Fake Halo

by Piper Lennox

  “Wow,” he chokes, holding the smoke in his chest, “and you have the nerve”—he exhales, right into my face until I slap the butt out of his hand and into the glass—“to criticize how I’m treating a girl?”

  “At least I’m not proud of it.” In fact, I despise myself. If it was physically possible, I’d run myself down and bury myself in a shallow grave for everything I did to her, from the second I saw her email in my inbox.

  If I could...I’d take back that night in the cabana, too. And the day that I can’t even remember, when all she wanted was an autograph, and instead got treated like shit.

  If it weren’t completely impossible, I’d remove myself from her life at that very first moment she saw me on television. I’d make sure Clara never got a chance to know Charlie Chase, or the disaster underneath that scripted surface.

  “She’ll get over it,” Van says knowingly, despite the fact he doesn’t know shit. He’s got a squint that, when we were scrawny kids, looked like a rat face and pretty accurately reflected his rat-like nature. Namely the fact you always wanted to hit him with a broom.

  Now that we’re older, with jaws from our dads and muscles girls love—but which our industries never seem satisfied with—that squint looks more like two slits in a steel mask.

  I’d still like to smack him with a fucking broom, though.

  “As soon as you trace who really leaked it, she’ll stop being pissed and come back, and you can get yourself together. Because seriously, man—you don’t look good.”

  “You’re wrong.” Not about me looking awful; I know that’s all too true. I haven’t slept. There’s more beer than water in my organs. I’ve masturbated to every last memory of Clara so many times I’m convinced even the dog knows what I’m doing when I lock my door.

  But Van is dead wrong about that other part. If getting Clara’s forgiveness was that simple, I’d already have a private investigator or hacker for hire or whatever the hell I need to prove it wasn’t me who leaked the screenshot—that I didn’t even take one in the first place. But I haven’t bothered in the days since we’ve been back, because I know it won’t matter.

  She’ll still be pissed I lied about having the email saved somewhere. And even if she got over that, she’ll die mad about me blackmailing her in the first place. I’m still not sure how she ignored it those few days we were together.

  I’m not sure why I let her. I guess because I’m just that selfish. I wanted her, and if history teaches us anything, it’s that Durhams will run anyone down to get what they want.

  “Well,” Van sighs, as he stretches against the back of his chair, “keep pouting over it, then. I’m sure that’ll help.”

  “You’re really good at cheering people up.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  We both start as the door opens and Juniper peeks out, hair wet and a towel clutched around her.

  “Van,” she says tightly, with a glance at me, “would you happen to know where all my underwear is?”

  The laugh he gives is more like a bark. “Goddamn, you think I’m stealing your panties, now?” He sits forward and slaps my leg with the back of his hand. “A few days ago it was her pocketknife and one of her pillowcases. I’m some perv serial killer, in case you didn’t know.”

  “That is ridiculous,” I agree, then tell her, “He’s way too stupid to be a serial killer.”

  She smiles. It might be the first time I’ve seen her in-person where she doesn’t look like she wants to crawl under a bridge and die. Or bury my cousin alive.

  Van, realizing he’s outnumbered, tilts his chair back as he lights another cigarette and tells her seriously, “Check my luggage. Theo handed me a shopping bag of stuff from the railing when we left, maybe they’re in there.”

  “Just to clarify,” she says slowly, rightfully suspicious, “you’re giving me permission to go through your stuff?”

  “Don’t get used to it.”

  Her brow furrows, but she pivots and goes back inside without another word.

  “Looks like she found ’em,” I tell him, when I see Juniper fish a plastic bag from Van’s duffel and go back down the hall. He shrugs, chugging more smoke. I wait for the inevitable coughing fit that follows, then pass him the inhaler he dropped in my sofa and didn’t notice.

  “Moron. You’re going to kill yourself with those things. Didn’t you quit?”

  “Hashtag: Nutcase in there,” he wheezes, nodding through the doors, “is driving me up the walls we don’t have.”

