by Alex Light
I mean, I kind of thought I was already supposed to go, being his fake girlfriend and all. “Sure,” I said anyway.
“No, Becca. Not like some fake date where we spend the night pretending and hold hands because people expect us to. A real date this time. Me and you. . . . Would you want that? Do you want to come with me?”
My heart had grown wings and soared out of my chest.
“I—”
“I want you there. I think I need you there. And for one night, let’s stop doing things because we have to, okay? Can we do that and see what happens?”
I could feel the chains around my heart loosening. It was wiggling free, inch by inch. I tried to lock it back up but it wasn’t so easy to restrain anymore.
Oh, whatever. I took the chains off.
“Yeah,” I told Brett. “Yeah we can.”
The hotel’s grand opening was way too glamourous for Crestmont, a town that always smelled a little like sewage. This party was better suited for an old Hollywood movie.
It was being held in the hotel’s lobby. The floors were marble, and you could hear the sound of women’s heels tip-tapping along. Waiters were floating around too, carrying flutes of champagne and hors d’oeuvres that I wasn’t entirely sure how to eat. I felt like Ariel in that scene from The Little Mermaid where she uses a fork for a hairbrush. Like I’d been picked up from my life as Becca Hart and dropped into an alternate universe of lavish food and expensive gowns. Two things I knew nothing about. If it weren’t for Brett smiling at my side, the entire night would have felt like a dream.
To be fair, Brett may have made this even more dreamlike. As soon as I thought he had reached his peak level of attractiveness, he put on a suit and blew my freaking mind.
His parents surprised me the most. I was still so deep in detective mode that I had expected his dad to be secretive and guarded, like those villains in movies that suspiciously stand in corners and watch the crowd. I thought his mom would have this sadness lurking beneath the surface, the same way mine used to. Instead they were all wide smiles, nonstop hand holding, and dressed to the nines. And I got what Brett meant by not being able to figure out the truth. From an outsider’s perspective, his family appeared picture perfect.
“Having fun?” Brett’s voice in my ear made me jump. He put his hands on my hips and it had a different effect on me now. Knowing that we weren’t pretending tonight changed everything.
“This place looks incredible,” I said.
“Right? I feel like we’re not even in Crestmont anymore. Or Georgia. You still have to meet my parents,” he said. His mom and dad had been so busy talking to all the guests that Brett hadn’t had a chance to introduce me yet. I was feeling more nervous by the minute.
“Where are they?” I asked.
Brett pushed my hips a little until I was facing the other side of the room. A bar had been set up along a wall entirely of windows. It looked like it led to an outdoor seating area. He pointed toward his parents, who were talking to another man and woman. “See that couple?” he said. “The woman is an interior designer. She did all the decorating.”
“Wow. Where’d they come from? New York?” There was no way this style was inspired by Georgia. There was too much glam and not enough comfort.
Brett grabbed what looked like a mini hot dog off a waiter’s tray and popped it into his mouth. “They live here,” he said. “You don’t recognize them?”
I looked a little closer, tried to see behind the glitz and glamour. Then I remembered their faces from years ago. “They’re the McHenrys,” I said. “Jenny’s parents.” As if on cue, Jenny walked right up to the bar and stood beside them.
“For the record, I didn’t know she’d be here until this moment. . . . You can meet my parents later,” he said, reading my mind. “Let’s go get some air.”
Brett led me through the crowd and out a set of glass doors. There was a small outdoor patio overlooking the pool that we were standing on. With the moon high in the sky and the humidity nowhere to be found, it was the perfect night. And it was quiet. So quiet. I could hear how quickly my heart was beating.
We were leaning against the railing, staring out into the darkness. Brett’s eyes shifted to me, then down to my toes. “I like your dress,” he said. His fingers reached out, touching my ironed curls. “And I like your hair when it’s like this.” Then he grabbed my hand, pulling me against his chest. “And I like us like this. Without the pretending.”
“Me too.”
Brett smiled. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “You do?”
“Yeah.” Maybe it was the darkness or the quiet that made my lips a little bit looser, because then I was saying, “I like you, Brett. Which was never supposed to happen. That’s why I was okay with our relationship being fake, because it was safe. It was supposed to prevent all of this so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting my heart broken. And now we’re here and everything feels too real and it’s scaring me.”
“Tell me why you’re scared,” he said.
“Because relationships never work out. Look at my parents. I always thought they were so in love, that they’d last forever, and then one morning my dad woke up and decided that we weren’t enough. That his life wasn’t enough. People always talk about falling in love but no one ever talks about falling out of it. And look at your parents—” Brett flinched. “Sorry. Forget that. I don’t know. It’s like I said, people always leave. Parents, friends—it doesn’t matter. It’s all temporary and I’m not sure I can handle another person walking out on me.”
“Then let me show you that I can be the one who stays.”
“As sweet as that is, Brett, there’s no way you can know for sure you’ll even want to. Relationships are just one big gamble where the odds are always against you. And on a night like this, when I’m wearing a dress for the first time in years and it feels like we’re in an entirely different world? It’s easy to get caught up in the moment. To over-romanticize the little things.”
