The Trouble with Faking (12 page)

“What are you smiling about?” Noah asks, tilting his head.

“Oh, nothing really.” I shrug. “It’s just funny you and Damien ended up friends when you come from such different families.”

“I guess it is.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Anyway, uh … have a good night.”

“You too.” I step away, but he steps towards me, obviously moving in for a hug. There’s an awkward moment of fumbling limbs until we finally end up with our arms around each other, laughing. That moment by the pool table flashes through my mind. Noah’s arms around me. His hand over mine on the cue stick. His breath leaving chills along my neck.

I force my mind in a different direction.

We part ways after the hug, and I wander slowly back into Fuller, enjoying the warmer-than-usual evening air. I contemplate calling Damien. I’m torn between wanting to hear his voice and
not
wanting to hear what a great afternoon he had with Marie.

I reach my floor inside F flat and find Carmen pacing across the landing, speaking rushed Afrikaans into her phone, her face wet with tears. She ends the call and hurries back to her room without saying a word to me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask before she can close her door.

“None of your concern,” she mutters.

“Carmen, come on. Just let me help y—”

“My grandpa had a heart attack, okay?” she snaps, spinning around in the doorway to face me.

“Oh my goodness.” My bag slips to the floor. “Is he …” I can’t bring myself to say it.
Dead
. “How is he? Have you seen him?”

“Of course I haven’t seen him, Andi,” she shouts. “How am I supposed to get to the hospital? I don’t have a rich father like you ready to just hand me a car.”

Her words sting, but I decide not to go there. “What about—”

“All my family members with cars are already there, and they don’t want to leave Grandpa. One of my cousins said he might come get me a bit later, but I don’t want to wait that long.”

“Well, I’ll take you. I don’t mind—”

“No. I don’t need your help.” She steps back and starts shutting her door.

“Carmen, wait.” This hating me thing is starting to get old. “Look, I get that you’re upset about your grandfather, and you’re upset that I didn’t tell you what was going on with Damien. But I’ve apologised for that and it’s in the past, so why can’t you stop being so mad at me? Why can’t we go back to being friends?”

She stares at me, slowly shaking her head. “It’s amazing how convincingly you lie.”

“
What?
” I hope she can see how baffled I am because I don’t think I can put it sufficiently into words.

She speaks slowly, looking at me as if I’m stupid. “Damien cheated on his girlfriend. With you. Then you lied about it. To my face. Twice. Now I’m sorry, but I can’t be friends with a compulsive liar.”

“I told you that’s not—”

She takes another step back and slams her door shut.

I stare at the door, my breath quickening and my insides burning up. Noah was right. On the surface, I don’t seem bothered by things that should upset me. Tell me there’s poop in my hair, and I’ll come up with a civilised response. Insult my clothing, and I’ll act politely confused. Spread rumours about me, and I’ll shrug them off. Tell me I was an accident and never wanted by either of my parents, and I’ll push the hurt down where I don’t have to feel it. But underneath it all, I’m a ticking bomb waiting to explode on the unfortunate person who happens to lay the last proverbial straw.

Carmen is that person.

I march across the landing and push her door open with such force it bangs against the wall. “I have had ENOUGH of these ridiculous accusations,” I shout at her. “I don’t know what you heard that could possibly have convinced you so thoroughly that I’m a compulsive liar, but whatever it was, it’s NOT TRUE. I may have kept things from you because, HELLO, we’ve only known each other a few weeks, but I have NEVER LIED TO YOU. Now stop being so damn STUBBORN and let me bloody well DRIVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL.”

***

I sit in a hard, plastic chair under bright lights drinking bad coffee and waiting for Carmen. Her extended family has just about taken over the whole waiting area, but I managed to find a seat in the corner next to Carmen’s cousin Tania. I pretend to read an ebook on my phone while processing my thoughts.

Friends are supposed to tell each other what’s going on in their lives, Andi, and I thought you and I were friends.

I thought we were too, which means I should have told her what was going on with Damien. Why didn’t I tell her? Why didn’t I realise that something BIG DEAL, like the guy I’ve loved for what feels like forever, should be shared with her?

My thoughts tumble back and forth as my eyes scan the same paragraph over and over, seeing the words but taking in nothing. Eventually, Carmen walks over and places a hand on Tania’s shoulder. “You doing okay?” she asks.

Tania raises her head from her arms, and I notice her red eyes. “I hate hospitals so much,” she says. “They always make me think of—”
sniff
“—Tyrone and Ferry.”

“I know,” Carmen says gently, rubbing Tania’s shoulder. “Do you mind if I sit here so I can talk to Andi? Your mom’s over there. I think she got you something to eat.” Tania wipes her face, sniffs again, and stands. Carmen collapses into the chair, running a hand over her frizzy hair. “Her twin brother was in a car accident a few years ago,” she says, watching Tania walk away. “He didn’t make it.”

“Hectic,” I murmur. I have no idea what to say to something like that. I’ve never dealt with death before.

“Yeah. Anyway, thanks for waiting,” Carmen says, rubbing her eyes. “No one lives near campus, so no one really wants to drive me back there. I appreciate you helping me out after … you know. My unreasonable bitchiness.”

“Hey, this is big deal stuff. Of course I’m gonna help you out.” I lock my phone and return it to my bag. “How’s your grandfather doing? Have you seen him?”

“No, but the nurses say he’s stable, which I suppose is as good as it gets after a heart attack. I have to come back tomorrow during visiting hours if I want to see him, so that means we can head back now.”

“Oh, are you sure? You don’t need to stay for anything else?”

