I was half-glad to hear that because I wanted Aurora there too. She was Rachel's sister after all. If anyone knew Rachel well, it was her. Plus she was that buffer between me and the other one. She could keep him tame enough and make sure he didn't hurt me.
I found the lovebirds together but not sucking face, thank God. Instead, they were just sitting in the living room and talking with each other. I needed to talk to Dylan in private about this. Maybe Aurora could help , but it was necessary to have a man here. Even if that man could break my legs and wore a leather jacket.
"Dylan, Dylan, Dylan!" I grabbed his collar and began spewing my conundrum out. "You have to help me. I think I'm falling in love!"
"With what?"
"What do you think? I think I'm in love with Rachel! What do you think this means?!" I shrieked, almost shaking him. This would be my big mistake from the look on his face.
"Well, judging by the fact that you are grabbing my collar and you're screaming and spitting in my face, I think it means one of two things." He said, his face twisting into a grimace. "You really care about her or you've lost your mind!"
I let him go. This did not bode well for me or my body. "Neither option is going to keep me from losing my two front teeth tonight, is it?"
"Normally, it wouldn't. But I like you , so I'll let that slide." He straightened his collar out and wiped his face of my saliva. "Now explain what's going on and don't spit on me this time! Yuck!"
“I think I have feelings for Rachel.” I said, slowly starting over again and trying to keep my hands to myself. I sat down on them. It was painful and I knew they'd fall asleep but it would be worth it. Anything to keep my body in one piece. “At first, I thought we were doing a good job of pretending but I'm beginning to think I feel more for her. Like I don't want to pretend anymore.”
“Well, I think it's romantic.” Aurora said. “You're falling in love.”
“Yeah, it's romantic but do you know what this means?! It changes everything!” I exclaimed, now yelling at her. “It changes my plans, it changes my future, and it changes how I feel about my entire life! What the hell do I do?!”
Aurora shrunk at my ranting and raving, which was the first warning sign. Her lips were trembling and that was the other sign. But I didn't get it until Dylan sat up and cracked his knuckles. The sound of them made me stop going crazy and turn to him. His lips were tight and he looked ready to charge at me headfirst. Damn. Stupid Anwar. Save him the trouble and put yourself through that wall right now. You'll save him the time and yourself the pain he will inflict upon you.
“Dude, I said it was okay to yell at me. But yelling at my girlfriend changes everything. So you better get to your point fast or you better pray that you're a quick healer.” He warned, tightening his hand into a fist. Uh oh. It was leg smashing time.
“Um...look, I'm sorry. I'm just on edge! I never felt this way about anyone.” I sat back down. “I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't even know if she feels the same about me.”
“Well, this might be a long shot but...have you asked her?” Aurora asked.
Ooh, ask her. Yeah, that thought never crossed my mind. Then again, Aurora probably thought I was a moron thanks to snapping at her in front of Dylan. “I'm kind of scared to ask her. What if she still thinks this is a game?”
“Or maybe she feels like you do. Maybe she's scared.”
“Rory's right. God knows I was terrified when I first realized my feelings for her.” Dylan threw his arms around Aurora's shoulders. “I didn't think I could love anyone or that anyone would love me back. But I took that_”
“Plunge?” I finished for him and he nodded. “Yeah, I'm afraid of that. I hate heights.”
“It's not a literal height, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. But I feel like I can't be what she wants me to be. It's fun to pretend because later on, we can stop fooling ourselves.” I explained. “We can go back to what we were doing before. And that's where my problem lies. I don't want to go back to that. I want to have what...well, what you have but less graphic.”
Aurora rolled her eyes. “You've never seen couples kiss?”
“I haven't seen them suck souls out of each other, no.”
“Are we that gross?”
“Um...”
“Your answer better not be 'yes', pal.” Dylan said, holding up his fist.
“Dylan, it's okay. Maybe he's not used to seeing stuff like this.” She pushed Dylan to the side and stood in front of me. “But if you do say we are gross and complain about us again, you'll be pissing motor oil for a week. Got that?”