“You’re saying you think I’m going to, what, wake up tomorrow and decide that I don’t actually have feelings for you?” he asked. I nodded. “That’s impossible, Becca. I started feeling like this way before tonight. And I promise you I’ll feel this way tomorrow too, and the days after that.” Brett touched his finger to my forehead. “You’re stuck in your own mind, overthinking this too much and looking for every fault. There doesn’t always have to be a negative side.”
“I’m confused,” I said, “because one day we were strangers and then, bam, we were pretending to be in love. All these lines between what was real and what was fake started to blur and I can’t tell the two apart anymore.”
“Just because we were pretending doesn’t mean it wasn’t real,” Brett said.
Maybe he was right. That day we kissed in the hallway had changed something inside me, dredging up all these feelings I never wanted to feel. We were pretending to date one day, then secretly being friends the next. Somewhere in the middle of all that—between our time spent at the arcade and sharing secrets in his car—fake became real and I was too busy ignoring my own heart to even realize it.
But maybe I didn’t want to ignore it anymore.
Maybe it was time to undo the locks and open all the windows. Maybe falling in love didn’t mean you were doomed and the future couldn’t be determined by the past. Maybe I had to stop living my life through books and it was time to rip off all the caution tape and see what happened when I let myself feel. Or when I let myself fall.
And I wanted to feel everything with Brett.
“Brett?”
“Becca?”
I leaned my head into his chest. “Don’t break my heart. Okay?”
His hand tilted up my chin until our eyes met. He was all shadows and moonlight.
“I won’t,” he said.
Right when Brett was about to kiss me, the patio doors opened and a woman stepped out. The only thing that kept her black outfit from blending into the night was the silve
r camera hanging from her neck. “There you are! Can I get a photo of you two?” she asked, lip ring catching the moonlight. Brett was groaning at the interruption. “Can I get you to turn a little so the moon is behind you? That’s perfect. Smile!” she yelled before the flash went off. She didn’t need to tell us, though. I couldn’t seem to stop smiling. She looked down at the camera and nodded her approval, lifting her eyes back to ours. “Great. You two make a cute couple.” She walked away and the words were there, floating around.
That was the first time someone thought we were a couple when we weren’t pretending to be one.
From the way we were facing, I could see down the side of the hotel. There was a small path that led to a side entrance to the building and eventually opened up into the parking lot. It was dark, but the lamps created enough light for me to make out that someone was standing there, behind a car, in a way that it would block anyone looking from another angle from seeing them. I could see their face, though.
“Brett,” I whispered. “Look.” He followed my eyes to his father. Then, while we both watched, a woman stepped out from behind the car. Only it wasn’t Brett’s mom. There was no mistaking it this time. No more clues worth searching for. The answer was right in front of us.
“It’s the same woman from the diner,” he breathed.
I peeled my eyes away to find Brett. So many emotions flickered across his face like a slideshow. First surprise. Then sadness. It ended with anger. He let go of my waist and his hands balled into fists. His eyes looked as dark as the sky, not a star in sight.
The rest happened too fast. Brett was walking down the path, then he was running. I chased after him, yelled his name. He was too tall, his footsteps too quick. Then he was standing in front of his dad, yelling. I watched the woman’s eyes go wide. His dad’s were wider.
“You brought her here!” he was screaming, waving his arms around. “To this hotel with Mom right inside?”
It was like watching a car crash. I couldn’t look away.
His dad’s mouth was moving but there were no words coming out. It made sense—what was there to say in this moment? There was no excuse to make this better. There was only the truth and the aftermath.
Then Brett was crying and I reached for him, placed my hands on his shoulder. “I saw you at the diner,” he was saying. “I didn’t want to believe it, Dad. That you’d do this to Mom. That you’d lie to us for all this time and spend all those weekends away from home—and for what? For her?”
I looked at the woman for the first time. She had her hands covering her face. I thought she was crying, but then I realized she was shocked. This was all a surprise to her. She was looking between Brett and his dad like she too was putting her own puzzle together. Did she not know she was dating a married man?
“Brett,” I said, trying to pull him toward me. His feet were lead. The doors to the hotel swung open and a stream of people poured out, coming to check on all the noise. The four of us were standing there, covered in tears, with just enough moonlight to illuminate the truth for everyone to see. I saw Brett’s mother at the front. She walked toward us, stopped right beside me.
“What happened?” she said. I watched her face fall as she gazed between her husband and his mistress, and then it felt like I was standing on my father’s driveway all over again, trying to keep it together when the world was tearing me apart.
I had never seen someone look more broken than when Brett turned to face his mom. But she didn’t look surprised, not like the mistress did. And in that moment, we both realized that his mom had known all along. Her face was not one of a woman who’d just found out her marriage had been a lie. It was the face of a woman who had kept a secret that was now out in the open.
Brett almost fell over. His hand reached out and grabbed the car and I was there, holding him up as much as I could, but he was too heavy for me to carry on my own.
