Page 21 of The Pretender

She turns and catches my eye. “The neighbor.”

I scoff. “How much have you had to drink?”

Shutting the drawer, she jumps on the bed next to me. “I think you have a secret.”

I laugh and push my arms through the shirt. “Trust me, I don’t have a secret.”

“You have a secret,” she challenges. “I just don’t understand why you won’t tell me.” Her voice is soft and a little sad. It makes me feel like complete dog shit.

“Come on, Asp. Don’t force me to tell you.”

Aspen has been my big sister all my life. I can’t stand to withhold something from her, but I just can’t tell her about me and Sebastian. She thinks we were secretly dating, but we weren’t. He didn’t get mad at my bathing suit because he was jealous. He was lashing out at me because of what Malcolm said about his video. Sebastian hates me. I’m the reason his videos aren’t doing well. Granted, I never aired the last prank, so no one really knows why we stopped pranking each other, but we became internet famous together because of those pranks. We lived our fifteen minutes of fame and now it’s over. He just hasn’t accepted it yet.

Aspen sighs, and after a moment, lies back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. I follow suit. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to move on?” she says softly.

“From what?” I roll over and face her. She’s still looking at the ceiling.

“Loving them.”

Oh.

I roll back over and join her in staring at the ceiling. “I don’t love Sebastian,” I admit. “Our situation isn’t the same as yours and Bennett’s.”

We’re quiet for a moment as the party rages on outside. And then finally, she whispers, “Maintaining the denial is the hardest part.”

CHAPTERSIX

Sebastian

University CamFlix Competition Submission

Entry Number: 75

Sebastian and Valentina

First Interview Continued, also known as another fifteen minutes of torture

“So you what? Sang with her?”

Poor Tom is so confused. It’s okay, Vee was too until her comments started blowing up while she was live-streaming her video. The weirdo actually thought only a handful of people would see her belting out that heart going on song. Newsflash, it’s the internet, where privacy is nonexistent and public humiliation is gold.

I scrunch my face and level Tom with a bored look. “Hell no, I didn’t sing with her.”

I nudge Vee in the side. She’s stiff and tense, so I pull her close and give her a fake boyfriend squeeze before adding, “I stood behind her and put my arms out like the guy did in the movie and mouthed “watermelon” until she realized I was behind her. Which took a while. Had the comments from people laughing not started chiming, we probably could have gotten through the whole song."

* * *

Two thingsI wanted out of my college experience: fame and more fame.

This clusterfuck of a conversation is neither of those things.

“All I’m saying is, it wasn’t that funny.”

I eye Rowan with something like disbelief. Or is that malice?

“It was just lame pick-up lines.”

The playing cards clenched in my hands bend inward. “They weren’t just pick-up lines,” I argue. “They were the best of the best in cheesy lines.”

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