Fuck. I was exhausted.
It's not like breaking up with girls was fun for me. Hell, nothing about this was fun. Especially when you could see the hope in their eyes and watched it slowly die when they realize I wasn't in love with them. And it wasn't even their fault.
All this futile experiment made me realize was that I wasn't going to fall in love. Ever. No surprise there. Dysfunctional should have been our family's last name instead of Archer.
Maybe it was finally time I stopped trying to force it. The fictional concept of true love. Ha. What a joke.
I ran a hand down my face, paused the song playing on my phone, and hooked my headphones around my neck. The noise from the corridors was an assault on my ears. I instantly wanted to pull them back on and get lost in the music. But I had to meet up with my girlfriend before class. And that would require a lot of listening to something other than the sounds of Greta Van Fleet.
If there was one thing Arabella loved, it was talking. She was a kind girl though, that much became clear over the past 2 weeks. She just wasn't the kind of girl for me. No one was, it seemed. My feet dragged as I made my way down the hall where I could see Arabella standing with her friend.
I stopped for a second when the sound of manic laughter nearby caught my attention.
The person laughing kept it.
Skyler Fox. The only girl in school that seemed to hate me with the burning fire of a thousand suns. And I wasn't really sure what I did to get on her naughty list. It's not like I dated her before. There had never been much interaction between us as far as I could remember, and yet if looks could kill I would have been dead a hundred times by now.
Maybe I should have been weirded out by that. But I just found it funny.
The fact that I seemed to play enough of a role in her life that she felt such strong emotions. When, for me, she was just a girl I shared a few classes with. Oh. And the girl that Lily, one of my exes, wanted to matchmake me with for some unknown reason.
I had no idea what that was about. Skyler looked like the kind of person that would rather stab herself in both eyes than date me for two weeks.
"Oh, the horror! And what will they do then? Mascara me to death? Because I have an eyeliner and I'm not afraid to use it!"
I heard her speak and had to press my lips together to stop myself from laughing. Was she getting herself into trouble? It sounded fun. More fun than I'd had lately. Every week seemed so monotonous. Tiring.
If I dated someone like her for 2 weeks, my days would probably be anything but monotonous.
Damn. That was one weird intrusive thought. Not wrong though. Probably.
I'd never find out if that was true either way because there was no way someone like Skyler Fox would ask me out.
The smile I was trying to suppress pulled up my lips as I passed by her. Unnecessarily close. Was I hoping for a reaction?
I didn't have to wait long for one. As soon as her eyes met mine, her forehead crinkled. Gaze sharpened. Did she realize how damn easy she was to read? Like an open book. Her eyes spoke a thousand words. None of them were particularly flattering. That just made it better.
While I held her gaze, I smirked and did the one thing I knew would spike her anger. I winked.
It took all my determination to keep myself from turning around when I passed her, knowing how outraged she must have looked. Before I could cave into my curiosity, Arabella waved at me. Excited and hopeful.
Shit. This was going to be a rough day.
Sighing, I threw myself into the seat next to Hunter. I folded my hand on the table and leaned my head against them.
"Not eating with your girlfriend today, Archer?" Darren asked.
"Nope."
A moment of silence. Fair. I usually tried to eat lunch with whoever I was dating, especially on the last day.
"Uh, is there a reason?" Darren followed up, confusion clear in his tone.
"Tired," I replied, not wanting to get into it.
"Oh, yeah, all these girls wanting to date you, having a new girlfriend every 2 weeks like some old billionaire dude, must be exhausting." Hunter chimed in and ruffled my hair.
I clicked my tongue and lifted my head, pulling it away from him. When he saw the menace in my eyes, he raised his hands and grinned.
"Come on man, don't give me that look. You're the one that always breaks up with them."
Yeah, okay, that might have been true but it wasn't like the breakup was the goal. I did give everyone a fair chance. The same chance, actually.
"Cause it wouldn't be right to string them along," I said and sighed, running my hand through the hair Hunter had messed up.