Dylan grinned while I sunk against the wall. “Isn't she terrific?”
Yay, terrific. A lot of Dylan was starting to rub off on Aurora , and I was afraid of what the two together could do. “Look, I'm nervous. Cut me some slack here.”
“Oh, you're right. I'm sorry.” Aurora apologized. “Look, you just need to stop being nervous and start being yourself. Maybe our style isn't your style. Just do what you want to do and do what you feel is best. You'll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“I know it for a fact.” She nodded. “I mean, look at my boyfriend. So what if he's all greasy and he breaks people's legs and almost gets in trouble with the law? He's not perfect. He's never going to be perfect and he's okay with it. He's not Cal after all.”
I wasn't sure what went wrong that moment , but Dylan's cold look went from me to her. I don't know what triggered that anger but it was there. This was not the right time for me to be here so I decided to squeeze on out.
“Can I leave now?”
“No, you can stay.”
“I really think...”
“Um, Rory?” Dylan cut in, pulling her away. “Can you excuse us? I have to talk to her in private for a second.”
I nodded and watched as they went into the other room. However, that second turned out to be the longest second of my life. What was supposed to be a quiet moment between them soon interrupted into shouting and screams. I heard Dylan yell “What's this about me always getting in trouble?!” with Aurora countering “Oh, and I suppose the drunk guy you beat up fell down the stairs and broke his legs, huh?” It was not turning out to be a good moment.
“How many times do I have to say it?! I am not your dead boyfriend!” I heard Dylan yelling. “You can't expect me to be just like him!”
“I don't! Because Cal wasn't a thug half the time! He was a gentleman!”
“Hey, I haven't peed in public! What kind of a gentleman does that?!”
“You wouldn't know because you aren't one!”
“You just can't let him go, can you?!”
“Well, I wish you could be a little more like him then!”
“But I'm not, Aurora! Get it through your head already!”
Hell had broken loose and I knew that I had to get out of here. I had to leave before I got caught in World War III. Grabbing my things, I started inching towards the door and put my hand on the doorknob. Nothing was good about this situation. Nothing at all.
“Um...I'll be leaving now!” I called to them. “I'll see you at my place!”
“Fine!” They both yelled back.
Ouch.
127
Carter Tachikawa
Chapter 19
Things were not looking good on any end the next morning. We were going to have a small puja for the two of us yet I didn’t look forward to it. Aurora and Dylan were still not speaking to each other. How did I know this? The fact that they came in separate cars and gave each other death glares when they arrived told me everything. Yikes! Not the situation I wanted to be in. I could only pray that they loosened up on the looks of doom. Especially Dylan. Between the two, his look scared me more. Aurora just looked like a highly annoyed girl. Dylan looked like he wanted to set the house on fire with everyone in it. I had to remind myself not to get on his prickly side. Let Aurora deal with her high strung boyfriend.
In the meantime, I had my own issues t
o deal with. I didn’t want this puja to happen. I didn’t want to keep living like this. But I didn’t know how I was going to get out. Walking around with these thoughts weren’t helping so I found a seat next to Aurora and sat down.
“Hey.” I greeted her.
“I told you, ‘sweetheart’, I am not getting the man with three knockers to match your tattoo! You can get every disgusting thing imaginable if you want! Get syphilis for all I care! But don't drag me in on it!” She snapped. “So you can take your ideas and shove em up your ass where that other tattoo is!”
I inched away. “That’s not what I was going to say but that’s good to know. I won’t make any suggestions for those ever. Promise.”
She sighed when she saw it was me. “I’m sorry. I thought you were a certain parasite of a boyfriend. I've been on edge ever since yesterday.”
“Still haven’t made up, huh?”
“I don’t even want to lick his tattoo.”
Huh, lick his tattoo. I chose wisely not to ask about that. Still, I was itching to know something. “How did you fall for him if you don’t really share many of his interests?”
