Page 97 of Foolish Games

I don’t have anything.

I glance over my shoulder through the rain-streaked window as Billy pulls down the driveway to the black iron gate. Outside, the Darling mansion looms huge and dark, faint light spilling from a few upstairs windows. I wonder how Viv’s doing, if she’s getting shit from the people we lied to. I hope they don’t give her a hard time.

“But the rest was all fake?” Lexi asks. “You just made up that shit about her being your girlfriend?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why?” she demands.

“Because she wanted to get back at her ex,” I say. “And she’d never really date a guy like me.”

“I thought she liked us,” Lexi says, drooping back against the seat. “I thought she was my friend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” she snaps. “I tried to make her feel included every time we hung out. Now I feel super lame. All along, she was just faking it. I should have known Sebastian Swift could never keep a girl interested for more than a month.”

I wince as her words hit home. They’re all true. My friends know that. And if I’d told them the truth, they would have pointed them out sooner. Maybe that’s part of why I kept it secret. I liked hiding it. That way, I could pretend it was real, that a world existed where I could be worthy of Vivienne Delacroix, even if I’ve never had a long-term relationship and I don’t go to church every Sunday or know where my dad is.

“It’s okay, Lex,” Billy says, throwing an arm around her neck and pulling her in for a hug. “I didn’t know either.”

He scowls at me over her head as we wind along the narrow, two-lane road toward the bridge.

“It’s not okay,” Lexi says, glaring at me. “You made a fool out of me. Out of all of us.”

“Yeah,” Billy says. “You told Rob about this whole set-up, but you didn’t tell us, when we were the ones hanging out with her all the time. Guess I see how it is.”

“He’s her brother,” I point out. “We didn’t tell her friends either.”

“Yeah, because she don’t got friends besides us,” he says. “Look, I get you pretending to be her boyfriend, that’s y’all’s deal. But we didn’t agree to pretend to be her friends. We wasn’t faking, Bash. We didn’t know you were using us in your little game.”

“You didn’t have to pretend,” I point out.

“Look, I get used enough every fucking day by people on that side of town,” he says. “I didn’t think I had to worry about it from my own friends. I thought you were one of us.”

I have no defense. I lied to them, and maybe I did use them. It was never my intention, but I was so intent on making Viv look good that I did it at their expense. I had to win, to prove to myself I could do it, at the expense of everything else. They were my real friends, the ones who were supposed to last, and I threw them under the bus for a relationship that could never have lasted, even if it had been real.

Billy pulls up to my house a few minutes later, after a long stretch of tense, resentful silence. It’s not even midnight, but if this is how the year is ending, I’m not sure I want to stay up to see how the new one begins. I stumble inside and crawl into bed, not bothering to take off my damp clothes or shoes.

The next day, I go through the motions, getting the kids breakfast since Mom is still asleep after working all night. Then I crawl back under the blankets. The next few days pass in a haze. Deane crawls into bed one night and loops his skinny arms around my neck.

“Are you sick?” he whispers.

I think about Melody with her headphones on, lost in her music. I wonder if she’ll even notice I’m not making her macaroni and cheese tonight. She’ll probably be glad I’m not there to mix hamburger with it and gross her out. “I think so,” I tell my brother.

“Am I going to get it?” he asks.

“I hope you never do.” I press my lips to his forehead and smoothing out the furrows.

“I’m hungry.”

“I left the cereal on the table,” I say.

Today’s the first day I knew that once I crawled back into bed, I wouldn’t be getting up. I know I’m failing them, not taking care of them and being the man of the house like I’m supposed to. But I already knew by breakfast that today was the worst day yet, that I wouldn’t be able summon the energy to cook them dinner. I wasn’t sure if Mel could, and I didn’t want the kids to hurt themselves climbing up on the counter to get down the cereal. Guess I’ve become the kind of guy who makes six-year-olds get themselves dinner because I’m too lazy to do even that much.

For the first time since he left, I understand Dad. Because all I want to do is disappear, too.

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