The Trouble with Faking

  Best French toast in the world.

  —the afternoon I watched him play Savage Time with his young cousins—

  Whatever the rules are, it generally ends up with all four of them attacking each other in a heap on the ground.

  —the moment he saw right through me—

  So essentially … this heroine is you.

  —the day he confronted me about my mother—

  Life isn’t perfect, and that’s okay.

  —the night he came to Livi’s to apologise—

  If anyone should be feeling awkward, it’s me, knowing what you overheard.

  —his story last night—

  I woke up in the hospital a day later to the news that my best friend was dead.

  It hits me suddenly. A pain in my chest. A pain that comes with the realisation that I love him and instead of telling him that, instead of pulling him into my arms and comforting him after that horrific story about his friend’s death, my last words to him were, ‘I don’t know how to trust you.’

  I toss the empty yoghurt tub into my bin, hurry to the bathroom, and brush my teeth. I think Noah may have left already, but I’ll stop at Smuts on the way to my next lecture just in case. I rush back to my room, pick up my phone to check the time—and only then do I see all the emails notifying me of the comments on the YouTube video I uploaded last night. I almost ignore them and carry on getting ready, but the most recent one says, Have you seen this yet, Andi? We’re dying here waiting for your response!!!

  “What?” I murmur.

  There are so many emails that instead of opening each one, I go straight to the video itself to read the comments.

  Apple Turtle (21 min ago)

  Have you seen this yet, Andi? We’re dying here waiting for your response!!!

  Minny J (35 min ago)

  Yes! #CrossOutTheNot

  JanACE (1 hour ago)

  Eeeeeeeeek! So much romantic, love it!

  Apple Turtle (19 min ago)

  I know! So romantic! *Sighs*

  Mandy Lovet (48 min ago)

  Cutest thing I’ve seen on YouTube in ages :)

  LollyMBooks (1 hour ago)

  OMG Noah! Heart you!

  NL Winters (3 hours ago)

  I’m totally tweeting this! #CrossOutTheNot

  Minny J (3 hours ago)

  We’ve been dying for you to cross out the ‘not’ for weeks ;-)

  There are many more comments, but I scroll back up to the video so I can see what they’re all talking about. I switch my phone off silent and hit the play button. The video begins with me showing off the book Noah and I are about to talk about. Nothing weird so far. Noah blabbers on about the terrific fight scenes, I let everyone know how boring I thought they were, and still there’s nothing strange going on.

  “So to summarise,” video-me says, “we have finally found a book that Noah thinks is awesome and I don’t really like that much.”

  “Probably because there’s barely any romance in it,” Noah says. He leans back on his hands, but then he lifts one hand up behind my head, and in it is an A4 piece of card with writing on it: Andi agreed to upload this video without watching it first.

  A shiver races from the top of my spine down along my arms. What is this? And how did he know I would agree to that?

  “Well, exactly,” video-me says. “What is a hero meant to fight for if not love?”

  Noah’s hand rises behind my head again with a card that reads She has no idea these signs are going up behind her head. “Uh, the fate of his kingdom?”

  “Yes, I know, I know. The dragons were going to kill them all, and he wanted to keep his darling princess safe, so he left her back at the castle, and that’s pretty much the last we saw of her.”

  Andi, I’m falling in love with you.

  At the sight of the third sign, my shaking thumb hits pause.

  I’m falling in love with you.

  I’m falling in love with you.

  Yes, I definitely read that correctly. I press a hand over my mouth and touch the play symbol again.

  “But instead we could have had a princess with a little more guts,” video-me continues.

  I’ve spent the past few years unable to forget the demons of my past.

  “She could have escaped the castle and gone into dragon territory on her own.”

  But you’ve reminded me what it is to be happy.

  “And let’s say some of those dragons were good and didn’t actually want to attack the kingdom.”

  On the surface we look like we could never suit each other.

  “She could have befriended one of them and gone back with it to her kingdom to share secrets that could help her people win. She could have been a dragon rider!”

