Page 54 of My Fake Date With My Childhood Friend
“Hey, Mom’s wondering if you’re almost ready,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, I just need to put my hair up,” I said. I was already dressed in my new dark red dress, with white tights and black boots on. I was wearing a matching set of silver earrings, necklaces, and bracelet.
“Want some help?” He asked.
“Sure.” I spun around to face the mirror and handed him two clips. He twisted my long dark hair with practiced ease, slipping the clips perfectly into place. Mom was always busy in the mornings and Dad worked strange hours so he often wasn't awake when I went off to school, so Charlie used to do my hair for me when I was a kid.
“You look great, Penny,” he said. We made eye contact in the mirror and I smiled at him.
“Thank you. So do you.”
He was dressed in the same grey suit he wore every year and his hair was short enough that it wasn't falling in his face likeit usually did. My mom probably forced him to cut it before the party.
“Thanks,” he said with a lopsided smile. He turned me around again to face him and smoothed down the sleeves of my dress. “Are you okay? You've been down since the formal.”
“Yeah, I—” I shook my head, my voice suddenly disappearing again. That had been happening a lot lately. “It's just the fight with Alexander. I guess it's been getting me down.”
It had been more than getting me down. It was completely destroying me. In the days since my conversation with Nikki, I had gone back and forth on my decision to try to win Alexander back. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was a bad idea. We'd only embarked on this fake relationship journey because I was so hurt by Joseph cheating on me. It hadn't occurred to me that by doing this, I would be letting a new boy into my heart to break it again. Before all of this, Alexander Rigby was just a family friend who had very limited power over my feelings. Now, he held my heart in his hands. I'd once thought that risk was worth it and that was how I ended up in this situation. Could I really trust Alexander not to do the same?
“Seems like it's more than that,” Charlie said.
“We need to go, Charlie,” I said. “Mom's waiting for us, right?”
He glanced out the bedroom door. “Eh, she's probably still wrangling up the kids. We have a minute.”
“Charlie—”
“Why did you break up with him?” He interrupted. I crossed my arms and scowled.
“What makes you think I broke with him?” I snapped. Ordinarily, I'd probably be happy that he didn't immediately assume I'd been dumped, but I didn't appreciate what I knew he was suggesting: that I'd broken up with Alexander for some stupid reason and was too proud to try to get him back.
“Because I know you,” he said. “Not to mention that I could see how in love with you he was. There's no way he just broke up with you out of the blue.”
“Except that he did!”
“Don't lie to me, Penny!”
I let out a frustrated groan and buried my face in my hands.
“I don't know what you want me to tell you, Charlie!” I snapped. “He thought that I wasn't over Joseph and he broke up with me, okay?”
“And why did he think that?” Charlie pressed.
“Because Joseph showed up out of the blue and said he was still in love with me!” I took a step back and breathed deeply. “It's long and complicated, Charlie. But you know what? It was for the best, anyway. If he was going to break my heart anyway, it's better that he did it before I fell head over heels for him like I did with Joseph.”
Understanding crossed Charlie's face, and he slowly nodded.
“So, that's what this is about,” he said. “You're scared Alexander is going to cheat on you like Joseph did.”
I shook my head. “No.”
But I couldn't deny it any more than that because I knew he was right. What other reason had there been for me to stop Alexander from kissing me? I wanted him and he wanted me, but all I could think about was the thousand ways he could ruin me.
“You can't put that on him, Penny,” Charlie said softly. “You can't just assume that he'll cheat.”
I sank down onto my desk chair. “I don't want to. But how can I not?”
“Because Alexander is his own person.” He sat down on my bed, across from me. “Look, Penny, everyone is going to make mistakes in their relationships. There's no getting around it. But you can't anticipate what he's going to do, especially notbased on what other boyfriends have done to you in the past. Alexander is his own person — let him make his own mistakes.”
