Page 52 of Fake It 'til You Make It

‘Ted, don’t be like this,’ she says, startling me as I chug down cold soda, the fizz catching in my throat.

I notice now that she’s wearing her Burberry raincoat – one she was gifted as part of a magazine shoot, one I used to think looked sexy on her. Every time she wore it, I’d wonder what the heck she was doing with just some guy like me.

Now, I think she’d be better suited to a brothel in that coat and those red-soled high heels.

Is just some guy like me so bad? I guess it is, otherwise I might not be leading Abbey to believe that I’m someone else.

I plant my can down on the countertop. It lands with a thud that’s unintentional and draws Fleur’s gaze from me to the can.

‘This isn’t like you, Teddy Bear. It doesn’t suit you.’ She takes a step closer, so close her usual perfume is nauseating – at least Ithink that’s what has my stomach feeling like a spinning pinwheel of death.

‘How exactly do you want me to behave, Fleur? You act like this is just one of life’s little happenings, as if it’s normal or okay to do to people what you’ve done to me.’

‘I’m sorry. I am. I’m sorry that we hurt you. Is that what you want to hear? Is that what you’re waiting for to stop running away?’ She slaps her hands against her thighs, as if she’s the one who should be incensed.

Has she always been this cold? This… narcissistic?

I think my predominant emotion is anger and so I’m going with the fact that feeling so enraged is making my eyes sting but honestly, I’m all over the place here; it could be any of a colossal dump of emotions going on in my head.

I can’t believe my vision is clouding. It makes me madder. Mad at myself, at how pathetic I’m being. I think of Abbey, her red eyes and tear-stained cheeks after meeting Andrew’s new girlfriend. Was she sad or angry?

Shaking my head, I walk away because I won’t show her. Here I am thinking I’m about to melt down and she’s being as facetious as I’ve ever known her.

‘No,’ I manage, I hope hiding the weakness I feel from my voice. ‘What I want to hear is why? When? For how long? Where?’

Please don’t letwherebe our bed.

‘Does it matter?’

‘I think it does,’ I say, maybe more to myself than Fleur, moving to stare at the East River from the lounge window. ‘I don’t want to hear it but I need to know how deep the deceit runs.’

‘Don’t use words like that,’ she says, close behind me. ‘You make it sound?—’

‘Clandestine? Illicit? Adulterous? Faithless? Sordid?’ Thewords leave me calmly, I guess passive aggressively, which is not the kind of person I want to be; it’s someone Fleur and Roman are making me be. I didn’t ask for any of this. But I know there are two sides to every story… ‘What did I do, Fleur? What was so bad that you wanted to get out?’

I turn to face her and I’m caught off-guard by her glazed eyes. Crying?She’scrying?

Now the biggest betrayal in the room is coming from my own heart. I can’t bear to see her cry. That’s how I know, beneath all the animosity, I still have feelings for her.

Instinctively, I want to hold her, to kiss her hair and tell her everything is going to be okay.

But it isn’t. It can’t be.

I rub my hands roughly across my face and through my hair in frustration. Fleur comes to sit on the sofa and I take tissues from a box on the coffee table and hand them to her.

She looks up to me as she takes the tissues, wearing an expression I’ve seen every time I’ve comforted her because she hasn’t been cast for a job, or something negative has been said about her on social media.

Are these just the same tears? Is the end of our relationship the same as being trolled to her?

Argh, none of this makes sense.I don’t know what I was expecting, whenever I saw her again; maybe I knew it would be a big mess of conflicted emotions and that’s why I was still hiding here, in Mike’s apartment, the entire country between us. That’s why I’m desperate to pose as someone else and run to Canada with Abbey.

My thoughts feel heavy and my body weak as I come to sit on the coffee table, facing Fleur, our knees grazing until I shuffle my legs back. I can’t touch her.

Two weeks ago, I was able to touch her, I wanted to touch her, our world was fine. Then…

‘Can we try again?’ Fleur sniffs, looking me in the eyes and stilling my heart.

Yes. No. Of course not. Because as I blink, I see her and Roman in his office, limbs naked, wrapped around each other, bound to each other.No.

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