Best Served Fake

forty-seven // kill a fifteen-year-old

That was perhaps unfair, given that the girl was fifteen. Maybe she'd changed since last November.

But the meetings I'd had with her hadn't left a particularly favourable impression. She was judgemental and cold. She'd also ripped the head off one of my dolls when we were younger, and while I wasn't prone to grudges, I thought it spoke to her evil nature.

When Mum caught my eye through the window, she gave an apologetic grimace that said sorry for not telling you, I knew you wouldn't come if I did. And she was right; carpooling with Sophie for 8 hours would have driven me to drastic measures, up to and including cutting off limbs.

"Why?" Kai asked.

"The girl is evil," I hissed.

Kai peered through the car window at Sophie. She flickered an uninterested look back at him, and then scrunched her nose as if disgusted at what she saw, and looked away. Kai grinned at my obvious agitation. "I'm sure she's fine."

"I liked Sydney and Tommy, and I think she's insufferable."

Kai winced. "Yikes."

"I know," I moaned, even as Mum beeped the horn demandingly, urging me to hurry up. "So, kill me. Please."

"Couldn't do that," said Kai cheerfully, kissing the top of my head, even as I pouted up at him. He traced my cheekbone with his finger. "Survive two weeks and come back to me, hey?"

I didn't want to say goodbye to him. I wanted to live and die in that little room on the top floor of his brother's house, and never come out again. It was a relationship forged for the sake of appearances, for other people, and now all I wanted was to greedily horde him for me and me alone.

"Fine," I mumbled.

"Goodbye, Little Valerie," he said. "I'll see you in two weeks."

I didn't say goodbye in return, because I could hardly bare it. I was being ridiculous—two weeks was nothing, and I could call and text him–but I would miss him all the same. Instead, I turned away and hopped down the porch stairs, climbing into the backseat of the car without looking back.

"So," Mum said, when I shut the door. She kept her eyes forward as she pulled out of the driveway, but I saw the lifted corner of her lips. "How did it go?"

"Oh, it was fine," I said lightly, thinking of all the things that were a whole lot more than fine. The only fine thing about the weekend was Kai Delaney in a suit, and that wasn't the kind of casual fine my tone implied.

"Who was that?" Sophie demanded.

I gritted my teeth. So, not different then. Hi to you as well, Sophie. Mum didn't bother to intervene when Sophie's rudeness came to the forefront; all she did was tell me that Sophie had had a hard life, but she never deigned to share the details with me. So I was disinclined to forgive and forget her continual bad manners.

"Hi, Sophie. That was Kai," I explained. I didn't want to share the news with my mother in front of Sophie. I didn't know how she would attempt to overshadow my excitement, but I was certain she would have something rude to say. "We go to school together."

"Huh." Sophie tilted her head contemplatively. "He's very good looking."

I hummed in assent, and Sophie didn't bother to ask me anything else.

Mum felt the need to make pleasant conversation with Sophie—being an adult meant that you were forced to be kind to even the bitchiest of teenagers—though Sophie was at least polite to her. I only half-listened to Sophie's monosyllabic answers about her classes or her new baby brother, instead taking the time to respond to the text messages I'd received in the past 24 hours, when I'd been too wrapped up in Kai check.