Page 67 of Fake It Till You Break It
“What?”
“You broke her heart, dude. You made her fall in love with you, and then you broke it.”
“Nothing’s going on between us,” I said firmly. “We were just pretending to date so Mom and Mrs. Le would stop hounding us. It wasn’t real. And now it’s over.”
“Mia didn’t go behind your back with the intention of betraying you. She did all of this to help you. To make you happy. Just think of it this way, if she didn’t care about you, then she wouldn’t have even bothered.”
When I didn’t respond, Finn rolled his eyes and pushed past me toward the kitchen table to grab his laptop. “Damn it, I can even prove it. In every single email, all she talks about is you and how great you are. And how she just wishes you could be happy. Look, I don’t know anything about your relationship or fake relationship or whatever the heck you two had going on, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she is head over heels in love with you for real.”
I knew he was just baiting me, but I couldn’t help asking. “Really?” But before he could answer, I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now. She shouldn’t have emailed you in the first place. Should have just kept her nose out of it. Not like I believe anything you say anyway.”
“You don’t need to believe me. You can see for yourself.” He shoved the open laptop into my chest. “Just read Mia’s emails, and then we’ll talk some more, you big baby. Once you know the whole story. And if you still want to yell at me, then that’s fine, but onlyafteryou read her emails.”
EMAILS
Hi, Finn!
The cruise ship sounds like a magical place. Maybe someday Mom and I will be able to go. It’ll be especially great if we could also get a discount. I don’t know if you’ll be able to pull any strings, but if you could, then definitely count us in! I mean, yeah, I got sick a few times when Mom’s ex would take Jake and me fishing, but I’m sure I’ll be fine on the cruise ship.
I didn’t know that you kept in touch with Mrs. Adler. Jake never mentioned it to me, but maybe he doesn’t know, either. Actually, I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t. I know that Jake and your mom don’t talk about you very much. He doesn’treally talk about you to any of us, but I could tell that he thinks about you. Sometimes he would drum his fingers on the dinner table like you used to do back then. I don’t think he realizes that he does, but I noticed that he started doing it after you left. It was really annoying at first, but after a while, you get used to it.
To be honest, it was pretty rough around here after you left. Mom took Mrs. Adler out every day to keep her busy, but Jake… well, he just stayed inside and watched TV all day long. It didn’t matter what was on. Game shows. News. Cartoons. He would just stare blankly at the screen for hours. Didn’t even clean up the chip crumbs off of the couch. I swear, he didn’t even change for a couple of days. I’d never seen him like that before.
After a few days, I had to pretend that Mom sent me to your house every day just to keep an eye on him. Plus… I didn’t want him to be alone.
Look, I don’t know what your reason for leaving is, and I’m not going to ask. All I want to know is if you’ll ever be coming back. Because you’re missing out on being in Jake’s life. And I would kill you if you ever told anyone this, but he’s a pretty awesome person to get to know.
Plus, we just got this new bubble tea place that opened up right next to Royal House. Jake and I just went there after dim sum, and it’s really delicious. You should really come try it out. My treat.
—Mia
Hey, Mr. Superstar,
The YouTube videos of your performance last month were great! Somehow you look different, but still exactly the same. Guess two years away from home can do that to you. I, however, look completely different now even though I haven’t left Texas and am way prettier than before. Seriously. If you want to see for yourself, then just hop home to check!
Jake has been basically the same. Home. School. Work. So the usual. We went to eat dinner and watched a movie earlier today with a couple of friends. I know, how exciting, right?
Although there’s this music festival thing next week that Rose has been trying to get Jake to perform at, but he still won’t go. He claims thathe’s not interested in music anymore, but I could tell that’s a bunch of crap. How can someone with so much talent like him just not care? Don’t tell him this, but I still watch your old videos singing together online sometimes. His voice soothes me.
I think he’s honestly just scared of trying. It doesn’t matter if I know he’ll be awesome. I hope you don’t mind, but I sent him the videos of you singing on the cruise ship. Just to see if it would spark something in him. He didn’t say anything to me about it, but he also didn’t yell at me, either, so I’d consider that a huge success! I’ll try to talk to him a bit more about performing.
—Mia
Hey,
I just wanted to write you a quick email and let you know that Jake decided to perform at the festival after all! Isn’t that awesome?
I’m actually getting ready now so he can come pick me up so we can head out. I’m not sure exactly what changed his mind. Could be your videos or could be my pushing, but who knows?(Although I’m pretty sure it’s all me.) I’m just glad that he’s actually giving it a shot. He deserves to be happy. Plus, he’s super talented, so there’s no reason that he should hide it from the world. Everyone will love him.
Anyway, I’ll try to record the performance and send it to you later tonight!
—Mia
I READ THROUGH ALLthe emails over and over for the next hour. Lingered over every word. Every paragraph.
I could almost imagine Mia sitting on her bed as she wrote each email. Her legs crossed as her face scrunched up in concentration. Probably had a bag of chips on the nightstand next to her to munch on.
Finn was still sitting in the kitchen when I came back down, this time sipping a can of soy milk Mom got from the Asian market with Mrs. Le last week. There was a smug smile on his face as he watched me. “So?”
