Chapter 29
Brielle
I wasn’t sure what to say. It was pretty obvious that Brooks felt the same way.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I answered.
It was a safe word, but it didn’t really get us very far.
“I’m sorry—” we both started at the same time.
Then we laughed. Then we were silent. Brooks kicked the toe of his shoe against the base of a huge pot Mom had sitting outside the door, still filled with evergreen branches and a red bow—remnants of Christmas three months earlier.
I hugged my arms around myself and tried to think of what to say.
“Have you looked online at all?” Brooks broke the silence.
Had I? Of course I had. Even though Lia had told me not to. Reece had threatened to confiscate my phone—being the protective older brother—but he forgot that I still had access via my laptop and tablet. Regardless, I’d looked. The comments about the video were all over the place.
I still believe in Broo-elle!
My heart is broken—this proves nothing you see online is real!
What a scam!
Wonder how much they got paid to fake this!
Just like everything else. Smoke and mirrors.
Come back to us, Brooks and Brielle!
“I’ve looked,” I finally answered.
Brooks nodded. “I shouldn’t have gone along with the whole thing. I’m really sorry, Bri.”
I sort of wished at this point that we’d just had one big misunderstanding.
You know, like in the movies? Where the girl finds out something about the guy and gets mad at him—or the other way around—and then they found it was all a mistake, and suddenly they both admit they really do want each other?
But not us. There was no misunderstanding. Just two complicit people, AI, and the entire world of online stalkers all sucked into one big smoke screen of a relationship that never existed.
Darn.
I so wished it had.
I wished it’d been real. Every single second of it. I wished the tulips that were well on their way to dying in my room were still pink and white instead of wilting and dropping petals on my floor. I should’ve taken that as an omen of what was to come.
“Soooo….yeah.” Brooks didn’t really have anything profound to say.
Neither did I.
What could we say?
The truth was out now. Well, not all of it, but there was no way I was going tell Brooks the real reason my eyes were puffy from crying, and I looked like a circus clown was because I was really aching because of him.
He’d become my friend. More than that. He’d become—what?
I didn’t know how to describe it. But when we were fake dating, it had just been so .
. . perfect. Everything I’d never expected in a relationship, but everything I ever wanted.
It was like God had said, “Hey, you know how you made this guy up? Let me drop him into your life, and you can see what it’s like when I get involved with the real deal.
” Only, we’d stuffed it all into one big box of make-believe, and now here we were.
Shamed for being a scam.
Disappointing friends.
Hurting family.
I looked at Brooks and couldn’t help the pang that hit me in the heart. He looked so regretful for the mess of things, but I could tell by the look in his eyes that he wasn’t heartbroken over me. It was made worse when he opened his mouth and spoke those dreaded words.
“I hope we can still be friends.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. “Yeah. Sure.” I mean, what was I supposed to say?
No! I can’t be just friends! You’re everything I didn’t know I needed. I need you, Brooks Mason.
Enter the old Tom Cruise phrase from that ’90s rom-com Mom made me watch at least once a year...
You complete me.
But he didn’t. Because Brooks had never been mine, and I had never been his. And that was pretty much what sucked about the whole situation.
One thing was for sure. I was never going to use AI ever again. For anything. Ever.
Never.
Never.
Ever.
Brooks
I almost told her how I really felt, but she’d already been through enough trauma.
It would be selfish of me to blindside Brielle with some sort of plea that I really did want to be her boyfriend, I really needed to see her in the stands watching my games, that I really couldn’t see myself at school just giving her a casual wave in passing like we were old pals who once had the entire world believing we were the next big couple.
I’d already been selfish enough. I hadn’t even felt guilty using her to get extra credit for Lit so I could make sure I stayed on the team.
Now, we had to finish the project—but to do that, I’d need to read the book.
To my credit, I had felt guilty not telling her that the recruiter thought our relationship was an example of my maturity.
But now I was glad that I hadn’t told Brielle.
I knew her well enough by now to know she’d feel like she’d ruined my future chances by proving that I was anything but mature and responsible.
“So, see you around?” I said. Dumbest words ever spoken.
“Yeah. See you around,” she responded.
I could tell by the look on her face as Brielle closed the door that she was glad to be done with me. Done with the whole charade. It was over. Finished.
We would do our walk of shame for a week or two, and then things would move on. Life would fall into a routine. This would be just a memory. A really great memory that finished really badly.
I stood there in front of Brielle’s front door. It was closed now, but for some reason, I couldn’t get my feet to move. I just stood there. Like a complete doofus.
My phone pinged. I tugged it from my pocket.
It was Reece.
Dude. Why are you standing on my front porch?
I stared at it for a second and then responded.
I came to apologize.
Reece replied, I’ll be ok. Thanks for caring.
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t worried about you.
I could see the bubbles as Reece texted. Finally, it came through. Bri will be okay. It was all fake anyway. Right?
Right?
Right.
If I said “yeah,” I’d be lying. And wasn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place? But if I admitted that some of it—no, most of it—hadn’t been fake at all, then that was a can of worms that would quickly squirm all over the place.
I opted for the safe route.
Sure.
When Reece didn’t respond, I took that as my cue to go. Finally, I got my feet to move, and I headed back to the car I’d borrowed from Mom.
Tomorrow was a new day.
No girlfriend.
Just baseball.
And a whole lot of feeling like crap.