  “Don’t pin it on her, dude.” I stomp out the last of the cigarette he dropped and flick it into the glass. “And seriously, no more of that while you’re here. I can’t stop you on the road, but I’m damn sure not letting you poison yourself with that here.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Wes.” He rolls his eyes, but they land on the pack and lighter on his armrest with a vague guilt I’m glad to see.

  It’s nice having them in the apartment. Having anyone, really. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own head I’ll gladly accept two people with more tension than a divorced couple playing nice at their kid’s birthday.

  We order pizza and then watch movies for most of the night, which is good—they don’t have to talk to each other—before Juniper goes to bed, thanking me for the air mattress in the music room on her way down the hall.

  “Is that where Delaney slept, when she was here?” Van bounces his leg and starts up the Xbox, passing me a controller in the flickering light. He hasn’t smoked since our talk on the balcony, I guess trying to prove a point (he certainly wouldn’t do it out of respect), and it’s starting to show.

  “Yeah. Cleaned the whole place up really well for her, not that it made a difference. She wouldn’t follow any rules when we were out. She might as well have licked the damn handrails in the subway. It’s like the second her immunosuppression ended, she decided, ‘Let’s really test this shit out.’”

  “Your sister, who fell off the same family tree as us, is stubborn? Color me fucking shocked.” He smiles. “We texted the other day, seems like she had a blast. If that’s any consolation.”

  “It is, actually.” While my biggest goal was to keep Delaney safe, a close second was making sure she had fun.

  “Your mom knows, by the way.”

  My head snaps to Van. “Knows?”

  “That Laney snuck out here to visit you while she and what’s-his-nuts were on their trip.” Taking full advantage of my distraction, he slices through my character’s jugular with a circular saw. “I don’t know how she found out, but your mom told my dad about it.”

  “Huh.” I sink back in the cushions. Delaney clearly doesn’t know Mom knows, or she’d have told me.

  And Mom clearly isn’t pissed like I thought she’d be, if she hasn’t messaged or called yet. Or FedExed a boot directly up my ass.

  “I think she was about to fly out here and eviscerate you,” Van continues, “but Dad talked her down. Told her whenever Lane’s in remission, you guys have to stop treating her like she’s not.”

  “I know. But every time we start getting used to her not having it…it comes back.”

  “That’s a ‘you’ problem. Don’t turn it into your sister’s.”

  It sounds like he’s giving me shit for the fun of it, but this is actually Van’s version of advice: casual and harsh.

  And thing is, it always sticks with me. I wish I could believe his words about Clara this easily.

  We play until eleven, when Van starts nodding off. I throw him a blanket and tap his shoulder goodnight, while Bowie decides to hell with me and curls up at Van’s feet against the armrest.

  It’s nice, falling asleep knowing there are other bodies in the place besides mine. Something about it feels less soul-suckingly lonely.

  At least, until some time around midnight, when I hear footsteps in the hall and the soft click of the music room’s door. Through the pillow I pull over my face, I hear a symphony that suggests they’re either quietly fucking or quietly murdering ea
ch other.

  Either way, their company stops feeling helpful. Now that they’re together in the same room, it highlights how alone I am in this one.

  My hand slaps overtop my phone on the nightstand.

  Wes: Goodnight, Clara.

  Guess I should be grateful she turned off her Read receipts. I don’t have to lie awake torturing myself that she read it but didn’t answer.

  Kawaii43 left me a comment on my weeks-old upload. “Asshole.” Short and sweet.

  Well. Not sweet, but factual. I give her a Like out of respect.

  I shut off my phone, then stick my hand in my boxers and do what I’ve done every night this week, knowing damn well it’s not going to make me feel better. Every time I touch myself, I get depressed as hell it’s not her hand wrapped around me.

  Every time I finish, I’m miserable that it’s not inside or on her, back to tissues and shirts from the hamper like the loser I really am.

