𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚎; 𝚓𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚗 𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚕𝚎𝚛

𝐱𝐱𝐯𝐢𝐢. 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭

Jaden

"hey Jae," she coos, her voice sickeningly sweetly.

the nickname sounds so weird coming from her mouth. It's almost like the name belongs to Cora at this point, and I feel guilty knowing someone else is using it. Especially when that someone is my ex girlfriend.

"uh hey Mads," I say awkwardly.

Taking no notice of the hesitation in my voice, she continues, "so I was wondering if you wanted to go grab lunch right now?"

"as friends, right?"

she frowns slightly as my words, but quickly replaces it with a smile.

a fake smile.

it's nothing compared to Cora's genuine one.

"If that's what you want. But I have a feeling it won't be as friends for much longer," she winks at me.

I roll my eyes slightly, trying to send the message that I'm not interested. In case she didn't realize the last 50 times I rejected her advances over the past week alone.

I meant what I said to Cora.

I think.

"Great, so wanna go now?"

•~•~•~•~•

to my surprise, lunch was actually pretty fun. About halfway through the meal, Mads finally dropped the fake act she always puts on around others, and started acting more like the Mads I knew before.

before she dropped me without saying anything.

"I dare you to drink the cup of mustard with a straw," she grins mischievously at me and holds up her phone to record me.

"I just want everyone to know that Mads made me do this," I say to the camera before sucking up the yellow liquid. Within seconds I'm draining the water in my glass, in a hurry to lose the horrid taste in my mouth. She's giggling now, the camera still pointed at my face. "Stoppp," I whine.

She stops recording and types something up on her screen, probably posting it to her story or something.

oh shit.

her story.

Cora.

"Uh, Mads-" I'm cut off by a notification from my phone.

madslewis just tagged you in a story!

too late.

"yeah?"
"oh, nothing"

We both lapse into silence, finishing up the last of our meals. I spy several people attempting to subtly take pictures of us, but I ignore them. Even if I'd made her delete the picture from her story, thousands of people would've already seen it. There's no point in hiding what would've been known anyways.

It's not like we're on a date or anything. This should be easy to clear up, and I know Cora won't jump to conclusions without talking to me first.