Page 14 of Gilded Fake

If I didn’t, you’d accuse me of not caring if you went through with it.

I don’t say that, either. No matter what I say, it’ll be the wrong thing. I can’t just forgive her when she says sorry, because she doesn’t want forgiveness or even absolution. She wants guilt. She wants an apology for making her feel bad enough to apologize. I can’t fight Dixie because she has all the answers, and I can’t fight knowledge with ignorance.

“Let’s just go.”

“But we didn’t get ice cream.”

I grit my teeth and take a breath. Of course she’s going to drag me back in there, and I’ll apologize to Florence and act like I’m not fucking mortified by my girlfriend’s behavior, and Florence will give me grace because she’s a southern lady, even if she’d die before admitting it. And we’ll sit there and eat, and I’ll feel everyone watching, but I’ll pretend I don’t, and everyone will spare my dignity by not bringing it up. And Dixie will have her ice cream, satisfied that she won, like she does every goddamn time because I don’t have a defense strong enough to combat the weapon she calls love.

“Not feeling it anymore,” I say. “But go get yourself something if you want it.”

I pull out my wallet and hand her a twenty, then walk away to the sound of her protests. She charges after me. “I’m not going in alone,” she huffs. “Everyone in there saw us on a date. What will they think if I go back without you?”

“They won’t think anything,” I say. “They all know we’re fighting.”

“What does that mean?”

I sigh and climb into my truck, closing my eyes and laying my head back on the headrest, hoping I’ll have two seconds while she goes around to get in her side.

Instead, she stands in my open door, blocking me from closing it and planting a hand on her hip as she looks up at me expectantly.

“It means we weren’t subtle.”

“Are you saying I’m tacky?” she asks. “Is that it? You don’t want to be seen with me now because you’re popular again and I’m still fat?”

“I’m saying you know how to get attention when you want it,” I say. “And for the last fucking time, I’ve never cared what you look like.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have let you back in the elite circle,” she says, lifting her chin and giving me a haughty look. “You know, I could have stopped that. I was queen already, without even sitting at that table. If I hadn’t made sure you sat at the founders’ table every day, you’d still be a nobody sitting at the rebel table. You wouldn’t be a king again if I hadn’t made it happen.”

“Then why did you?” I ask, not opening my eyes.

“Because you deserved that,” she says. “After all you’ve been through. We deserve it. You’ve been a king before, and I was queen. But we deserve to be king and queen together, to win prom and be officially crowned, so the whole school knows it.”

“Prom?” I ask incredulously, lifting my head to stare at her. “That’s what this is about?”

“Part of it,” she admits. “Don’t you want that? You never won, even back when you were on top. Now you can.”

“Unbelievable,” I mutter.

It shouldn’t be. Dixie’s been obsessed with that since she was a freshman, and back then, when that kind of thing seemed important, I wanted it for her too. I thought about how happy she’d be, and when she said a girl like her would never win, I told her that wasn’t true, and I hoped I was right. Now it seems so insignificant, even ridiculous, to care about a plastic tiara when people in school are being raped and beaten. But then, those things never touched Dixie’s little bubble of blissful ignorance.

She may not have been crowned at the fucking prom, but she’s always been on top, above even the queen. The queen still answers to the people, after all. Dixie answers to no one.

Suddenly, I hate her for it.

She’s still screeching at me for my comment, but I’ve switched off. All I can feel is the spear of need jabbing into me with each shrill word that jabs into my eardrums. The craving hits like a wrench hooking into my gut, the pull so hard it threatens to drag me out of the car and across the world if that’s what it would take to find relief. I know it won’t fade until I take one of the half-dozen pills remaining, not enough to get me through the rest of the day if we keep fighting like this. Reaching into my pocket, I finger the little tin where I keep them, but I resist because I want to be clearheaded when I do this—as clearheaded as a guy sucking down a dozen high dosage prescription painkillers a day can get, anyway.

I know I should cut back, but every stressor has me itching for them, and life seems to be nothing but stressors lately. I miss my lunch breaks under the bleachers, where I had a haven of calm to myself, the freedom of ostracism that I told Gloria I’d trade her in a moment. Ironically, now I have, and I understand the sadness in her the night when she said she envied me, inside this very building, when we snuck in to get root beer floats.

“This isn’t working,” I say, cutting off Dixie mid-squawk.

“What?” she asks, her eyes wide as she stumbles back like I pushed her. Until a few months ago, I’d have believed I hurt her, but the more we’re together and the closer we become, the more I see through it. Now, I can’t help but wonder if she’s putting on a show for the car pulling up, trying to make it look like I laid hands on her.

“I just need some space,” I say. “I can’t be with you every day, Dixie. It’s too much.”

She blinks at me in disbelief. “Seeing me every day is too much?”

“It’s not about you,” I say. “I’m just not that kind of guy. I need room to breathe.”

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