Page 13 of Gilded Fake

“Embarrassing myself?” she shrieks.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mutter, then turn to Florence. “I’m sorry. We’ll leave.”

I give her a nod, then turn and stalk out, Dixie on my heel, hounding me the whole way. “Oh, so you’ll apologize to random people in stores, but not to your own girlfriend? I’m sorry I’m not good enough for you, Colt. I’m sorry I’m so embarrassing to you.”

In the parking lot, I turn back to her. “I apologize to you fifty fucking times a day, Dixie. I’ve said I’m sorry so many times I’m starting to think that’s my name. And in case you’ve forgotten, you chose this. I tried to set you free, and you didn’t want it.”

Now I know why I tried to end it for good last year. I left her because I wanted Lo.

It seems impossible. I got tattoos on my arms for Gloria Fucking Walton, the demon queen, the stuff of nightmares, the girl of my wildest fucking dreams. I don’t know whether I hate her or Dixie more.

“Because I love you,” Dixie cries, her eyes wide. I believed it for years, every time she said those words. But now I watch her not blinking until her eyes start to water, like she did in the café with Harper that day. I’m onto her now, the way she can make herself cry to manipulate me, and I wonder in what other ways she’s tricked me.

“That’s not love,” I say. “It’s control.”

“What?” she asks, blinking a tear onto her lashes, giving me her signature wounded look. How did I not see it before? It’s all fake, as manufactured as Gloria Walton’s diamond exterior. But instead of playing the villain, Dixie plays the victim.

“Is that why you really wanted to come here?” I ask. “Because it’s always busy, and this way you get to look like the victim in public? I mean, you’ve already fooled me for so long it must get boring. I hardly blame you for wanting a challenge. Fooling the whole world must be so much more satisfying than just some dumbass who never suspected you.”

“Suspected me?” she asks, her lip trembling. “What are you accusing me of? I’m not allowed to say I love you now?”

“When you say you love someone to guilt them into doing what you want, that’s not love,” I say. “When you say you love someone so much you’ll kill yourself if they don’t stay, that’s not love.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I don’t know what to believe,” I say, raking a hand through my hair. Pieces are falling into place, things I never saw because I kept a distance between us until the accident, and I couldn’t remember what happened right before. Maybe it wasn’t about Gloria at all. Maybe I found out something, and that’s why I dumped Dixie. Maybe she just said it was about another girl so I wouldn’t look too closely at her.

She was allowed to run her blog for three years with no interference from the kings of the school. They even fed her information to post. What did she give them in return?

I’m such a fucking dumbass. When you’re being watched, and your stalker suddenly gives you a gift, only an idiot wouldn’t look to see if it was bugged.

“You’re the one who doesn’t know what love is, Colt,” she says, swiping at her cheeks. “You obviously don’t love me, even after everything I’ve done for you. Maybe you don’t know how. Maybe you’re incapable of love.”

I think about shivering in a sleeping bag on the floor of Grandpa’s treehouse, telling Destiny we should take off our clothes to get warm. And how it felt like a dream when she giggled and agreed, how it felt like a miracle every time she said yes. I think about how wild and sexy I thought she was when she asked me to fuck her with another guy, and how confident when she offered to let me choose another girl to join us to make it even. How every time she linked her fingers through mine in front of our friends, I was filled with pride, and gratitude, and awe.

“Maybe,” I concede, looking away from Dixie’s tearstained face.

I was fourteen, for fuck’s sake. What did I know? Nothing. I was just thankful to get my dick wet. I probably would have called it love no matter who it was. It’s been so long I sometimes think I made it all up, the way I thought I did the fantasies of Gloria Walton. The year with Destiny is a rose-colored memory that looks better than what it was because everything that came after is seen through the shit-smeared lenses the Dolces shoved over my eyes.

“It’s not your fault,” Dixie says, wrapping her arms around me and pressing her cheek to my chest. “I mean, look at your parents. They both cheated on their marriages, or you’d never have been born. And your mom didn’t even love you enough to stick around when the Dolces targeted you. But I’m here, Colt. Even if you didn’t have a good example from your parents, you have me. I can show you.”

I feel myself sinking into the sludge of her quicksand logic, getting lost in the maze of her words and my own broken brain where I’ve been searching for answers in the dark for so long that every glimmer of hope looks like the truth, the way out.

“Do I have a choice?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” she asks. “This is what love looks like, Colt. You said it yourself. Doing anything to be with the person you love. I’ve been doing that for almost four years. Don’t you think I know what love is better than anyone?”

“I don’t know, Dixie,” I say. “Are you going to threaten to commit suicide if I don’t go home with you and let you show me?”

She releases me and steps back, and I hate myself for the relief I feel, like I can breathe again now that she’s not wrapped around me, smothering me in her inescapable grip.

“I told you I was sorry,” she says, pouting. “When are you going to stop throwing that in my face?”

When you stop throwing your love in mine, I think, but I don’t say it because I’m done with the constant arguments. I just want some peace, and maybe the goddamn truth for once.

“Kinda hard to forget your girlfriend saying she’s going to kill herself.”

“I told you I didn’t mean it,” she says. “Everyone says stuff like that when they’re fighting. Why do you keep bringing it up?”

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