, while I was walking to my car, now I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened during lunch.

  “There you are!” I looked up to see Ryan speed walking in my direction. We hadn’t planned to meet, but his expression looked panicked, I hoped it was because of the three blond girls who were tailing him and not because of anything that had been discovered during lunch.

  “Hi. What’s up?”

  “We were going to meet today, remember?”

  It was Thursday and I had work, there was no way we were meeting today. “Did you text me?” I looked to my phone.

  “Holy crap, you speak English?” One of the girls asked. I recognized her from Spanish class. Her hair was the longest of the three. She had unnaturally suction puffed lips and fantastically long eyelashes. I was still learning who everybody was but her lips made her more memorable than most. “You’re Marci, right?” I eyed her.

  “You know you can’t write me up for stuff that doesn’t happen in class right?”

  “That’s not accurate,” I said. “TA’s have a different set of rules we have to follow. If not we can lose our TA spots. We’re basically narcs.”

  “Hoo, that’s right,” Ryan smiled, and turned to the three who were following him. “And I’m a TA too, so, as I was saying before, you three really need to go find something else to do.”

  Marci rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You’re lying.”

  “Am I?” I held up my phone and snapped a picture of them. “Sorry, I don’t know your names,” I waved my hand at the other two girls.

  “I do,” Ryan grinned, triumphantly.

  “He’s not worth it Marci,” one of the other girls said, grabbing Marci at the elbow. “If I get written up this early in the semester my mom will take my phone away. Forever.”

  Marci scoffed at her friends, then scowled at me. “Fine. We’re leaving.”

  “Bye,” Ryan waved then hopped into my car.

  I climbed in to the driver’s side. “You know most of what I told those girls was BS, right?”

  “I do, but it was very believable, so thank you.”

  “You know I have work today, right?”

  “Yeah, I know, but we gotta talk, so I decided I’m coming with you.”

  “Uhm…” I started, not sure how that was supposed to work out.

  “I’ll stay out of the way, I promise.”

  “Okay,” I gave in and started the car.

  “Please just tell me this talk isn’t about Dominic’s phone girl.”

  Ryan didn’t say anything. Three blocks later I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “This silence feels so much like something I’m going to regret. What happened?”

  “Honestly, I’d mostly forgotten that you’d even told me to ask him about it, it came up over garlic fries and having bad breath and then he took this really stupid picture of us at lunch and sent it to somebody and I was like, ‘Do I even want to know who you sent that to?’ And he was like, ‘Just that girl you think doesn’t exist.’ So I asked to see a picture and — what the actual fuck? And I almost said that to him but then I remembered you said not to say anything so I just nodded and was like, ‘Okay, well, there she is.’ What am I missing here, Soon-to-be-Girlfriend?”

  “I’m guessing she looked familiar?”

  “Kind of like
I’m guessing you have a picture of me from lunch?”

  “Many. Today was orange wedge smiles.”

  “Yeah, okay, but how does that even work?”

  “I have no idea. Did he tell you how we met?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything. Well, not really. After like the tenth picture I was like, ‘She looks familiar,’ and he told me you were the blue girl bird from the homecoming assembly. Is that true?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck. Well, I didn’t recognize that was you that day.”

  “That was kinda my plan. Okay, so I guess it’s story time.” I told Ryan the whole debacle as I drove into work.

  —

  “But how does he not recognize you?” He asked as I shifted my car into park.

  “No idea.” We got out of the car and continued talking as we walked to the building. “I’ve sort of narrowed it down to a Superman Clark Kent thing, or he needs glasses big time thing, or he’s running some serious kind of denial thing because he thinks he’s in love with Katarina Franks, but me he’s only sort of ‘meh’ about.”

  “He likes you more than that, I promise. He’s just got all these absurd rules, like he only dates seniors or girls that are older than him.”

  “Yeah. He thought phone me was older. When I told him I wasn’t he said I was the exception to the rule. Except, I’m not. I mean,” I tapped my chest, “I’m not. I’m a senior, no exceptions given. Actually, I could have graduated at the end of term, but I decided to stick it out, do the whole prom and graduation walk and whatever.”

  “Have I ever told you how sexy I think smart is?” Ryan bumped his elbow against my shoulder.

  I halted, we were just outside the doors. I stepped in front of him and let out a sharp sigh. “Why are you flirting with me?”

  “Why can’t I flirt with you?”

  “Because you don’t mean it, and there’s nobody here we’re trying to dupe.”

  Ryan slipped his hand into mine. “Look, I’m not trying to make anything more difficult for you. I know where we stand, I like where we stand, I don’t want that to change. But I meant it. I think you’re very sexy.”

  “I don’t know what to do with that, Ryan.”

  “Own it,” he shrugged.

  “We’re never going to marry each other, you know that right?”

  Ryan rolled his eyes and reached for the door. Just inside we were met with a wall of performance posters. It’s one of those things I’ve seen so many times I forget it’s there. If I really take the time to look at them, to think about what they represent, I suppose they’re kind of cool, still, I totally wasn’t expecting Ryan’s reaction.

  “Holy shit.” He lifted his hand toward one of them, me and Julian in Profile, staring into each other’s eyes, looking all fierce. “Uhm, what are we doing here?” Ryan asked as if he’d just woken up from a hundred year nap.

  “This is where I work?” I pointed to the poster he was staring at. “That’s me.”

  Ryan’s eyes shifted, he took a quick glance at me, then back to the poster. “Holy shit,” he said again.

