The Trouble with Faking (2 page)

“Listen up,” I say, rapidly losing my patience. “I have a
big
problem with cheating, and there’s no way I’d ever be involved in it in
any
way. Damien and I have been friends for eight years, and if that bothers you, you need to get over it.”

I step past her and her friends and swipe my card to get from reception into the rest of the building. I stomp all the way to F flat before looking at my watch and realising I’m late for the treasure hunt meeting. I turn and hurry back to the upper common room. I open the door and slip quietly inside, but I manage to earn myself several stern looks from a few House Comm members before seating my butt on the carpet beside Carmen.

I remove my phone from my pocket and type a message to Damien.
I met Charlotte. She’s lovely. She also thinks you’re cheating on her with me. You might want to have a chat with her.

I put my phone away and pay attention to the treasure hunt instructions. We’re divided into several groups, and each group is given a different clue. We’re all supposed to end up in the same place at the end, of course, but to avoid all groups simply following the lead group, no group will be able to get to the end in the same way. It feels a bit like something I’d be expected to do in primary school, and I’m starting to wonder if the rumours about Fuller being the boring res full of smart, nerdy girls is true. I’m also wondering if the fact that I’m enjoying the idea of this treasure hunt makes me boring and nerdy too.

Who cares?

I take the clue from Carmen and read it quickly. We shout out the answer at the same time—“The bench in reception!”—ignore the few members of our group who roll their eyes at our enthusiasm, and head downstairs, chatting along with everyone else who appears to find this fun.

After hunting down five different clues, we eventually find a folded-up paper labelled ‘Last Clue’ that points us in the direction of Rugby Road in front of Smuts. We head outside, passing a group of girls retrieving a note stuck to the warden’s car and another group of girls huddled around the receptionist’s window. They look at us, then start running. And whether this is officially a competition or not, we all want to be the first to get to the end, so we start running too. Past mem stone and down the steps. It would be enough to terrify any sane person, this hoard of girls giggling and shrieking as they run towards a parked car with a white X painted onto the windscreen.

Carmen reaches the car first and lets out a whoop of joy. The rest of us crowd around her a second later. All the car windows are down, and we peer inside and find bags of marshmallows and slabs of chocolate covering the seats. A sign stuck to the steering wheel says ‘Hot Chocolate on Jammie Steps at 8:30 pm.’

One person says, “Yum,” a second person says, “Really? Is that it?” and a third person suggests we grab all the chocolate and run before the rest of the girls get here.

Then I hear a shout from above us. I look up. Leaning out of a row of Smuts windows are a whole lot of freshmen with brightly coloured balloons in their hands. Another shout, and they all let go.

Shrieks erupt as water bombs hit the car, the road, and the pavement, exploding all over us. We run back up the road with bursting water bombs chasing us all the way. We reach the front door, and I lean against the wall, shaking with silent laughter. My hair and T-shirt are soaked from the balloon that hit my back as I ran, and the girls who hadn’t yet made it to the end of the treasure hunt stare at us from the doorway. One asks, “Do we have to do that too?”

I laugh even harder as Carmen says, “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure the water bombs weren’t part of the treasure hunt plan.”

“They most certainly were not,” one of our House Comm members says, pushing through the crowd of girls and marching towards Smuts. She doesn’t have to go far, though, because two guys from the Smuts House Comm are halfway across the parking lot, their hands already raised in surrender—although their cheeky grins suggest they’re not exactly sorry about the water bombing. She begins yelling at them about sabotaging her perfectly planned treasure hunt, and they argue that the treasure hunt was lame, and they were only trying to liven things up.

I twist my hair over my shoulder and squeeze the water from it. “I think I enjoyed being attacked by water bombs,” I say to Carmen. “How about you?”

“Eish, my hair’s gonna frizz out on me now, but aside from that, yeah. It was fun. The best part, though, is that we’re now completely within our rights to retaliate.”

“Oh yes. You’re right. Any ideas?”

