Page 46 of Caught in a Bad Fauxmance
“Wait, what?” I prop myself up on the handlebars, arms trembling to hold myself and the bike upright.
“Don’t come tomorrow. I’ll figure something out to tell my dad.” He brushes me off like a speck of dirt on his designer jeans, as if I haven’t spent the entire day working myself to the brink of exhaustion hundreds of times over.
“Are you serious?! We put my sanity, and an innocent puppy’s life, at risk, and now it’s just ‘eh, who cares, we’ll make something up’? Where was this energy this morning?!” I’m exhausted, we wasted an entire day I could’ve spent working on a new application piece, and I’m tired of looking at a puzzle I can’t solve.
“I’m sorry,” Julian mumbles, and even when he’s looking at the ground instead of me, his voice is so gentle that the sentiment still feels sincere.
“So, what? We brainstorm an excuse for bailing on the hike and that’s it?” If we’re officially giving up, I might as well stop wasting my energy on standing up. I toss the bike onto its side and flop onto a nearby bench, grateful to finally be off my feet.
“I can come up with something on my own.”
As if. Julian’s too much of a Mary Sue to jaywalk without feeling guilty.
But it turns out I’m at my wits’ end too. “All right, fine.” I slap my hands down on the bench with force I didn’t know I had left in me. “Then why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you so much?”
Julian blinks up at me like a startled fawn, looking so much like the chubby-cheeked boy I remember that it feels like I’ve been pulled into a memory.
“M’not—”
“You are,” I insist before he can finish. “You’ve been acting super weird.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please stop saying you’re sorry,” I plead, pressing my palms together. “I know I’m not exactly your favorite personin the world, but just talk to me.” The wordsyou can trust mesit on the tip of my tongue, but I push them down.
Julian sucks his teeth, kicking at the ground in an uncharacteristically childish move. “We should both go home,” he replies bitterly before turning on his heels and walking away.
Ohhellno. One doesn’t just turn down a moment of compassion from Devin Báez, king of social ineptitude with an emotional IQ score of “broom.” I push through the staggering pain in my joints to march right into Julian’s path.
“We’re walking home together, then.”
“We don’t have to.” Julian tries to step around me, but I block him. A taste of his own medicine.
“Yes, we do. We’re neighbors.”
With a sigh, he realizes he literally can’t escape me.
“I have errands to run first.” He’s as bad at lying as I am at riding bikes.
“Great, then I’m coming with you.” I flash him a smile before heading over to the bike, picking it up, and wheeling it back to him. He stays rooted in place, so I ring the bike’s bell to get him going.
“Go home, Devin.”
“No.” I punctuate the statement with another ring of the bell.
“Can you please not be pushy and annoying for five seconds?” Julian shouts, startling the elderly woman across the street.
It’s another flash of the old Julian, the one who can’t stand to be around me. It stings, as stupid as that may sound, to see Julian slip into his old role. The house of cards we’ve built wobbles, but I won’t let it fall down. Not yet.
“Sure. I can be quiet instead.” I ring the bell one last time.
Julian exhales slowly, his chin dropping to his chest. “I’m not going home,” he confesses, words lost to the blare of a nearby car horn.
“What?”
“I don’t want to go home,” he repeats, louder this time.
My instinct is to ask why, but the question dies on my lips. “Then let’s walk.” I push the bike past Julian, looking back at him when he doesn’t move. “Are you coming or not?”
