Chapter 9: The blind item

I stared at Maya’s text until the screen went dark, then lit up again like it was personally offended I wasn’t reacting fast enough. Of course she had. Mabel didn’t do anything halfway—especially not when it came to reminding everyone that I was the perpetual runner-up in the Nolan Hale Olympics. I slid my phone open with shaking fingers, still in my towel, hair dripping cold trails down my back. My speaker sat silent for once, which felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. I tapped through to i********:, telling myself it was probably nothing. The Close Friends story loaded. “Desperate girls playing dress-up with someone else’s leftovers. Some people never learn their place.” My stomach twisted so hard I actually bent forward, one hand gripping the edge of my bed like it could anchor me. Leftovers. That was me. The girl next door who’d spent years listening through the wall while Nolan chose everyone but me. And now I was “dressing up” as Tristan’s girlfriend? The irony burned. I might actually give her the show she’s obsessing over. I whispered to the empty room, “She knows it’s fake. And I intend to make it real. Or she’s just stirring because she can’t stand that I finally stopped waiting.” My voice cracked on the last word. I sounded pathetic even to myself. I adjusted my glasses—twice—then realized I wasn’t even wearing them. Fantastic. I was losing it so thoroughly I was mimicking habits that weren’t even happening. The phone rang in my hand, shrill and demanding. Maya’s name flashed across the screen like a siren. I answered on the second ring, pressing it to my ear while I paced the tiny space between my bed and the desk. The towel slipped a little on my damp skin, but I didn’t care. Modesty felt optional when your life was circling the drain. “June, what the actual hell?” Maya’s voice exploded through the speaker, half-whisper, half-screech. I could picture her in the campus coffee shop, probably hunched over her latte like a conspirator, brown curls falling into her eyes. “I just left the club meeting and Mabel was there—like there, June—telling anyone who would listen that you’re officially dating Tristan Hale. Like, full-on couple status. She said you admitted it to her face. That you two are in love. I laughed at first because come on, you hate Tristan. It’s always been Nolan. Always. The wall-listening, the pining, the ‘he’s my best friend but maybe more’ saga. What changed? Did he hit you with one of those arrogant smirks and suddenly you’re team evil twin?” I sank onto the edge of my bed, knees bouncing. The takeout bag—now cold and congealed—stared at me accusingly from the desk. I hadn’t touched it. Who could eat when their fake boyfriend plot was already leaking like a sieve? Now, if people found out about our fake dating situation, and we'd already put on a convincing act, I'd have no choice but to double down and make it seem completely real. I mean, I started this for a reason, and blowing the cover now would ruin everything. “Maya, breathe. It’s… okay, it’s not what it looks like. Or it is, but not really. God, I’m messing this up already.” I dragged a hand through my wet hair, tugging at the tangles like the pain might sharpen my thoughts. “Remember the lamp? The crash? Nolan and Mabel bursting in right when Tristan was on top of me—” I ran off like a mad woman. “On top of you? When did all of this happen?!” Maya’s voice pitched higher. I winced, pulling the phone away from my ear for a second. “Juniper Hayes, you buried the lead! Start from the beginning. Because from what Mabel’s spinning, you went from crying over Nolan’s reconciliation to declaring undying love for his brother in like, twenty-four hours. The club girls were eating it up. One of them asked if it was a rebound or if you’d been secretly into Tristan the whole time. I shut that down, but… babe, you hate him. He’s been tormenting you since we were kids. Teasing you in class, calling you ‘four-eyes’ in that way that made your cheeks go red for all the wrong reasons. This doesn’t track.” I let out a shaky laugh that sounded more like a sob. “I don’t hate him. Not exactly. It’s complicated. He sees me, Maya. Like, really sees through all the ‘girl next door’ crap. When I told him I needed a fake boyfriend to make Nolan jealous, to get some control back after years of being the almost…” My voice trailed off. I stood up again, needing to move. The towel slipped lower on my chest, but I yanked it back up, pacing faster. The room felt too small, the walls too thin. I could almost hear Nolan breathing on the other side, even though that was probably paranoia talking. “Fake boyfriend?” Maya repeated, slower now, like she was tasting the words. “So the i********: quote, the club gossip—that’s Mabel retaliating because you finally stopped orbiting Nolan? Okay, that tracks. But love, June? To Mabel? She’s going to weaponize that until graduation. And Tristan… does he even know you said that? Because if he finds out, with his ego? He’ll either laugh in your face or turn it into some power play. This fake thing is going to blow up in your face. Tell me you have an exit plan.” I stopped pacing long enough to grab my speaker remote. The silence was killing me. I hit play on the first playlist that loaded—something bass-heavy and angry, the kind I’d blasted earlier to drown out Nolan and Mabel’s moans. The music thumped low at first, then built, vibrating through the floor. It felt like armor. “The exit plan is three months,” I said over the beat, frantic now, words tumbling out. “He has conditions. I go to his hockey matches, wear the stupid jersey with his number—like I’m branding myself his—and yeah, there’s talk of me moving into his apartment because apparently my dorm isn’t ‘safe’ from Nolan’s drama anymore if I want it to look real. But it’s fake, Maya. It’s all fake. I said the love thing to shut Mabel up after she threw every embarrassing crush moment back in my face. The screen saver, the wall-listening, even that one time she caught me… you know. It was a shield. A big, reckless shield. I didn’t mean it. Or I don’t think I did. But when I said it, Tristan didn’t pull away. His eyes got this look, like maybe he—” The music swelled, bass rattling the shared wall. I turned it down a notch but not off. The rhythm matched my pulse—erratic, too loud, impossible to ignore. Maya was saying something on the other end, voice tinny through the speaker, but my brain was spinning too fast to catch all of it. I tried to explain again, faster, the words tripping over each other. “It started as jealousy bait. Nolan chose her again, after everything, and I was done being invisible. But it’s working, Maya. Nolan looked gutted. And Tristan… he agreed. It’s chaotic, but it’s my chaos for once.” Maya groaned. “June, I love you, but this is soap opera levels of bad. You hate Tristan’s arrogance. You’ve said it a million times—he’s the shadow twin, the one who pushes your buttons until you want to scream. And now you’re fake-dating him? Wearing his jersey? What happens when the three months end and Nolan still doesn’t choose you? Or worse—what if Tristan starts feeling real? Because the way you’re talking right now, all breathless and spiraling, it doesn’t sound fake.” I opened my mouth to argue—something about control and agency and how Tristan’s chaos was better than Nolan’s indifference—but a sharp knock rattled the shared wall between my room and Nolan’s. Not on my door, on the wall. Like he was right there, fist against the plaster, demanding attention. The music suddenly felt too loud, the bass thumping like a second heartbeat. My stomach dropped. The phone buzzed in my other hand with a text. I pulled it away from my ear, Maya still talking rapid-fire on the line, and read the screen. Nolan: Can you turn your music down? And why is Mabel crying? My breath caught, the room tilting just a little. I stared at the text, my anger boiling over. What does Mabel crying have to do with me? The audacity of this man to text me this nonsense.