Best Served Fake

fifty // unwilling ghost

I frowned and resisted the urge to make a Cora-core joke, but it felt a little bit mean when we were technically fighting. "Why would you have been mad in the first place?"

"Oh, I hate being left out," said Jameson, matter-of-fact. "Especially when it's a plan all about fucking over Aster and Collins, who I hate as much as I hate being left out."

"So, you don't think it's stupid and embarrassing and the clincher for dumping me as a friend harder than Kai has dumped me as..." Well, I didn't want to say girlfriend, because that was a double dose of humiliation "...whatever we were?"

That made Jamie scoff, but it was maybe the first time I saw any sincerity to Jameson Miller. He took one of my hands, in a way that would have felt ridiculous from someone who didn't have the air and presence of a nineteenth century duke. "It's absolutely stupid and embarrassing, and it makes me want to be your friend so much more."

I threw my arms around him, and he was startled enough to fall halfway off the bed, until I was lying practically on top of him. I didn't care; if there was one thing I feared almost as deeply as losing Kai, it was losing the friends I'd made through our connection. Will and Seb and Isabelle and, most importantly, Jamie, who made me laugh even when things were absolutely shit.

Jameson didn't mind the floor either, it seemed, even as I pushed off him. He just lay back on the plush carpet, arms folded behind his head and a shit-eating grin on his face. "Darling, I understand that your method of coping with heartbreak has been latching onto a nearby hottie and making them your fake boyfriend, but alas, I couldn't do that to Kai. And Madeleine would cut off my balls, and I'm quite fond of them. Which is a shame, really because you're almost as hot as me—"

"Madi would cut off your balls?" I interrupted, before Jamie could launch into a tirade of self-compliments. "I thought you guys were casual and seeing other people, or whatever hot, fun people do in situationships."

"We are, but the balls thing is exactly why I love Madeleine," said Jameson, wistfully. "She's so charmingly vengeful."

I raised an eyebrow. "You love Madi?"

Jameson seemed surprised that I'd ask. "Of course I do. I would never be friends with anyone who I didn't love, and I would never hook up with someone more than once if we weren't friends. I have a code, Valerie."

"You are confusing."

"More confusing than Kai?"

"No." I had to talk to him. Surely he was planning on letting me. He wasn't, couldn't be, expecting me to simply proceed with my life, never having the breakdown of what I was certain we had explained to me. "I just can't think of a single reason why he won't fucking talk to me."

"I'll try and ask him again. But we've affirmed that he's an idiot."

I sighed, and slumped back on my bed. "Sure, but usually an articulate one."

Jamie considered this for a moment. "Not always. There's lots of things Kai doesn't like to talk about."

Kai was chatty. Not to the extent of Jamie or Cole, but for a teenage guy, he was unexpectedly articulate, and was never content to sit silently in a conversation. It was one of the things I liked most about him. But there had always been one topic that he avoided more than the others; one topic that was only brought forth when it felt like he had no choice, as if she was a dam within him that he had to gently release, lest it overflooded and collapsed beneath the weight of so many unsaid things.

"Do you mean Maria?" I asked.

Jamie nodded.

I twined my fingers together, so tightly my knuckles bleached white. "I keep wondering whether she has something to do with this, but then I tell myself I'm being stupid. Like there's no grand explanation, and maybe he just doesn't like me as much as I thought he did. But I felt... I feel like he does. I think I'm just looking for any reason other than me, and Maria seems to be the source of all Kai's problems. What do you think?"