“Cause he was sweet. He still is kind of sweet.” She admitted. “Underneath it all, he’s not bad. I admit that hooking up with him has a lot to do with me and revenge.”
Revenge? Now things were getting more interesting. Aurora did not look like the type who wanted revenge. After all, this was a girl who I first saw with a runny nose and sesame seeds all over her. How could she ever want revenge? She was too cute, too sweet, too everything that revenge wasn't. I would have believed it if it came from Dylan or Rachel or anyone else. Aurora was much harder to imagine angry enough for revenge.
"Who did you want revenge on?"
"The man that killed my first boyfriend." She murmured. "I admit that at first, I was not attracted to Dylan. Not in the way that I was attracted to Cal. He scared me. I only wanted to use him to get my revenge."
The way I'm using your sister. I'm using Rachel the way you used Dylan and I didn't think about what could happen afterwards. I realized. "Did he know that's what you wanted?"
"No. I kept that from him in hopes of letting him go when the damage was done. But I fell in love with him. Day after day, I started to like him a little more. I felt a spark between us. I felt..."
"Butterflies?" I finished off.
"Yes. The man gives me butterflies." She smiled. "I felt awful about using him and he found out. Granted, he was not thrilled when he learned the truth. It almost got him killed too. But he came out in one piece and so did I. In the end, I realized that I loved him. I didn't see him as Callum's replacement but as someone I loved."
"Kind of like me." I murmured.
"Kind of like you." She agreed. "Lucky for me, he felt the same way. And we were fine. Until now, that is."
"You hate him now?"
"No, I still love him. That's the problem. I love him to death. He's just getting on my last nerves." She sighed. "I want him to come around and tell me that he misses me. That he loves me and that the fight we had was pointless. But he is so stubborn that it's making me tear my hair out."
I was stunned by this. Aurora had more in common with me than I realized. She had used someone although he didn't know of it. She had fallen in love with the person she used. She wanted him to tell her he loved her. The more I thought about this, the lower I sunk in my chair. What was I doing? Sure, Rachel knew of the plan but she didn't know the one glitch in it. She didn't know that my feelings would go haywire and screw everything up.
"Man, what am I doing?" I asked.
"Yeah, I know." Aurora added. "It's pretty silly."
"Not just silly. It's plain idiotic. I should tell her what really is happening."
"Instead of keeping it in like a loser, he should come forth and talk to me. Let me know how he feels right now!"
"That's right!" I stood up. "I should tell her that!"
"Yeah!" She added, standing up with me. "I should..." She paused and turned to me. "What are you talking about?"
"Um...the girl I love?" I replied meekly. "You?"
"Oh, then we're definitely not thinking of the same thing." She wiped the crumbs off her skirt. “So sorry about getting into your plans.”
At that point, Dylan came over and took the seat on my other. “Is this seat taken?” He looked over and saw Aurora standing up. He glowered at her before turning to me. “Never mind. I see you have company already.”
“Tell Dylan that I am not sitting anywhere that he's sitting.” Aurora said, crossing her arms. “I don't want to be in the same vicinity as him.”
“Yeah, and tell Aurora that's fine by me. Maybe she won't be tainted by my thuggish aura here.” Dylan replied. I had never seen him this angry before. Sure, he threatened me a lot but this was a different anger. It was cold and deadly. I didn't want to be a recipient of this anger , that was for certain. Being shoved into a wall sounded like puppies and kittens compared to the cold anger.
“Bad night?” I asked them. Neither one answered so I figured that was a yes. “Look, you don't have to sit next to each other but at least behave around each other.”
“I will if he does.” Aurora said.
“You're one to talk, Rory”, Dylan turned away from us. “You're the one that started this.”
“Sure, blame it on the woman”, she shook her head. “It's so typical of you.”
“You compared me to him again.”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” I exclaimed, butting into their argument. “Look at what you're doing! You're ruining my good times here!”