  But I know the real you, and the real you is perfect for the real me.

  “And then, at the turning point of the battle, she could almost die—or the hero could almost die—and then there would be that heartbreaking moment when the dragon sacrifices himself for his rider, and the prince and princess get to live happily ever after in a kingdom no longer under threat.”

  I want to be with you. Please say yes so we can cross out the ‘not.’

  “Cross out the ‘not,’” I murmur, dropping the phone on my bed as it finally makes sense. I grab the He is not my boyfriend T-shirt from the back of my chair, reach for my permanent marker, and draw a line firmly through the ‘not.’ Pyjama top off, find bra, pull on T-shirt, zip up jacket. Lastly, I replace my slippers with gumboots and grab my keys as I run out the room.

  I splash my way across the parking lot, earning myself a number of odd looks from other students. What? I want to say to them. Don’t you ever wear your pyjama pants on campus? Two guys are leaving Smuts as I get there, which means I run right through. Along the corridor, up the stairs, up some more stairs—Noah chose to live on the top floor of his flat—and finally I’m in front of the right door. My boot makes a weird noise when I walk, and I look down and find a piece of paper stuck beneath it. I bend down and, removing it, find that it’s a flyer for the Smuts formal. I fold it up, put it in my pocket, and knock on Noah’s door.

  Please be here, please be here, please be—

  The door opens. “Andi.” Noah’s face lights up. “I thought … I thought you said you needed some time. I didn’t think I’d see you until after—”

  “I got your message,” I say breathlessly.

  “My message?”

  I unzip my jacket and let it slide off. He looks startled for a second—probably due to me undressing myself in his doorway—but a smile grows slowly on his face as he reads my T-shirt. He pulls me inside the room and shuts the door.

  “I’m sorry I said I didn’t know how to trust you last night,” I say.

  “Andi, you—”

  “I realised that I do. And if I could go back, I’d say something completely different. I’d say that I love you no matter what mistakes you’ve made. And I don’t need any time. I love you now, and I want to be with you now, and I—”

  He takes my face in both his hands and kisses me. I stand on tiptoe and wind my arms around his neck, kissing him back with all the longing that’s been building inside me over the past weeks. His hands slide around my thighs, and he lifts me easily. I wrap my legs around his waist, but with my gumboots on, I end up kicking him.

  “Oh, crap, sorry,” I say through my laughter. “Stupid boots.”

  He swings me around and drops me onto the bed, then pulls each boot off. “Not a problem anymore,” he says with a grin. He crawls onto the bed until he’s half next to me and half over me. I slip my hands around his neck and pull him closer. His lips—as soft as I imagined them—meet mine. Warmth swells in my chest and my pulse quickens. His hand slides over my bare arm, my waist, my hip, down the side of my leg. When he reaches the crook of my knee, he pulls my leg up and over his. I arch against him, tasting his tongue and feeling his breath and wanting more, more, more.

  His phone rings. “No,” he m
umbles against my lips. “That’s my lift.”

  “Don’t go,” I whisper. I run my hands over his short hair, something I’ve been longing to do for ages.

  “I wish I didn't have to.”

  I open my eyes and find his—beautiful gold-brown bleeding into grey-green—right there. I wonder if my gaze is burning with the fire I feel inside. I feel shy all of a sudden with him so close, as if he can see right into my soul. I almost look away, but I manage to hold his gaze. I trace my finger gently over the scar above his left eyebrow. “Was this from the car accident?”

  He nods. “A reminder every time I look in the mirror of how I messed up.”

  “We’ve all messed up, Noah. We all make mistakes. You’re the one who reminded me of that.”

  “Some mistakes are bigger than others.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to keep silently beating yourself up about it. It’s in the past. You’ve dealt with it. You’re not that person anymore.”

  With a smile on his lips, he whispers, “I think I love you.” The word ‘love’ sends a thrill racing through my body, lighting up the fire inside me once more. But perhaps he takes my lack of response as a bad sign, because he adds, “Sorry. Too soon?”