  “Oh, I see what’s happening,” I chuckled. “That’s my partner, Julian. And yeah, he’s kind of perfect, I get it.”

  Ryan didn’t say anything. He just stood there; staring at Julian’s perfection. I was going to be late if we didn’t get moving so I looped my arm around his and dragged him down the hallway. I left him in our overlook, where parents usually hang out to watch their kids without being a distraction. It’s a mirror on the studio side, bleacher seats on the observation side. I’m pretty sure that watching little kids spin in circles until they fall down and pull themselves up on ropes and lyra wheels is entertaining for all of about 10 seconds, if I’m being super generous, so I left him with a couple of Julian heavy photo albums to drool over and checked in with him between classes. I only had two that day, and then it was practice with Julian.

  “You want to meet him?” I asked Ryan.

  He shook his head, no. “Is that okay?”

  “Sure,” I shrugged. I wasn’t going to push, I’m sure I’d hesitate to meet someone who, at the very sight of them, caused me to lose the ability to continue walking. “I hope this isn’t boring you too much.”

  “No, it’s cool. You’re a good teacher, and the kids really seem to like you.”

  “Thanks. Takes one to know one,” I pointed at him.

  “I dunno,” he smirked, causing his dimples to show. “Calculus is easy.”

  I laughed, but I think he was being serious. “No it’s not,” I shook my head at him, still laughing. “Who talks like that?”

  Chapter 24

  Julian always looks muscular, some people think this is a fresh from working out kind of look, but with Julian the only real way to know if he’s just come from a workout is that he glows. Julian trains and coaches throughout the day, but it’s rare to see him arrive to practice looking like he’s just finished practice. He was wearing his flip-flops, and yoga pants, his shirt was in his hand and he had a towel around his neck.

  “You’ve been having fun without me?” I motioned to him.

  He grinned. “I’ve been putting your friend Jake through the rigors.”

  “How’d he do?”

  “Really well.” Julian pulled the towel from his neck. “Obviously,” he lifted the towel before setting it aside, along with his shirt and flip-flops.

  “You want to take it easy tonight?” I offered as I kicked off my own shoes, but I could have guessed his answer.

  “No. Not unless you do.”

  “Well, I dunno,” I mock-coughed. “ I think I might be coming down with something.” I sniffed twice for added effect.

  “Okay,” Julian forced a sigh. “You can pick the music.”

  I may have squealed with delight. Not that Julian doesn’t have amazing taste in music, but everybody has their favs.

  For a smidge of a half of a second I had this idea that maybe Julian wouldn’t be at his normal 150%. I was wrong. I think his time with Jake had amped him up a notch or five. I was proper sweaty when we were done. I was gonna want to shower before I got back in a small enclosed space for a 20-30 minute drive with Ryan.

  “You want to catch dinner tonight?” Julian asked.

  “I’ve got a friend,” I waved toward the mirrored wall.

  “Oh?” Julian lifted a brow. “Hello, Kat’s friend,” he bobbed his head toward the mirror. He turned back to me, his expression asking if my friend was shy or rude or imaginary?

  “It’s Ryan, the guy who tutored me in calculus.”

  “Uh-huh,” he responded, flat. “Weird. I remember him more as the guy you had regular make-out sessions with, until he told you he had a girlfriend.”

  I cringed. “Hey, I passed calculus didn’t I? And besides, he doesn’t have a girlfriend anymore,” I reasoned.

  Julian grumble sighed. “I sincerely hope this is just a phase.”

  I pushed a laugh. “It’s way more complicated than that. But you’re the one who said I should finish out the year so, you know, if this is my life now I might as well live it.”

  Julian cracked half a smile and stepped close, setting a hand on my hip. “Tell me you’ll always be mine, Darling.”

  “I will always be yours, Jules.” I leaned in a pecked him on the lips.

  Not breaking eye contact, Julian raised his voice, causing it to echo and reverberate around the room. “Just in case she hasn’t mentioned it, I’m ridiculously overprotective of this one.” Then he grazed his knuckles over my cheek and smiled mischievously. “Are you coming over Saturday night, or am I picking you — and probably your cousins — up for brunch on Sunday?”

  “Why not both?” I lifted a shoulder.

  “Done,” Julian smiled. “I loves you, Kat.”

  “I loves you too, Jules.”

  Julian gave me one last kiss on the forehead, then one last kiss on the cheek, then one last kiss on my lips before turning to go. “Bye, Ryan,” he waved and scowle
d toward the mirrored wall.

  I waited for Julian to turn back at the door and give me a wave before I made my way around to the overlook. Ryan was standing near the wall between the doorway and the overlook’s glass half-wall.

  “Oh hi!” I blurted, surprised to see him. “Sorry if I stink, but hopefully that was less boring than watching me wrangle pre-tweens,” I winked at him.

  Ryan gave an odd little chuckle. “Yeah, for sure. You guys are really close, huh?” Ryan sounded nervous.

  “Yeah,” I shrugged. Ryan was clearly thinking a whole lot of things he wasn’t currently saying. “What’s up?” I twirled my finger at him.

  Ryan forced a chuckle. “I uh… I guess I just thought maybe what we had was special.” His chuckle soured into a sigh and he ran his hand over his face. “Sorry,” he sniffed back emotions. “I just — I think I’m just realizing how little I actually know about things — about you, I mean.”

  “So let’s get to know each other. What do you want to know?”

  Ryan looked thoughtful, but it was that kind of thoughtful that looked almost pained. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how to ask… Uh.” His face froze in ‘uh’.

  I lifted my brows and gave him the ‘go on’ nod.