"Maybe..." Inna started and then pressed her lips together.
"What?" I asked, urging her to continue.
"Maybe you should, you know, consider stopping with this whole dating thing. It might give you more time for other stuff...," she said and then drifted off, biting down on her lip. "Sorry, it's not any of my business how you deal with... everything. We're just worried about you."
No one else spoke but the looks coming from them made it clear they all agreed with that. They all cared. I knew that. But they didn't understand, they couldn't understand.
"I can't stop," I said quietly, and then before any of them could interrupt, I forced a smile on my face. "I'm fine though. Just one of those days. We still on to hang tonight?"
"Yeah and this time I'm teaming up with Darren," Hunter said and crossed his arms. "I'm tired of always being on the losing team."
"Ever considered maybe you're the problem if you're always on the losing team," Inna said and raised an eyebrow. Oh damn, shots were fired. Brandon let out a strangled laugh before he pressed his hand over his mouth.
Hunter let out a gasp and pressed a hand to his chest as if he'd just been mortally wounded.
I leaned back in my seat, relieved the topic had switched to something other than my dating habits.
The fact that I was filled with so much dread over today was telling of how messed up this whole thing was getting.
It had been a year. One year of dating all these different girls and still, I felt nothing. A few times, I thought I could be friends with the person I was seeing, but there was no romantic connection. Nothing that made me want the person with that deep desperation my friends felt when they were in love.
Love wasn't real. Or, if it did exist somewhere, I wasn't cut out for it. Not the romantic kind at least. Not anymore.
I was missing the first class. On purpose. I'd even considered skipping this whole day. The day after the breakup always made me feel like I was an animal in a zoo. All the staring, the whispering, the girls asking me out. There was no one to blame but myself.
It was beginning to feel like the girls at school were seeing this as a game.
They either liked me a lot or well, at least the version of me they built up in their heads. Or they asked me out just to be able to say they spent two weeks dating Noah Archer. There was no in-between. Both situations made it hard to actually get to know the person I was dating. They either took it too seriously and gave all the answer they thought I wanted to hear. Or they seemed to see it as just superficial fun and kept their answers like that - superficial.
Maybe it really was time I stopped this. Maybe I could just hire an actress to pretend we were in love in front of my mom. The way my stomach clenched at the thought made it clear I was more than aware of how wrong that was but what other option did I have? I couldn't take the worry in her eyes anymore. The sadness she seemed to feel every time she asked me if there was a girl I liked, and the same honest answer left my lips.
Maybe it was time I started lying.
I cracked my knuckles as I approached the school building. At least I'd have a few more moments of silence before the bell rang.
At least that's what I thought until someone jumped in front of me. Shit. They were waiting for me? Clever approach. Have to give them props for that. Only when I lifted my head, the most unexpected person stared back at me.
What was Skyler Fox doing?
The messy hair and leaves still stuck in it, made it obvious that what she'd been doing until that moment was standing in one of the bushes in front of the school. What possessed her to do that was definitely a question worth asking. Because it couldn't be the reason that first crossed my mind. Just wasn't possible.
I mean, she looked more like she was about to yell at me than ask me out.
"Um, hi?" I said, pushing my headphone down.
"Have you been asked out today?" Skyler asked in a way that made me think she didn't actually want an answer to that question. Her eyes bore into me with that same level of disdain she normally when looking at me.
Interesting. I looked her up and down, confusion mounting. Did a friend of hers make her ask me out for therm?
"Um, no, not yet."
She let out a sigh. Lips pursed together for a moment before she did some sort of quick breathing exercise. What was going on this girl?
"Okay, then date me," she deadpanned.
Whoa. Okay. What the fuck?
My eyes went wide as I stared at her. That was the absolute last thing I ever expected to hear from Skyler Fox. Then again, the way she was looking at me was making me question whether I even heard her correctly. Maybe I was just slowly losing my mind. That seemed more likely, really.