  I shake my head against the pillow. “You already said it during your secret slideshow in the video.”

  He places a kiss on my neck. “And you said it when you walked in here just now.”

  I tilt my head and find his lips and kiss them once more. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” I whisper.

  His hands frame my face. “It’s only four days,” he says with a gentle smile.

  “I know, but two of them are Saturday and Sunday, and they’re going to take sooooo long to pass.”

  He kisses me again, long and lingering. When he breaks away and sits up, he says, “Walk outside with me. I want to introduce my beautiful new girlfriend to the guys I’ll be working with for the next few days.”

  “Um, in this?” I sit up and gesture to my pyjama pants and gumboots.

  “You look gorgeous,” he says. “You could be wearing a tea cosy on your head, and I’d still want to show you off to everyone.”

  I pull my boots back on—with Noah’s help, which he manages to do in a way that’s so sexy I almost tug him back onto the bed—and zip my jacket up over my He is not my boyfriend T-shirt. Noah picks up a duffle bag, slings the strap over his shoulder, and slips his hand around mine. He gives me another quick kiss before we walk down to reception and out to the parking lot where, fortunately, it’s stopped raining, and two guys are waiting by a car.

  “Taking your time, Ferreira,” one of them says, but despite his attempt to look annoyed, I see the smile in his eyes.

  “I think we all know why,” the other one says, grinning at the first guy.

  They greet each other, and Noah introduces me. He throws his duffle bag onto the back seat of the car, then takes my hand and pulls me aside. He wraps his arms around me and kisses my forehead.

  “Can I say one more thing before you go?” I ask.

  He nods, kisses my lips, and says, “Of course.”

  “Remember Valentine’s Day? When I turned down that opportunity to dance with you and you said I’d regret it one day?”

  “Yip.”

  “I think I’m regretting it now.”

  “I see.”

  “And I think there might be a way you could help me out with that.”

  “Oh really?”

  I nod and open my hand to reveal the folded-up flyer I stuffed into my pocket just now.

  “Hmm.” He takes it from me. He must recognise what it is from the colours, because he doesn’t bother unfolding it. “You know, I never did get an answer to the message on that heart I gave you.”

  I think of the paper heart stuck to my pinboard. Be my valentine. I wrap my arms around his neck, stand on tiptoe, and whisper in his ear, “I would love to be your valentine.”

  “In that case—” he kisses my earlobe “—Andrea Clark, would you like to go to the Smuts formal with me?”

  I’m still putting the finishing touches to my outfit when there’s a knock on my door. Shoot! What is he doing here? He’s got to be at least forty minutes early.

  “Relax,” Carmen says from the other side of my door. “It’s just me.”

  I pad across the room in my slippers and open the door. Carmen’s standing on the other side looking glamorous and model-like in a long, close-fitting red gown. “Oh, wow, you look amazing.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

  Okay, then. “Um, have you had a chance to think about what I said yesterday?”

  “You mean what you yelled yesterday?”

  “Uh, yes.” Carmen and I have spent all week fighting about Noah—she still thinks he’s a terrible person, while I’ve been trying to convince her otherwise—until yesterday when I shouted, ‘Noah did not kill your cousin. And even if he was this terrible, evil influence you seem to think he is, Tyrone was his friend and I highly doubt he forced him to do anything. Tyrone chose to drink that night. He chose to get behind the wheel of a car. And he chose not to stop at a red light. End of story. If you want to hate Noah for the decisions Tyrone made, go right ahead. That’s your illogical business, not mine.’

  “Well, you know I’m a very practical, stick-to-the-facts kinda person,” Carmen says, placing a hand on her hip, “so I didn’t just think about what you said. I did some research.”

  “Research?”

  “I hunted down some of Ty’s friends from back then and asked them a few questions.”

  I smile because I can imagine Carmen hunting people down. Literally.