“You knew?” he said, looking at his mom. “You knew all this time?”
The five of us stood there in silence. The crowd was watching, waiting for a show. And with a town as small as Crestmont, Brett’s parents would be talked about all over town tomorrow morning. The curtain had fallen on their perfect family and this was all that was left.
The look on his mom’s face reminded me of my mom’s, that kind of heartbreak that eats at you slowly, tearing you apart. I understood why she hadn’t told Brett. It was the same reason my mom turned to baking. They were just trying to hold it together, contain the heartbreak in their own chests and not let it spread to their children.
But Brett couldn’t see that right now. He was too angry.
“You knew,” he said again, louder this time. “And you”—he spun around to face his dad—“how could you do this?” His voice broke. I thought he was going to cry, to collapse completely. Instead he lunged. His fist connected with his father’s face in a horrifying sound. His dad was on the ground, clutching his nose, blood streaming down.
My mouth was hanging open.
I stared at Brett with blood on his fist.
I stared at his dad with blood on his face.
I stared at his mom and the other woman, who were both crying.
Then I grabbed Brett’s hand and this time I was the one pulling him away. We ran through the parking lot and I ignored the way my feet ached in my heels. I took a left down the street on a whim and we kept walking until Brett fell over onto the grass. He was lying there, face to the sky, bloody hand clutched in his chest.
I sat down.
It was so quiet. Not even a car drove by.
I looked down at my dress and saw the blood on it. Brett must have heard me gasp because he started apologizing. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Becca.”
I pulled his head onto my chest, ignoring his bloody hands. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay,” I said. But this time I wasn’t entirely sure.
“I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have punched him but he deserved it—and my mom. Oh my god, my mom. Did you see her face?” He was crying again. “She knew, Becca. She knew this whole time and didn’t tell me.”
“You’re angry at your dad, Brett. Not your mom. She’s in as much pain as you are.”
He stood up, wiped his tears. “I have to go back,” he declared. “I can’t leave her there with him.” He began walking back down the sidewalk. I ran after him, grabbed his arm, and spun him around.
“No,” I said. “What you need is to stay here. I’ll go get your mom if that’s what you want, but you can’t go back there, Brett. Not like this. You’re too angry. You’re not thinking straight. And you’re going to do something much worse than punch him this time.”
Brett was breathing heavy. I tried to read his face and failed. But I knew what he was feeling. I was no stranger to the confusion, the guilt, the sadness—the way all three of them mixed into one gigantic mess until you couldn’t decipher what was what anymore.
“My dad deserved that,” Brett said, sounding angry.
“He did. I know he did. But all those people didn’t need to see it. You know how they talk—”
“I don’t care what people say about my family or what they’re going to think, Becca! My dad’s a liar. Everything has been a fucking lie! Shouldn’t people know that? Why should his image be protected?”
“That’s not what I meant. At all. This,” I said, gesturing back to the hotel, “is already going to be hard enough without the entire town’s opinions weighing in.”
There was no getting through to Brett now. His mind was made up. “I’m going to get my mom,” he said. “Please don’t try to stop me.”
So I didn’t. I let him walk away and then I lay down on the grass. It was damp, a little cold. It was probably going to stain my dress green, which didn’t matter since it was already stained red. Remembering the blood, I scrubbed at the fabric with my thumb, but it was too late. That was the thing with blood; it stained. Whether it was there for a second or a minute, you couldn’t get rid of it. It soaked it
self into the fabric so deeply that it became a part of it.
I raised my head off the grass and stared down the sidewalk, toward the hotel. A car was driving this way. It had to be Brett and his mom. I sat up, brushed myself off, and walked to the side of the road. The car pulled over, the window rolled down, and it was the last person I expected.
“Becca?” Jenny asked, staring down at the mess I had become. “You look like you could use a ride.”
Brett
OUR HOUSE WAS SILENT.
My mom was asleep in her bedroom. She stopped crying sometime after midnight. After I went back to the hotel to get her, the entire crowd that had gathered was gone. The parking lot was empty. Like everything was a bad dream. I found my mom sitting on a couch in the lobby. She had her arms wrapped around herself like she was physically trying to not fall apart. There was makeup smudged down her face. My dad was standing at the bar, surrounded by hotel staff. He looked completely fine. Still put together. I ignored him and grabbed my mom. She didn’t speak, didn’t say a single word. I held her up and walked us to my car.
“I’m sorry.” She kept repeating those two words for the entire drive home. That’s what hurt me the most. That she thought this was her fault.
“You don’t have to be,” I told her. There was nothing else to say.
My mom had a death grip on my arm as we walked from the car to the front door, like I was her anchor in all of this. I didn’t know how to tell her I was drowning too.
I brought her to bed and wiped the makeup off her face with a warm towel. I tucked her in, pulled the blanket right up to her chin like she used to do for me. I kissed her forehead. “I love you,” I said. I thought back to what Becca said about the climax and the resolution. The calm after this storm. “We’re going to be okay, Mom.”