Page 16 of Gilded Fake

“You know what, Dixie?” I say, turning the wheel hard and gassing it when we reach the road out toward my house. “Go ahead. Pull the plug on me. What do I care about popularity? It’s not like I get anything out of it. I don’t get to play football. I don’t get to fuck any girl I want.”

“Who do you want to fuck?” she demands.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Because I don’t have the option, do I? The other guys get to choose. They have freedom. I have you.”

“I knew this was about her,” she seethes. “Go on, Colt. Tell me the truth. Who am I stopping you from fucking? Gloria Walton? Is that who this is really about?”

“It’s about you,” I say. “Like every fucking thing in the world. You’re my whole world, just like you want. Just like you were when I was no one. So what’s the fucking difference, Dixie?”

“The difference is, you have the crown now,” she says. “You have everyone’s respect and admiration. I know how much you missed that. How much you wanted it all that time.”

“Yeah, well, turns out I’m not the same person I was before. My old life is gone, and it doesn’t come back just because someone hands me my old crown. I can’t force it onto my head and pretend it never left. It doesn’t fit anymore. More accurately, I don’t fit anymore.”

“You think I fit in with your crowd?” she asks. “In case you forgot, I’m not the skinny blonde cheerleader type the elites usually go for. It’s not about fitting the mold. It’s about proving the crown can belong to anyone, no matter who they are.”

“I guess that’s where we disagree,” I say. “I have nothing to prove to those assholes or anyone else.”

“How can you just give up like that?” Dixie asks. “You finally have a chance to show them you’re still royalty, that you’re just as good as them after they humiliated you for years. How can you not take it?”

“What they think doesn’t matter to me anymore. I see who they are, what they’re about, and I know they’re not worth the effort.”

“What is wrong with you?” she demands. “You worked for years to get the crown, and now it’s yours. You can’t just walk away!”

I shrug. “Maybe they rewired my brain by bashing it in one too many times. I don’t expect you to understand. You weren’t there—not really. You were always watching from the stands, sipping lemonade, and taking notes for your gossip column. I was in the ring with them.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Isn’t it?” I ask. “You have so much fucking clout with them. They tiptoe around you like they’re walking on eggshells. You said it yourself, that you could ruin Duke. But I was the one who had to go to him and beg for the privilege of dating you, because it’s what you wanted.”

“I thought you wanted it too,” she protests.

“I thought so too.”

We drive in silence for a minute, and then she starts sniffling. I turn the car around because I know I’m not going home anytime soon. But I can’t stop the rush of thoughts spinning through my head, the terrible new ideas taking shape.

“Why didn’t you ask him?” I ask at last. “You have so much power at school. More than I have. Maybe more than they have. You could have just asked him yourself. So why didn’t you, if it meant so much to you? Why didn’t you ask him last year, or junior year, before they almost killed me?”

“I wanted you to fight for me,” she says. “For us.”

“And how did you fight for us?” I ask. “You want me to feel like shit for the things I’ve had to do for Duke to get the favors you asked for, but you never lifted a finger to help me. Not with the favors, and not for the two years before that. I didn’t expect it, and I’m not pissed about it. But if you’re going to accuse me of not putting in any effort, then tell me what you’ve done, aside from guilt-tripping me into staying.”

“I did what was best for us,” she says. “To keep us together.”

“Right,” I say slowly, turning onto the street that leads to her neighborhood. “But if we’re being honest here, then you can stop playing the poor little victim act, because you haven’t been that since the first month of freshman year. Like you said, you have the power to elevate or remove someone from the elite circle. So you could have helped me during that time, but you chose not to, because if I wasn’t exiled from the social scene, I might have chosen someone else, and you knew that. You wanted me where I was, with no options. That’s how you kept us together.”

“I wanted to be with you,” she cries. “Enough to do anything to keep you, no matter what it took. I let you put me on a leash and call me a dog. I slept with your gross cousin for you!”

“Why’d you do it, if you didn’t want to?” I ask. “So you could throw it in my face later? Every time I asked you, you said yes.”

“Because I didn’t want to lose you,” she says, swiping at her tears. “I love you, Colt.”

“Bullshit,” I say flatly. “Love isn’t a weapon for you to wield against someone.”

“You don’t think I love you?” she asks, looking stricken by the idea.

I pull into her driveway and turn to her. “You say you know what love is, and you’re going to show me, but all you’ve shown me is that you’re more conniving than Gloria fucking Walton. Even a screw-up like me knows love isn’t something for you to throw in someone’s face when you fight. It’s not a tool to manipulate and control someone to do what you want, to take away their choices so they have nothing left but you.”

For two years, the Dolces knew my ego would blind me to the truth, and I’d believe someone would risk everything for me. But I see it now. Dixie never risked anything for me—or for us. It was all for her. She was always safe, and dumbass that I am, I never asked why.

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