  “Despite the fact that Tania has always insisted her brother was a good guy who never chose to get involved in any of that stuff—drinking and drugs and all that—the friends he used to have said he was always, well, the life of the party. That he was excited when his uptight younger cousin Noah left school and decided to relax and join in the fun. So I guess it wasn’t Noah who led Ty off the tracks. If anything, it was the other way around.”

  Relief warms my insides. “Carmen, that’s—”

  “And while this does not mean that I have to like Noah,” Carmen says, holding a finger up, “I do now see that it’s illogical to blame him for Ty’s death.”

  I smile. “Thank you.”

  “And don’t expect me say that again. You know how I feel about admitting that I’m wrong.”

  “I do.” I watch in amusement as she sashays back to her room. She wasn’t entirely sure about this whole formal thing, but one of the few Smuts guys who isn’t afraid of her asked her to go with him, and, after making him wait several days for an answer, she said yes.

  I spend the next forty minutes finishing my make-up and hair. I’m lacing up my boots when Noah knocks on my door. I know it’s him—I recognise the way he knocks—and my stomach fills with anxious butterflies. Will he like what I’m wearing? Will he think I’m pretty? Will he be embarrassed to be seen with me?

  With a shy smile on my face, I pull open the door. Noah looks dashing in a suit, completely different from his normal casual attire. At the sight of me, his eyes widen. “Wow,” he says. “Just … wow.”

  I’m wearing my version of a steampunk dress. The centrepiece of the outfit is a Victorian-style coat, tight at the waist and flaring out like a skirt over my hips. I added a few ruffled layers, longer at the back and shorter at the front, to fill out the skirt. Under that I’ve got black stockings and high-heeled ankle boots—visible from the front where the skirt is shorter. Brass buttons shaped like cogs add to the steampunk look of the coat-dress, along with the old pocket watch I hung on a short chain so it sits against the V of bare skin beneath my neck. Lastly, I twisted my hair up and pinned a tiny top hat to the side of the twist.

  “Is that a good ‘wow’?” I ask.

  “Yes. That is a my-girlfriend-is-the-sexiest-and-most-beautiful-thing-I’ve-ever-seen wow.”

  I reach for his hand as a blu
sh rises in my cheeks. “I like that kinda wow.” I lean forward and whisper, “I thought you were sexy enough in normal clothes, but you’re even sexier in a suit.”

  Smiling, he raises my hand and kisses it. “I’d prefer to kiss your lips,” he says, “but I don’t want to ruin your make-up.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I don’t mind having my make-up ruined.”

  He brushes his lips against my cheek. “Don’t tempt me.”

  With a laugh, I step back and look around for my keys. “So, shall we get going?”

  “Wait, what about my steampunk accessories?”

  I look at him. “Really?”

  “Of course. You’re my date. We should match.”

  I tilt my head to the side. “Are you sure?”

  “Andi, when it comes to you, I am always sure.”

  “Oh good,” I say, clapping my hands together, “because I got you some stuff, but I didn’t know if you’d want to wear it or not. Nothing overboard, of course.”

  “Of course,” Noah says.

  I open my cupboard and pull out the items I got for Noah. “Here’s a top hat. I stuck a watch face on the side along with a few of the clockwork brass buttons I used on my coat.”

  “Awesome. I’ve always wanted to wear a top hot.”

  “And these cufflinks have watch parts stuck to them, so they’re in keeping with the steampunk vibe.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Really? I thought maybe you’d think they’re stupid or—”

  He silences me with a kiss, obviously no longer bothered by my make-up. I melt against him, wondering if perhaps we should give the formal a miss and stay here all night. But he pulls back after a few moments, and I remember that I’m looking forward to showing off my dress and dancing with Noah. “Um, I may need to reapply my lipstick now.”

  “And I probably need to remove it,” he says, ducking out of my room. I hear him turn on the tap in the bathroom.

  A few moments later, after adding a quick layer of lipstick, I pull my door shut and meet Noah on the landing. “Ready?” he asks.

  “Ready.”