“We should put evil clown masks on and hide in their rooms and jump out after they’ve gone to bed.”

I blink at her. “You’re a little bit scary, you know that?”

“I’ve been told.”

“Please remind me never to get on your bad side, because I don’t think—”

“Hey, Andi?”

I look up to find Damien walking out of Fuller. “Oh, hi.” I twist some more water out of my hair and glance around to see if Charlotte’s anywhere nearby ready to attack me. “Did you get my message?”

“Yes. We need to talk.”

Most students in Smuts have one room to themselves—or half a room, if they’re unlucky enough to be sharing with someone—but as a sub-warden, Damien gets both a bedroom and a living room. His living room has a couch, a desk, a bar fridge, and a bookcase with a bicycle leaning against it and a kettle and microwave on top. Quite bare, according to my tastes, but I tend to like—as my mother calls it—an ‘overcrowded’ room.

“Uh, just make yourself at home,” Damien says, gesturing to the couch. “I’ll get you a towel.”

“Thanks.” I notice a frame on his desk housing a picture of him and Charlotte. I turn my back on it and walk to the window. No city-facing view for Damien. He gets to see the inside quad of Smuts. Below me, a guy and girl sit on the grass chatting.

“Here you go,” Damien says, tossing a towel to me.

I run it over my hair a few times before wrapping it around my shoulders and sitting down. “So did you talk to Charlotte?”

He sits on the other end of the couch with a sigh. “She broke up with me.”

“What?” I struggle with the two conflicting emotions coursing through me. Half of me grieves to know that someone I care about is hurting, while the other half rejoices that he no longer has a girlfriend. “I’m so sorry. I tried to tell her there was nothing going on—”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s actually a relief.”

“A relief?”

He nods. “I started to realise we’re not really right for each other. I spent the holidays trying to figure out what to say and how best to end it—you know, without hurting her too much—but I guess she got there before me.”

“I guess,” I say slowly. I certainly didn’t see this coming. I thought I’d probably be spending my university years the same way I spent my high school years: watching Damien with someone else.

“I mean, I obviously told her I wasn’t cheating on her,” he adds, “but she seemed intent on believing her own story.”

“Weird. How did the two of you end up dating if she isn’t really your type?”

“I suppose I didn’t know her that well.” He scratches his neck. “She’s hard-working, takes her studies seriously, but she’s also fun to be with, and I liked that about her. But I didn’t realise back then that she has a tendency to overdramatise things. It’s exhausting the way she overreacts to everything. And she gossips a lot.” He frowns. “And not in a nice way. It kinda made me feel guilty, listening to all the things she’d say about people. Especially when she kept expecting me to agree with her. Anyway. Sorry.” He shakes his head and looks up at me. “Enough about Charlotte. What about you? I haven’t seen you since … April last year? Is that when you found out about your dad and flew here to meet Livi?”

“Yes.”

“So how’s everything going? Are things okay with you and your mom now?”

Anger that wasn’t there a moment ago flashes to the surface. I push it down. “You know, I’d rather not talk about my mother.”

“Okay. Uh, are you still doing that blogging thing?”

I slide my lime green ballet pumps off so I can tuck my legs beneath me. “Vlogging. And yes, I’m still doing that.”

“And the crafts?”

“Still doing that too.”

“Awesome. I wish I were as passionate about stuff as you are. I watch your videos sometimes, you know.”

I groan and cover my face with my hands. It’s fine if thousands of other people watch my videos, but for some reason it’s embarrassing to think of Damien watching them. Probably because I care way too much about his opinion.

“Hey, don’t be silly,” he says with a laugh. “Your videos rock. I love them.” I drop my hands as he stands. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks. “Some coffee?”

“Only if you’ve got the good stuff.”

He chuckles and turns the kettle on. “Still a coffee snob, huh?”

“Always have been, always will be.”

“Sorry, I can’t help you out then. Cape Town does have some amazing coffee shops, though. I can take you to some of them if you want.”

