Exotic

~ head held high ~

Lauren and I broke up the next day.

Rather, I told her to break up with me.

just tell them i'm too good for you.

I'd managed to avoid a conversation with Reece by setting an alarm and ducking out of the house at the crack of dawn. Five hours of sleep a night was not sustainable, but I didn't regret going out the night before. I was positive jittery with anticipation for Saturday, but seeing Aaron's car parked to school just reminded me that he wasn't speaking to me, not until I broke up with Lauren.

I weighed up the pros and cons in my head.

Pros; while I was dating Lauren, it wasn't weird for Caleb and me to been seen together. I could get lifts from him and talk to him and have dinner at his house with a perfect cover story.

Cons; contrary to what I'd thought, 'dating' Lauren hadn't gotten Reece off my back. He was watching me even closer, hung up on the theory that I was sleeping around town. It had upset Aaron. Finally, it made me feel pathetic to hide behind Lauren to avoid questions. I'd always thought I was the kind of person brave enough to not deny my sexuality if asked point-blank, but suddenly I was fake-dating a girl to avoid it coming up.

Besides, dating Lauren was only exacerbating my crush on her brother. It had been a novel idea that backfired.

So, I texted her that we needed to figure something out.

She called me soon after, all business. "Let me guess. It's not me, it's you?"

I laughed easily. "You've been amazing. Really. But I'm done hiding behind you."

She hummed, audibly pleased. "Was it me who got that through your thick skull, or have you had a pep talk since?"

I liked to think I had only my own resolve to thank. I was kidding myself. "I don't know how I'll ever repay you."

"I have a few ideas," she said immediately. "But first things first. How are we going to play this?"

"At the risk of sounding completely cliché, can we say we're better off friends?"

She mused over this on her end. "Well, no one in my family seems to believe I'd be able to end a relationship amicably, so it would be nice to prove them wrong."

"Will they buy it?" I asked. "Do we need to stage a dramatic parting of ways?"

"God, one dinner with my family and you're as bad as them," she sighed. "I am not that scary. I'll tell them... with you going to university or whatever next year, and the stresses of maintaining my pristine academic record, we decided to mutually take a step back, as to not let things boil over."

"And you can sell it?" I asked.

"I could sell that I liked your dumb self enough to date you," she growled. I laughed at her, as the bell summoned me to class.

"It's been a pleasure to be your first pretend boyfriend, Lauren."

"Yeah, you were alright," I could hear her smirk. "And now you're fully available to pursue my brother, with my blessings."

I huffed in a way that was probably completely unconvincing, so I covered my tactlessness with the usual dose of sarcasm. "Thank you. Jake really grew on me."

"Dork," she accused and hung up on me with a final farewell. I walked to class with a weight lifted from my shoulders, chin held high.

Miss Riley called me up at the end of her class, her expression unreadable. She handed me my latest test, with a red 75% beaming up at me.