  And every time the high wears off...I feel this sting in my throat I’m getting worse and worse at fighting, and a sensation like somebody cut a circle out of my chest to rob whatever valuables are still in there. Good luck. Hope they find something worth keeping.

  Tonight, I think about our last time together. The memories of how she clung to me when she came, and how tightly I held her after, stick to the sides of my skull like a centrifuge while my hormones pick out the dirty stuff to utilize: how soaking wet she was, and the tightness of her ass when I buried my finger inside her.

  I finish into some toilet paper from the roll I brought in here after all my tissues were gone. God. Pathetic.

  I stare at the city glow on the ceiling while my chest gets carved open, right on schedule, because now all the pieces the centrifuge ignored are playing full-screen in my head.

  After I finished inside her, she’d shuddered and moaned into the comforter how much she liked it, then laughed at herself in disbelief. “Why do I like this?” she asked, like I had any answer to give her.

  I’d told her she was most likely insane.

  I didn’t know why she liked me finishing inside and all over her like we’d win the lottery once we got every inch.

  I didn’t know why she liked me. Not after everything I’d done to her.

  When she crawled back overtop me and kissed me, falling asleep against my chest while I rubbed her back, I felt something that scared the hell out of me and made me happier than I’d ever been.

  But I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t even let myself think it.

  I told myself we couldn’t handle each other. Truth was, Clara Hurley could handle me just fine.

  I just didn’t deserve her.

  Thirty-Six

  “I just...don’t understand.”

  Sasha gives Georgia a look like she can explain this to me. Fat chance, since she’s currently bouncing in her chair about to let out a squeal that, I’m sure, will shatter this glass-enclosed boardroom in a spectacle rivaling Diehard.

  “We always said the line would be reparative,” Sasha shrugs with a gentle smile. She slides the concept sketches closer. “Why not include some regrowth products, given the news?”

  “This is fucking genius.” Georgia’s arms slap the table and drag back, making the squeal on the polished wood her mouth didn’t. “Oh, my God, Sasha. You’re the best.”

  “It wasn’t just me. I had the guys from downstairs help me get samples and numbers to Mr. Godwin, after Alan and Pearl gave me some…resistance.”

  When my head snaps up, she waves away my concern. “Don’t worry about it, it’s a done deal. Just saying...yeah, a few people aren’t thrilled with the email thing.” She wets her lips as she fans the sketches out again, since my arms just plain don’t work anymore, I guess. “But it doesn’t matter. Godwin put me in charge of this new line, and I promise you guys: it’ll be amazing.”

  Georgia shakes the hell out of me for the seventh or eighth time since Sasha began. Brow gel, lash gel, and scalp masks that all stimulate hair growth and soothe irritated skin—and are all part of the “Clara products” in the Hurley Twins brand—definitely weren’t words I expected to hear when we walked into this meeting. I’m still not sure my brain’s made sense of it all.

  Deep down, I’m thrilled. On the surface, I’m shocked.

  Somewhere in between, I think my heart might be breaking.

  All the secrecy...all the stress. That damn email. All for nothing, when I could have revealed my illness all along and still ended up with this, but without all the emotional ass-kicking along the way. All it would have taken was one sentence in an interview, or one post online. One moment of embracing who I am.

  And it’s not just the hair-pulling and product lines. Georgia and I have (when her unmatched insistence knocked my reluctance flat on its face) talked things out in the days she’s been home, multiple times.

  Some talks were arguments. Others were more tears than words.

  “Do you, like...not want to live together, anymore?” she spewed two nights ago. We were in the middle of dinner, vegan pizza and some ouzo she smuggled back from Greece. Rylan told her she didn’t have to sneak it on board, but she ignored him and shoved the bottle into the Tiffany blue Hunter boots I got her for our birthday, just the same.

  This was how our talks tended to start, with Georgia suddenly blurting some new facet of the email like every sentence I’d written about her was squatting in her brain, each taking turns at the mic stand. It made our discussions feel less like multiple talks, and more like one never-ending conversation with breaks for eating and sleeping. But not filming.