“I’d love that.” If it’s as close as I’m going to get to a date with Damien, I’ll take it.

He spoons coffee powder into a mug, then looks up at the sound of a knock on his door. He crosses the room and pulls the door open. Standing there is Mike, the guy who waved at us earlier in the dining hall.

“Hey, um, sorry. Oh, hi, Andi.” He leans into the room to greet me. “Um, yeah.” He gives Damien an apologetic look. “I sort of locked myself out of my room again.”

“Sorry, man, I’m not on duty tonight,” Damien says, not unkindly. “Go to reception, and they’ll call the right person. He’ll have to get the bolt cutter.”

“Right, thanks. Sorry to bother you guys.”

Damien shuts the door and turns to me. “I’ve already had to cut three locks since everyone moved in. And I’m one of four sub-wardens. I don’t know how many the other guys have cut. Why can’t people just keep their keys on them instead of leaving them inside their rooms?”

I hold up my lanyard and show him the student card and room keys dangling from the end. “I find it works pretty well to hang them around my neck.”

“For you and most other students. Why can’t everyone do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Smutsmen are too cool for that.”

He shakes his head, then pours boiling water into his mug. “Would you like water?” he asks, setting the kettle down. “I’m afraid that’s the only other thing I can offer you. Or milk.”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine.” I run my finger over a seam on the couch. “So how are your parents?”

“Oh, they’re great.” Damien returns to the couch with his hands wrapped around his coffee mug, which reminds me that I’m missing the hot chocolate gathering on Jammie steps—if it’s still happening. I’d far rather be on Damien’s couch, though. “It’s only been a year since they left Joburg,” he continues, “but they’ve settled into Simon’s Town quickly and seem to be loving life there.”

“Cool. Do you see them often?”

“Every few weekends, I guess. It’s about forty-five minutes from here. In good traffic.” A ping sounds from Damien’s desk, and he gets up to fetch his phone. “Oh, great,” he says after looking at the screen. “A message from Charlotte’s cousin calling me a whole bunch of names I’d rather not say out loud.”

“Lovely.”

“Yeah.” He sits and drops the phone onto the couch between us. He tilts his head back against the wall and sighs. “Hey, can I tell you something?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“There’s actually this girl I really like.”

I sigh internally. Here it is. The reason I’ve never told Damien how I feel about him. And that reason is this: I know with complete certainty he doesn’t feel the same way about me. He’s told me about every girl he’s ever liked, and I’ve never been on the list. “Okay,” I say, trying my best to look interested.

“Her name’s Marie. She’s a third-year student in Fuller. Quieter than Charlotte, more my type. Back in first year, I tried to get to know her, but she didn’t seem interested. I don’t know, maybe I came across as too desperate,” he says with a laugh. “So I gave up trying. Then in second year, after I started dating Charlotte, Marie started paying attention to me.”

I chuckle. “That’s bad timing.”

“I know, but I think it was
because
I was dating Charlotte. As if being with someone else suddenly made her notice me.”

“Because you weren’t coming across as desperate anymore. Instead she saw you as
desirable
.”

Damien laughs into his coffee mug. “Right. Yeah. Anyway, then Marie became the target of some of Charlotte’s gossip—which was the cause of the first major fight Charlotte and I had—and Marie went back to ignoring me. But I’ve been thinking about her more and more lately.”

“Well, now that you’re single again, maybe it’ll work out between the two of you.”
Or maybe you’ll finally notice
me
.

“Maybe,” he says. “I guess we’ll see.” He puts his coffee mug on the floor, while I lean back against the couch and arrange myself into a slightly more seductive pose—as seductive as one can be while wrapped in a towel. When his eyes are on me once more, I give him a smile that’s meant to be alluring. He opens his mouth to say something, but he either changes his mind or forgets his words. He watches me with those beautiful blue-grey eyes, and maybe it’s just my silly, wishful heart, but it feels like there’s something different about—