High School.
Let’s just say it’s a hellhole for short.
I didn’t use to hate high school so much and I actually loved it. Being a sophomore and dating a junior boosted my self-esteem a lot.
I was going out with a guy named Sean Gray. He was an attractive guy, a soccer player and has a good position at the school. Like I said, I was a grade younger than him and I felt so cool whenever we’d walk hand-in-hand down the hallways. He would let me sit with him during lunch but then we would walk around the beautiful school campus only stopping for brief kisses… I was a lucky tenth grader.
It was the last day of school and Sean and I had made plans to hang out all the time during the summer. I took a pass to go to the restroom and saw Sean making out with a girl named Kayla Matthews.
I had heard rumors about Kayla all the time, she was the kind of girl that slept with one person and moved onto the other. I would’ve put it past Sean when he said that she came onto him and not the other way around but I could tell he was enjoying it by the way he moaned her name when her lips traveled to his neck.
Once I gasped and the two people turned towards me, Sean’s eyes went wide while Kayla had a smirk playing on her face. That little bitch… My goodness, couldn’t she just leave this guy alone? There are other guys out there that are looking for some friction beneath the sheets but no. She had to go for Sean Gray. It’s almost as if she was thinking ‘hey! A sophomore wouldn’t care if I started swapping spit with her boyfriend. Let’s do it!’ Girls like her give us a bad reputation.
Long story short: I broke up with Sean and locked myself in my room for the rest of the summer.
A few close friends would come over but I almost never went out. My older brother was a year older than me and also was friends with Sean. Once he figured out what happened, he banned his friends from dating me and hated him. My brother has always been super protective.
Sean would text me saying he wanted to get back together when I knew he was still messing around with Kayla. I would never answer him and sometimes he would even stop by. Whenever that happens, Dillon answers the door and screams at his ex-friend to go away. But of course the guy will come back and start the cycle again. How many times do I have to tell him that it’s over for good? Obviously it’s a million or so.
My brother, Dillon and his best friend Jace would always try to get me away from this house but I refused to. They would want to hang out with friends who were most likely hanging out with… you know.
I dated Sean for a year and it was the first serious relationship I was in. Obviously when I saw him cheating on me it would hurt! During this long summer, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream became my best friend.
This cheating nonsense wouldn’t probably affect me that much if nothing had happened between us. Sean was the guy who took my virginity; therefore he now has something of me that I will never be able to take back no matter how much I want to. I shouldn’t had gone out with him in the first place… Sure I liked him but Dillon always told me never to go out with anyone a grade older than I am. I really should start taking my brothers advice now.
There was a week left before school started again and I remained in my safe home. Messages from my ex still came everyday and I still ignored them. One day I heard a knock and groaned from where I sat on the couch. I trudged to the door and opened it without seeing who it was first.
“Jace? Dillon’s not here,” I said as I saw my brother’s best friend standing in the doorway.
There’s so much you could say about Jace Andrew Harley, but the most obvious thing was that he’s unnaturally hot. He has this brown hair and light eyes combo going on; he was muscular but not completely ripped. He was on the school’s soccer team and since he’s a senior now, he’s in the running for captain.
“Maybe I came here for you,” He smiled and ruffled my dull brown hair.
I crossed my arms over my chest, “Cut the crap, Jace.”
“I thought we were friends Peyton,” He joked and I sighed at my name.
I’ve always hated the name Peyton. I thought it was too much of a guys name and when I asked my parents for a change, they wouldn’t budge. They said how much they like unisex names but when I asked my brother, he said they thought I was a boy. The funny thing is… I think I’m a mistake. I’m roughly a year and a half younger than Dillon but everyone thinks we’re twins. We have the same brown hair, dimples, and eyes but that’s about it. Our personalities are different too as was our friend choice. Mine were more conservative than the girls he hung out with.
“You’re Dillon’s friend, I’m his sister.” I moved out of the way as Jace took a seat on the couch. He put his feet up on the table as if he owned the place and started eating bits of my pizza.
“When are you going to leave this house?” He asked.
I closed the door and sighed, “When that asshole leaves this planet.” As if on queue, I got a text. I opened it and it revealed another message from my ex saying that it wasn’t his fault.
“Then why don’t you have someone come over?”
I sighed as I thought about my best friend Lauren being on vacation. The rest of my friends were also at various places around the globe while I was stuck in California.
Let me tell you something about Lauren, she’s beautiful and strong. Those are the two words that come out of my mouth whenever someone asks. She has blonde hair and pale blue eyes that she inherited from her dad apparently, I never met him because he ran away when she was young. I’ve been friends with her since third grade when she moved here from Tennessee. She had the cutest accent but people made fun of her so I took the little girl under my wing.
My parents travel a lot for work so we don’t see them all too much. I’m not mad about that but sometimes I wish that Dillon and I would get a home cooked meal made by our mother everyday. But with our parents being gone so much, Dillon has a lot of parties that involve me locking myself in my room because I can’t stand drunks at all.
“Have you ever thought about getting revenge on him?” Jace asked and I snapped my head up.
Truthfully I hadn’t. I know that some girls in my position would be plotting ways to ruin his life but it never crossed my mind. “How…?” I asked hesitantly.
“Well, he wants you back, right?” I nodded. “Easy, go out with another guy. Kiss him in front of Sean, be all romantic and it will crush the boy.”
I rolled my eyes, “No guy would go out with me after what Dillon posted around school.”