  We still haven’t posted anything since the leak. Not one video, photo, or story. Our agent wants us to do an interview with PopNova tomorrow. As far as entertainment news shows go, I could definitely do worse…but I still think I’d rather cartwheel through some landmines.

  I’d told Georgia of course I still wanted to live with her; it was just starting to get to me, now and then, that we’d never lived apart, despite both of us knowing it would be inevitable.

  “Things are serious with you and Rylan,” I’d added. My stomach heaved against the too-chewy pizza and searing alcohol, even while my voice stayed breezy as could be. “If you guys get engaged or something...it’s not like he’ll move in here with us. You’ll live with him.”

  “I’m not going to leave you like that. Whenever I move out, it’ll be because you’re moving in with some gorgeous guy, too.”

  So...never? I thought, and peeled some wet spinach off my third piece to fling into my napkin.

  “See?” Georgia sighs now, her happiness flooding the elevator like foam in a nightclub: too fun and wild for my Arctic mood. “I told you shit would work out.”

  “You did.”

  Another sigh winds through her and makes her drape herself dramatically against the walls, only she forgets the button panel is behind her and lights up five other floors. Her laugh bubbles out when we stop at each one.

  As for me, I’m not quite done wallowing in self-pity.

  Yeah, I can lament lost opportunities, and how much easier things would’ve been if I’d just let my secrets enter the world unobstructed—but I also want to lament how fucked-up it is that I still didn’t get to keep those secrets. Such a simple human right. Maybe even a need.

  I am happy for Georgia, at least, that the product contract is safe. We’ve seen an increase in subscribers and followers, too. Everyone loves a scandal, even if it’s not all that scandalous. Wes Durham’s reputation as a verifiable bastard is now several thousand people’s favorite talking point, not just hers.

  “We won’t lose anything except shit that wasn’t meant to be ours in the first place.”

  Pretty ironic that I got to keep everything I was so worried about losing...and lost the one thing I never wanted in the first place.

  Liar.

  I wanted Wes.

  I wanted him in all the ways I knew not to, when he rearranged my world around himself in that coffeehouse. I w
anted him without even knowing who he was, on that pool deck in our masquerade costumes and moonlit smiles.

  I wanted him when I was a kid watching Charlie Chase crack jokes and solve problems with his fake, perfect family in just twenty-eight minutes, every day after school.

  I want him now, with every splinter of my busted, traitorous heart.

  “You okay?” Georgia hands me a tissue from her bag and rubs my back. “I guess all this must be kind of overwhelming. Everyone knowing about the trich—”

  “No, no…I’m just relieved,” I tell her, marking the first lie I’ve told my sister since I stopped needing to lie.

  That’s the only topic in my email we haven’t covered, yet: Wes. I know it’s on the horizon. She must still be mad I lied about him to her. Why she hasn’t broached it yet, I have no idea.

  Maybe it was the hardest thing for her to accept, so she hasn’t.

  I’m composed before we get out to the street. Georgia swings my hand in hers and keeps dancing along the sidewalk, sashaying around strangers and pulling me with her. She’s always had a talent for sweeping me up inside her excitement. I wish it would work now.

  We pass the music store where Wes works on our way home. I hate that I search for him through the glass.

  I hate that he’s not in there. Then I hate myself for feeling anything but relief at that discovery.

  Find the anger. That’s what I need: a nice, long bitching session to Georgia. I need her confident tone telling me he’s an asshole, her navy-blue, white-tipped manicured nails poking me in my chest when she tells me I’m better off without that arrogant, lying dick.

  The only issue is that, if I bring him up, I’ll have to tell her so much more was going on than she thinks. The blackmail part was easy to figure out; I’m pretty sure she’s even deduced our little friendship posts were bullshit, orchestrated by his hand.

  But she’ll see how broken he left me, and she’ll want to know why. If it was all fake, just business—how the hell did that boy ruin me so well?