Page 15 of Gilded Fake

“Now I’m smothering you?” she demands.

“Yes,” I say, throwing up my hands. “What do you want me to say? Yes. That’s the truth, and I’m sorry, but I’ve never been the kind of guy who needs to be wrapped up in someone twenty-four seven. It makes me claustrophobic. I like being alone sometimes. I like doing my own thing. And I like you, Dixie, but if you want it to stay that way, you need to respect that and give me space when I need it.”

“I have respected it,” she says, her lip quivering. “I gave you space. I waited three years for us to be able to be together, so excuse me for wanting to enjoy it now that we can finally be together at school and not have to sneak around on the weekends.”

“Yeah, well, the Dolces weren’t the only reason we kept it casual,” I say.

“What?” she whispers, gaping at me.

“The Dolces may have laid down the law, but I was fine with that arrangement.”

“I knew it,” she says. “I knew you were ashamed to be seen with me.”

“Not the hiding part,” I say, holding up a hand. “I’m fine being your official boyfriend. But the rest of it worked for me.”

“Well, it didn’t work for me.”

We stare at each other a second, and then I nod, picking at the seam on the tin. I wanted to be clearheaded, but once the craving hits, I might as well have taken one, because it’s hard to think about anything else.

“Then maybe we don’t work,” I say.

“Not this again,” she says, sighing. “You don’t have to break up with me every time we fight, Colt. You said once we were officially together, you wouldn’t do that anymore.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be together at all.”

“Or maybe you could learn to compromise. That’s what adults do, and if we’re going to last, you have to do that. I’m not letting you break up with me because of some silly argument over nothing, Colt. Don’t you think you’re being just a little dramatic to walk away from four years of our love because you don’t want to watch Twilight again?”

“I didn’t even know that’s what we were arguing about,” I say, prying open the tin. I close my eyes and run the pad of my thumb over the smooth white pills like they’re my greatest treasure, more precious than diamonds. To me, they are. When has a diamond ever gotten me through a day, an hour, an argument, or a revelation that I fucked my worst enemy, and maybe she’s not the enemy at all?

“Then what were you arguing about?” Dixie asks. “I thought it was because you didn’t want to get ice cream and watch a movie on the same day.”

It sounds so simple when she says it, but it’s so much more—almost four years more. Four years of trying to fit together the same two puzzle pieces that were never meant to fit, wearing down the edges, softening the fibers, trying to morph them into something they were never meant to be. Even if we file them down until they fit, they’ll never match because we don’t match. The only thing we had in common for the last two years was that the Dolces looked the other way when we talked. Now I wonder if that was all part of her plan, something she arranged with Baron the way I arranged our official status with Duke.

I shake the thought away. I’m starting to give in to paranoia like Preston. Just because Dixie annihilated Gloria, a girl she insisted was her friend for the last two years, with a gleeful relish that reminded me of Duke and Baron combined to an unsettling degree, that doesn’t mean she’d do the same to me.

But I can’t shake my doubts. We’re closer now than we’ve ever been, and I’ve seen sides of Dixie that set me on edge and make me want to distance myself even more.

She climbs back into the truck, and I pull up to the drive-through window to order, relieved she’s not forcing me to take her inside again.

“See?” Dixie says as I pull away from Two Scoops. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

I scowl at her patronizing tone and finally give in, fishing one of the pills out of my pocket and slipping it onto my tongue. I swallow it with a gulp of root beer from my float.

“Good,” Dixie says. “I could tell you needed one of those. You were getting grumpy. Now we can go home and hang out, but not watch a movie. How’s that for the next compromise?”

“What happens if one person isn’t willing to compromise what they want for the other person?”

“That’s not an option,” she says lightly. “You got to do that for three years. Now we’re together, and you’ll just have to learn.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You will,” she says. “Like you just did. You worked too hard to get back to where you are. You finally have the status you always wanted, the attention, the visibility. You’re back in your rightful place, and I know you have too much pride to give that up, even if you miss how things used to be sometimes. It’s not easy being queen either, but I manage. It’s worth it.”

“So if I don’t do what you want, you’ll put me on blast on your blog,” I say flatly. “You’ll tell them they were right about me all along, and probably tack on some lies just for the hell of it. You won’t stop until I’m back in the gutter. Is that it?”

I pick up the float, but suddenly the thought of drinking it with this girl makes my stomach turn, and I put it back without taking a sip.

“You wouldn’t risk finding out, would you?” she asks. “You try to act like you’re all tough and rebellious now, but admit it, you enjoy the popularity as much as I do.”