Page 26 of Fake It For Love (Faux Love)
RYAN
Ipaid the bill and headed back to my room. That had been one hell of a dinner. I didn’t know what it was about me that pissed off that woman so badly, but she really hated me. I couldn’t understand why she had such an issue with me. She was the one that seemed dead set on hating me. I couldn’t seem to make a right move.
I did not need her drama in my life. This date thing was supposed to be easy. Going to a service was supposed to eliminate all the drama. It was just my luck I would get stuck with the one woman on the planet that hated me. Back in high school, I thought her bullshit was just part of teenage girl drama. She’d acted like a spoiled brat. That was par for the course back then. When I made the decision to go to the wedding and the reunion, it was under the assumption we all would have matured some. Clearly, I was wrong.
I was almost to my room when I stopped. That night in the courtyard, she’d been a broken girl. I held her because it was the right thing to do. Now, here we were once again. There was a sense of brokenness about her. She was lashing out at me because she was in pain. I didn’t know what happened in her life over the last fifteen years, but clearly it was bad enough to lead her into this arrangement. And she was pissed at me for being on the other end of the arrangement once again. It was like we were right back on the bench.
Back then, she needed a shoulder to cry on. What if she needed it again? “You’re going to regret this,” I muttered to myself.
I turned around and walked back to the small dining area on the beach. I had seen which way she went when she left. I followed the path through the trees and ended up on the beach. I caught a glimpse of green blowing in the wind. She was sitting on the sand with her knees pulled up. It was like she was trying to curl into a ball. That told me all I needed to know. She was definitely in need of a broad shoulder.
I walked toward her and sat down beside her once again. She looked at me and shook her head. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sitting beside you,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I find it easier to have a conversation while sitting near a person versus the other side of the beach,” I reasoned.
She actually smiled. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Stay so calm all the time,” she answered. “I sometimes wonder if you have a pulse.”
“I assure you, I’m very alive,” I said.
“But why are you here sitting beside me?” she asked. “I thought we established I wasn’t going to do you much good.”
“I’ve thought about it,” I told her. “We both benefit from this arrangement. Why not just go through with it?”
“Because we can’t stand each other,” she answered with a shrug.
“That’s not true,” I replied. “I don’t know you well enough not to be able to stand you. You don’t know me either.”
“I knew you pretty well back in school,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “That was fifteen years ago. I am not the same person I was. I doubt you are either. We were kids. We’re not kids anymore. I know I feel different.”
“How?” she asked. “How do you feel different?”
“I’m not that same insecure kid I was back then,” I told her. “I don’t need acceptance from my peers.”
“Did you ever?” she joked. “You always marched to the beat of your own drum.”
“True, but deep down, I did care,” I said. “I didn’t want to be that nerdy kid everyone loved to talk shit about.”
“Understandable.”
“I went to Faux’s because I really needed a date,” I said. “When I got Norah’s wedding invitation, I couldn’t believe it. First of all, the fact they were inviting me. Secondly, Tony allowing me to be invited at all.”
“Why did you agree to go?” she asked.
“I guess because I wanted to see what she looked like and how things were going,” I said.
“You wanted to prove to everyone you weren’t that same dorky kid from high school,” she said.
“Yeah.” I laughed. “That too. Showing up to Norah’s wedding by myself is not going to prove anything. It’ll just prove I’m the same dork I was back then. Dorky and single.”