She shakes her head and yawns. “My parents are gonna stay a bit longer, and maybe some of my aunts and uncles, but if we’re not allowed to see Grandpa, then …” She shrugs. “I guess there’s no point in staying. And I feel a bit better now that I’ve been here and heard everything the nurses and doctors have to say. It’s still horrible, and I keep praying he doesn’t die even though I
know
he’s old and it could be his time to go, but I just … I’m glad I came. Thanks for bringing me.”

I nod. We stand up, and I take a slow walk to the elevators while Carmen says goodbye to everyone. Once we’re back on the road, silence fills the car like a tangible presence. I’ve got a lot to say, but I’m waiting until we reach the highway before I launch into everything. “Okay,” I say once we’re on the highway and I’ve got no more turns to worry about. “I thought about a lot of stuff while I was sitting in that waiting room, and I realised I haven’t been nearly as open with you as I could have been.”

“Andi, it’s fine, really. Like you said, we haven’t known each other long. I shouldn’t have expected you to spill everything going on in your life.”

“Well, no, not everything, but I should have told you about Damien. I think the problem is that I’m used to keeping things to myself. I had girlfriends at school, of course, but somehow I never confided in them about anything major. Not even when I found out about my mom’s affair with a married man—”

“What? Really?”

“Yes. A guy who turned out to be my dad. And I’ve been head over heels for Damien for
years
, but I didn’t tell my friends that either in case it got back to him, which would have totally ruined things between us. And now that those friends are scattered all over the country, the friendships I had with them are just … drifting away. And I think it’s because I never shared anything about myself. If any major issues came up, I generally ended up sharing them with Damien and no one else. So I’m starting to think that maybe the picture my friends had of me wasn’t the real one. It was happy and problem-free and … fake.”

“I’m guessing Damien knows the real you, though.”

“Yes,” I say with a sigh. “Or maybe not. Maybe he also only sees the things I want him to see, and none of the deep-down, horrible stuff. But while we’re on the subject of Damien …” I take a deep breath and tap the steering wheel with my fingers. It’s time to lay it all out there. I can’t have a real friendship with Carmen while keeping something like this from her. “There’s something you should know about our relationship. It isn’t … actually … real.” I remove my eyes from the road for a moment to check her response. She’s watching me closely, her eyebrows raised. I return my eyes to the road, rushing into the rest of my explanation, filling her in on every detail.

When I get to the end, she says, “Eish, now I kinda wish you were lying to me.”

“So … you don’t think it’s a good idea?”

“It’s a terrible idea, Andi! It’s like you’re
asking
to have your heart broken.”

“I know, I know. There’s that risk. But if it works out, it’ll be worth it. I think he’s starting to see me differently already.”

“Really? Or are you just trying to convince yourself of that?”

“I … I don’t know. Anyway, the more important thing here is whether you believe me or if you still think everything I say is a lie.”

I look at her again, and she smiles. “I believe you.”

“You do? What convinced you? I mean, you seemed quite certain earlier when you were calling me a compulsive liar.”

“Um …” She leans her head back. “I thought I had evidence that you and Damien were together last year, and then you totally flipped your lid earlier, which I’ve never seen you do, and it made me think about that
evidence
I thought I had, and I realised it was actually nothing to do with you.”

“Evidence? What are you talking about?”

She sighs. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“If it’s Charlotte’s friends saying they saw me with Damien last year, well, that is true. We were together—as in, sitting next to each other—but we weren’t
together
.”

Carmen starts playing with the buttons on my radio. “I know.”

“But you still don’t think we should be doing this fake relationship thing.”

“I think …” She sighs, leaves the radio on a channel playing classical music, and leans back. “I really think we should tell people the things we need to tell them before it’s too late. Grandpa and my dad have been angry with each other for years because of some disagreement about my mom, and now all my dad can feel is guilt because it might be too late to work things out. My cousin Tania still hates herself because the last thing she and her brother did before his car accident was fight. She alternates between wanting to kill Ferry, the guy her brother was with who survived the accident, and wanting to kill herself.”

“Jeepers.”

“Yeah. Life sucks sometimes. There are a lot of things we can’t control, but we can at least control what we say to people. It’s better than leaving it until it’s too late.”

I nod slowly, my thoughts swirling in every direction, darting past pros, cons, dreams, hopes, regrets, consequences, and finally coming to a single undeniable conclusion.

I have to tell Damien the truth.

Carmen and I only get to bed around midnight, which means I feel like a zombie when my alarm goes off at 6:30 am the next morning. How do people survive on less than eight hours of sleep? I convince myself to sit up, but I can’t keep my eyes open, so I stay in that position for a while, slouched over, eyes closed, half conscious.

A door slams on the landing upstairs, startling me from my lethargy. I push myself to the edge of the bed and drop my legs over the side. One step closer to being up. I reach for my phone and turn it over. When I see all the missed calls and text messages, I realise I haven’t looked at my phone since Noah and I left Truth yesterday. The first message is from Mom—
I know you don’t want to talk, but just let me know you’re okay please
—which I reply to quickly before she does something embarrassing like calling the Fuller warden to track me down. The remaining alerts are from Damien. Two texts—one apologising for bailing on me yesterday afternoon, and one asking where I am—and three missed calls.

I touch the call button and bring the phone to my ear. He answers after three rings. “Hello, Andi?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I just saw all your calls now. Is something wrong?”

“No, no.” He hesitates. “Are you … mad at me?”

“What? No. Why?”

“It’s just that you normally reply to messages and return calls pretty quickly. When I didn’t hear from you or see you in the dining hall last night, I got worried.”

He was worried about me! How sweet. I guess I do reply to his messages far too quickly. I need to practise restraint. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you worry. I was with Noah.”