“Your good times?” Aurora looked at me. “You're 'fake' engaged to my sister. You wouldn't know what the two of us are going through right now.”
“Yeah, so back off.” Dylan warned.
I did back off but it was Aurora's words that really got me to retreat. She was right. I was 'fake engaged' to Rachel. I wasn't going to be her husband now or in the future. The two of us weren't Aurora and Dylan. We couldn't be. Aurora and Dylan, in spite of this idiot ic fight, loved each other. They knew each other and were sure they belonged to each other. The fight would be over and they would be in love again.
But me? I didn't know what would happen next. After the 'fake marriage', we'd have the 'fake honeymoon' and had to make up fake children for my parents. It would be nothing but a web of lies we were living in. I got away from them and let them try to deal with it on their own. My problems were now in focus. I was supposed to 'fake' doing everything. But the whole thing felt too real. It did feel like an actual engagement with a possible wedding on the rise.
“There you are , pumpkin!” Rachel came over and gave me a hug. Then she noticed the look on my face. “What's wrong?”
“Your...” I nodded to the two of them. “You get the picture.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “I got it now. Don't you worry though. We can get through this.”
“Why is everything prolonged?” Vikram asked me. The rest of the family was already sitting down and getting impatient. “When does this start?”
“I...Uh...” I turned to Rachel. Times like this made me wish I could change everything and start over. No more fake wedding hoopla.
“Aurora and Dylan are having their first huge fight.” Rachel explained. “They don't want to come in together or separately. She doesn't want to be in the same place he is and vice versa.”
“Oh.” Vikram shrugged. “Well, tell them to get over it. We have a ceremony to start.”
“Excuse us then.” Rachel said, grabbing my arm and dragging me away. I let out a few breaths of relief. I was away from the crowd for now, long enough to fiddle around with my own emotions. “Wow, that was close. As much as I hate seeing those two fight, it provided a good excuse.”
“Yeah, I know.” I felt miserable. “I caught them during their fighting. You think they will be okay? I hate seeing them like this too. For some weird reason, they belong together.”
“Yeah, it's just
a big blow up over nonsense.” She shook her head. “I was expecting it though. One year without fighting just seemed like too much to me. It's about time they added some spice in their life. Besides, after a big fight comes great makeup sex.”
“Really?”
“That's how it goes in most relationships out there.”
So that was the secret. Fighting equaled better sex. I wanted to ask her more again but my phone went off. Oh, fantastic.
“Your lover?” She wanted to know. “What's she comparing you to this time? Are you her little bowl of daal or something this time?”
“God, she's texting me again!” I groaned. “I'm not going to look at this one. It might make me cringe. When is she going to get the hint?!”
“I'll take care of her.” Rachel took my phone and quickly texted something back to Astra. “There! She won't ever bother you again!”
“Oh good! Did you tell her I was taken?”
“No, I told her you were gay.”
My mouth fell open at that. “You. . .uh...I...uh...what?”
“I told her you were gay. That way she won't send you creepy love notes anymore.” She handed me the phone. “You won't hear from her again.”
Huh. I had no idea why I hadn't thought of doing that. “You are incredible.”
“Thank you, I try.” She squeezed my shoulder. “So are we going on as that 'engaged couple' and tell your grandparents our so-called plans?”
Engaged couple. I found myself wanting to sink into the ground. Have the hole ripped open in the earth and be taken away. It was too much. I couldn't pretend with her and be okay with it. Dylan was right. I needed to take a plunge and I needed to do it now.
“We can't do this.” I began.
“Do what?”
“We can't pretend to be a couple when we're not.”
“When we're not what, Anwar?” She asked me. That was the perfect time. I had to let her know how I felt or she would be left in the dark forever.
“I don't want this anymore.” I said. “I don't want to fake anything. I thought this was what I wanted but it isn't. Everything changed the moment you came into the picture. The longer we spend time together, the less I want to do this.”
A Promise to Keep Page 16