"Why does that sound like you're challenging me to a duel more than a confession?" I asked, a small smirk pulling up my lips at the image that created in my mind.
She clicked her tongue in annoyance, crossing her arms over her chest. A defensive stance. This was without a doubt the strangest way I'd been asked out so far. And I was thoroughly amused by it. By her.
"Well, excuse me, I didn't know we were supposed to serenade you, or that there were rules to this game."
Ouch. The wording made me frown. More so because it confirmed exactly what I'd been thinking about earlier. This love experiment was starting to look more like a game to people than anything real. I stuffed one hand into the pocket of my jeans, running the other one through my hair. A nervous habit.
"There are no rules. And this isn't a game," I said, not sure whether I was trying to convince her of that or myself.
Skyler just stared at me. One eyebrow raised. Unconvinced.
Yeah. It was clearly time to end this. I was becoming a joke. And it wasn't working anyway.
I was just about to tell her that. That I was done with the whole dating thing. It was over. She wouldn't get to have her fun with me.
Only as I stared back at her it was hard to actually voice those words. There were leaves in her hair and yet she stared me down, full of fire and confidence. No one I'd dated so far had looked at me like that. This could be different. This could be fun.
The thought made me chuckle, and I reached my hand out to grab the leaves out of her hair. Her shocked expression and the way her voice went into high pitch made me hard to keep a full grin from taking over my face.
"What do you think you're—"
I held out the two leaves in front of me, and she instantly turned bright red. Fun. I could have some fun. A fun way to end the trial dating thing.
I wasn't under any delusion that I would fall in love. Especially with someone who clearly disliked me so much. Love wasn't going to be in the cards for us, that was certain.
But, we could have fun together.
Maybe, if Lily was right, we could even become friends at the end of it. And then, if that happened, maybe, instead of an actress, I could tell her the truth about mom. Ask her to help. Ask her to pretend.
"Yeah, okay, let's date, Skyler."
And no matter what happened after these two weeks, that would be it. No more dating. No more trying to find the impossible. These two last weeks would mark the end of my love experiment.
And Skyler Fox would be the final girl.
Hi loves! ❤️
Okay first of all... for those of you who don't know already TWTFIL on the Watty in the YA category which is just... surreal, honestly surreal. Just looking back on all the author's notes I wrote trying to finish this books makes me tear up. But even better... it won the Wattpad Books YA Award which means...
✨TWO WEEKS TO FALL IN LOVE IS GETTING PUBLISHED!✨
That's literally a dream come true. I can't believe it, still. That in the future I will be able to hold a physical copy of this book... I just can't believe it. And better yet... that I will now get to edit this book and make it ever better than this first draft was! I plan to take a lot of your opinions and comments into consideration when editing so thank you so much for all the comments you've left. I will make this book the best possible version it can be to make sure that it will be worth the buy for anyone who already read it here but might want to have a physical copy. ❤️
Now that I got that out of the way... WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE BONUS NOAH CHAPTER?
It was so interesting writing him for the first time. Also, you finally get your answer to why he dated Skyler - I know a lot of you were mad at me for that cliffhanger in the epilogue, hehe. It also felt fitting that his chapters are names of songs so... yeah, that's happening.
I hope you enjoyed the read. I'll write more chapters, of course, but I can't promise any quick regular updates due to everything else that's happening (aka the new book I'm working on). I hope they'll be a nice surprise when they happen so just keep this book archived or in your library so you're notified (I think that's how it works?) OR you can also follow me for updates! I'll post more publishing info when I have it too.
Thank you all so much for all of your support. You're the reason I look forward to writing new chapters, and a huge reason why I finished this book in time and won a Watty. I appreciate and love you all beyond words. Thank you. Just... thank you.
Now I'm gonna go reply to the comments I got on my wall and as much other stuff I can because life has been a bit busy the last few weeks. I'm so so sorry about that. Please don't think I don't appreciate the comments because they mean the world to me. I just haven't had as much time lately and the last few months were... rough for other reason.
Love you all, stay safe, stay strong!