He smiled, “I forgot about that… didn’t he say into the intercom that if some guy were ever to talk to you he’d whip their ass?”
I nodded with a smile coming onto my face. “Yeah, now I’m going to stay single for my entire life.” I fell into the same couch that Jace was laying on.
“Don’t you have any guy friends to help you out? It could be a fake relationship but no one would have to know that.”
“I’ve never really gotten along with guys as friends,” I shrugged.
“Well, you’re friends with me, right?” He laughed and a thought crossed my mind.
I looked at him with a huge, pleading smile. He looked confused for a moment before his mouth formed an ‘O’ shape. “Peyton…” He started. “Dill would kill me.”
“Please Jace! It would just fake, no feelings. It wouldn’t last long either! A month or two at the most.”
“But Dillon would—“
“Forget about my brother!” I interrupted. “I never knew you were second in command.”
I almost smirked as Jace’s features turned offended. Guys and their power… “I’m not.”
“Oh and I’m Santa Claus.” I said with sarcasm thick in my voice.
“Fine, but only for a few months at most!”
My large smile came onto my face and I wrapped my arms around Jace’s body. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
I felt his hand pat my back. “Okay, but no telling everyone that this is fake. Not your brother or your friends.”
I pulled away and nodded quickly. “Anything else?”
He looked me up and down. “Don’t get mad, but you need to change your look.”
My eyebrows scrunched together in rage, “Are you saying I’m ugly?”
He laughed, “No… you’re too plain. I know the perfect person that can help us out with that problem though.”
He whipped out his phone and did a simple phone call. After a few seconds he smiled. “Hey sister dearest… I need a favor.” Silence. “No, I don’t need money. You’re still in school because you want to become a beautician… right?” he grinned at her response. “I need your help.”
I glared at him and he laughed when he hung up the phone. “What is that glower for?” He asked.
“I’m not plain!” I argued.
“Peyton, if you want everyone to believe that we’re going out then you have to dress with confidence. That’s the best quality in a girl. Right now these baggy sweatpants and flat hair are telling me that you’re self-conscious of your body.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, “I am not.”
“And that motion tells me that you are.” He chuckled, “Come on Pey, just go along with it. My sister’s a genius, she’ll make you look hot.”
The truth was, I was never self-conscious until the cheating thing. Having someone cheat on you makes you feel like a piece of shit. It makes you feel like you aren’t good or pretty enough for that person. Face it, Kayla is beautiful and I’m not. She has the blonde hair and is on the cheer squad. I’m a dull brunette that has taken dance classes since I was five… I don’t stand out and Kayla does.
“Fine,” I said as I thought about what his sister would do to me. “What’s her name?”
“Cara,” He shook his head. “She’s loud and mean sometimes so don’t get offended.”
I nodded but didn’t mean it. “When should we go public?” I exaggerated the last two words so he knew I didn’t believe that this was true.
“After your change,” He laughed, “You’re going to look great once Cara gets done with you. She actually seemed pretty excited about it too. So tomorrow we’ll make the change from plain, ole’ Peyton Brandt that was cheated on to Peyton Brandt, hot junior going out with incredibly sexy Jace Harley.”
I raised an eyebrow at his cockiness, “There’s many problems wrong with this plan.”
“Like what,” Jace challenged me. He put his hands on the back of his head and stared at me.
“One,” I held up my index finger. “What about Lindsay?”
Lindsay Walsh supposedly was going out with Jace. Considering that he hasn’t mentioned her once during this conversation leads me to believe she made it up. But why would she? Lindsay is friends with Kayla and of course on the whore-squad, oh sorry… Cheer Squad. You can only imagine what she’s doing right now to some guy.
“What about her?” He thought about it then a smirk came onto his face. “You saw her Facebook, didn’t you?”
I laughed at her latest status: Lindsay Walsh loves her sweet Jace, come over babe. Then came a winking face and Jace commenting saying ‘wait… me?’
“There’s nothing going on, I feel bad saying this but I made out with her at some party and now she thinks we’re the next big couple.” He rolled his eyes. “So is there anything else that makes this plan not foolproof?”
I held up my middle finger, “Two, how will I get out of the house without Dillon seeing us together?”
He swore, “He’ll probably have the car tomorrow… How about you just walk down to the end of the street and I’ll pick you up there at noon?”
I nodded then held up my ring finger, “And three… How the hell can we convince Dillon to let us ‘date?’”
He laughed, “We can always say how we’ve been hooking up and haven’t wanted a serious relationship until now.”
I scrunched my nose. “Yeah, I really want to have my brother think I’m a whore. Also that would also make him think that I was the one who cheated on Sean in the first place,” I groaned and took a drink of my water bottle.
“Fine…” He thought about it some more. “I can always say after your transformation it made me like you.” He shrugged as if this was a normal conversation.
“I guess that will have to do for now,” I sighed and the door opened to reveal my brother.
“Hey,” Dillon said. “What are you doing here?”
Jace shrugged and got off the couch. “Waiting for you, Peyton and I had a very interesting conversation.”
My brother raised an eyebrow, “About what?”
I almost laughed when Jace answered his question. “Our future together,” he smirked at my brother who laughed.
“Oh yeah,” he said sarcastically. “Just let me be your Best Man at the wedding.”
Jace and Dillon started leaving the room but before they left, my new ‘boyfriend’ winked at me.
Peyton Brandt, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?
________________________________________________________________
New Story! Tell me what you think, should I continue this idea? Thanks (: