Page 47 of Hard to Pretend

“What was it?” Natalie asked softly.

The question was prodding but not in a way that made me feel pressured. It was like she was urging me to expand on what had motivated me to tell such a ridiculous lie and rope someone I barely knew into it. “I felt like the dates were pity dates. I was the only single one at all of our events. It was always an odd number,” I started. Mason and Vince exchanged a look, and I could just feel their protests starting toform. “Even the two of you who like to claim you’re not actually dating show up together and spend the whole night acting like a couple. Then there I was: chronically single as you’ve all liked to point out too many times.”

My friends nodded.

“I think Mason’s blind date attempt was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“You could have just said that you weren’t interested.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve said that?” I questioned. The blank stares were all the answer I needed. “Almost every time you guys tried to set me up, I said I wasn’t interested. Then you kept pushing about it, so I’d just agree to it. There was never a spark. There was never any kind of compatibility, and I didn’t want to deal with it this time.”

“Shit,” Mason exhaled. “I’m sorry, Chris.” It took me a second for his words to register. He was sorry? The look of confusion must have been written all over my face, because he went on. “I never meant to pressure you. None of us did.”

My friends all nodded in agreement.

“We just wanted you to be happy,” Natalie whispered softly. “We didn’t mean to make you feel pressured.”

I reached across Ronnie’s lap to squeeze Natalie’s hand. I felt her small hand squeeze mine back, and our eyes met. There was more than just understandingreflected in her eyes when they met mine. There was forgiveness. It was a step in the right direction, if nothing else. I felt Ronnie’s hand on my wrist, and when I looked at him, I saw the same look in his eyes as his wife’s. I was not surprised. Ronnie tended to go with whatever Natalie wanted when it came to group affairs.

If she forgave someone, his forgiveness almost always followed immediately after.

“The original plan was to tell you guys that we broke up a few days later. Then Luce invited me to her birthday party—me and Seb.” Luce nodded. “I should have admitted the truth then, but I was embarrassed. So the new plan was to break up a week or two after the party. It was going to be an amicable breakup, one that we could still be friends after. Then Natalie told his mom about us, and we decided to reprise our roles with her so she’d stop worrying about the fact that he didn’t put himself out there enough. By then, I kind of liked him.”

“So your original plan was to keep lying? Never tell us the truth?” Mason questioned. I hated the hurt in his voice, the fact that I was the one who had put it there.

More than that, I hated the fact that he was right. My original plan had been for my friends to never find out the truth. I would have milked their sympathy, and they’d have never known that it was all fake.Looking at it from their perspective, it was kind of fucked up.

“I’m sorry.” My apology sounded different than the previous ones had sounded. It felt different too. The last apology had been genuine, but I hadn’t understood the depth of the pain I’d caused. I hadn’t realized how messed up it was that I’d been willing to lie to my friends, to milk them for sympathy, all to avoid the rotating door of blind dates and embarrassment.

It must have sounded different to my friends too. I saw the moment Luce and Mason’s facial expressions softened. I looked at River, and I saw acceptance. Natalie offered me a small smile, and Ronnie’s smile followed.

It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was a step in the right direction.

I watched as my friends exchanged glances, and finally, Luce spoke. “We’ll go to movie night.”

I let out a sigh of relief, sent a text to Seb to tell his friends, and we went back to our games.

The next day, Mason came over on his own. We talked longer, and I felt the moment it shifted to full forgiveness. Things would be okay with me and my best friend, and that gave me faith that things would be okay with the rest of my friends too.

On Sunday, Seb and I arrived at Jonas and Silas’s early. Jonas greeted us as we walked in and went back to a flurried dusting of all of the surfaces in the already immaculate apartment. “He’s nervous,” his boyfriend explained when I raised an eyebrow. “If this helps, I’m not saying shit about it.”

I chuckled, a chuckle that turned into a full belly laugh when Jonas turned around and threw his rag at his boyfriend. “Asshole,” he scolded.

“He says that with love,” Silas explained. “It’s practically a pet name at this point.”

“I wish I had something else to throw at you.”

“They’re always like this,” Seb explained. “You get used to it.”

If it worked for them, I wasn’t going to judge. My relationship was built on a lie to my best friends. If they enjoyed teasing each other as a part of their relationship, well, I hardly had the high ground. Besides, they were both smiling and laughing, so clearly it wasn’t an issue.

“What time did you tell everyone to be here?” Silas asked Seb after a little small talk. Jonas was now organizing the picture frames on a shelf, making sure they were perfectly aligned.

“I told Matt to be here at 6:15. I told Holden and Eli 6:30, and I think Chris’s friends are supposed to be here at 7:00. Figure this way, everyone’s here by 7:00, and we can start the movie.”

“Smart,” Seb mused, looking at his friend with adoration. “We should start doing that for everything we do together.”

“If you told all my friends 7:00, then they’ll all be here by 6:55 at the latest. Most of them will be here by 6:45,” I warned. My friends were notoriously early. Mason would be the one arriving only five minutes early, and that was because Vince liked to be punctual. It was their compromise. I grinned. “I bet you anything at least one of them will be parked outside by 6:30.”

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