Chapter Text
As time went by, the fake-dating scheme got easier and easier. Before Eva knew it, it was already November— way longer than she’d planned to be fake-dating Kate. But it never seemed to make sense to stage the inevitable break-up, and as long as Cairo was still with her college boyfriend—which, if the rumors were to be believed, she was—then Eva and Kate would still be “together.”
And, to Eva’s surprise, it wasn’t all bad. The rides to school every day were so nice, and she started getting used to the parties. She even got along better than expected with Kate’s friends, though they could be a bit… much sometimes.
So, there were highlights. But, because her life couldn’t be too easy, there were some not-so-great things, too.
Cairo wasn’t the only reason the fake-dating scheme had continued. Eva still hadn’t gotten to talk to Annleigh, and every time she passed her in the halls, Annleigh looked super annoyed. Eva knew Annleigh had never liked Kate, but she had hoped that if Annleigh really thought Eva genuinely liked her, she’d come around. That hadn’t seemed to happen yet.
One chilly November afternoon, while Eva was trying to help Mattie with her math homework (it wasn’t going well), their argument was cut off by the doorbell ringing.
“Thank God,” she mumbled to herself as she got up to answer it.
“What was that?” Mattie demanded.
“Nothing!”
Her relief was short-lived, though, because when she opened the door, she found Annleigh waiting for her.
“Hi,” Annleigh said, hands in her pocket. “Can we talk?”
Before Eva could think of an excuse, Mattie shouted “Please take her!” from the kitchen table and stormed upstairs. God, I hope I was never this awful to Clark.
Eva sighed and brushed past Annleigh, leaning against the side of the house. Annleigh tentatively took a seat on the porch swing, and for a moment, neither of them said anything.
“I can’t believe you’re dating Kate Dalton,” Annleigh finally said, breaking the silence.
“Why?” Eva asked, suddenly defensive. “What, is it so unbelievable that someone could actually like me?”
“No, that’s not-” Annleigh cut herself off. “You’re just so… you’re so much better than her! You’re this, like, sweet, innocent girl, and she’s such a jerk!”
“I’m not that innocent, Annleigh,” Eva said quietly. “And she’s not a bad person, Annleigh.” It was what she was supposed to say, and it wasn’t wrong .
Annleigh scoffed. “Okay.”
“Okay!” Eva threw her hands in the air and turned to go back inside. “Look, if that’s the only reason you came over, then-”
“No, wait,” Annleigh said quickly, reaching for Eva’s arm. “Eva, just… look, I just want to know. Did you mean what you wrote in the letter?”
Eva shrugged. “I don’t know, Annleigh. It was a long time ago.”
“But it isn’t for me,” Annleigh protested. “I’m just- I’m trying to figure this out, okay?”
“You weren’t supposed to see the letter,” Eva told her. “It was a mistake-”
“But I did see it.” Annleigh buried her face in her hands. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
Eva hugged herself. “I don’t know. Not tell Clark?”
“Yeah, well, he won’t even talk to me,” Annleigh spat. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
Eva turned away again. “Annleigh, I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I want us to be cool again,” Annleigh protested. “You said we were still friends, right?”
“I don’t know how to be friends with you like this!” Eva said, raising her voice more than she’d intended to. “We can’t go back to how it was before you were with Clark, and we definitely can’t go back to how it was when you were with Clark, and… I don’t know where we are now.”
Annleigh took a step forward, but Eva took a step back, and she sighed with frustration. “Look, if I’d known I was going to lose both of you, then-”
“Stop.” Eva opened the door. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
“Eva-”
“Go home, Annleigh,” Eva said, then closed the door before she could argue more.
Luckily, a distraction came later that night in the form of her fake girlfriend.
They’d watched Fight Club together in the first few weeks of their fake relationship, but somehow, the Sixteen Candles movie night just kept getting pushed further and further back once Mattie found out they were planning it and demanded to be included. Eva found it a little pathetic that even with her new fake relationship, her eleven-year-old sister still had a more active social life than she did, but after a few months, they’d finally found a night that all three of them were available.
“So, isn’t this… Long Duk Dong character, like, kind of racist?” Kate asked.
“Not kind of, extremely racist,” Eva corrected.
“So why do you even like this movie?”
“Uh, hello,” Mattie said, like it was obvious. “Jake Ryan?”
Kate hummed a little. “Yeah, I am way better-looking than that guy.”
She’d never say it out loud, but Eva secretly agreed—just because she was gay, of course.
Mattie, however, snorted. “You wish. ”
Kate sat up. “Oh, is that how you wanna play it? Incoming!” She grabbed a pillow and threw it at Mattie, but Mattie, who had been raised with two older siblings, was more than prepared with a pillow of her own. Kate shrieked as Mattie attacked with full force, scrambling to try to save the popcorn, and Eva watched the two of them with a little smile.
In some ways, it was nice having Kate around. She and Mattie got along really well, and her dad liked her. She and Eva had, at some point, become real friends outside of their fake relationship. But it also made her feel guilty, because every second that Kate was here was another second that Eva was lying to her family.
Plus… well, she was worried that Mattie was getting too attached. Yeah, she and Kate got along great, but… maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Because when they inevitably staged the breakup, Eva’s heart would be fine, but she couldn’t be sure about Mattie’s. She kind of wished they could have left their families out of it altogether.
Speaking of families, the day after Sixteen Candles, Eva went over to Kate’s house for dinner. Kate came to pick her up—“I know you hate driving, and it’s not far, I’ll just come get you”—and she didn’t realize until they were turning onto Kate’s street that although she’d known roughly where Kate lived for a while, she’d never actually been to her house.
Kate’s mom, Sveta, already had dinner on the table when they came in. She seemed considerably happier about Kate’s new girlfriend (though, Eva supposed, they’d been doing this long enough that maybe she couldn’t quite be considered a new girlfriend anymore) than Kate’s younger sister, Rebecca, who spoke maybe one or two words the entire night.
“I am so glad to finally meet you, Eva,” Sveta said warmly as they sat down around the table. Kate’s knee bumped against Eva’s, and Eva found she was oddly grateful to have some sort of reassuring presence there. “Kate talks about you all the time.”
“Mom,” Kate said, turning a little pink.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Eva said, hating how awkward she already felt. Kate got along with Leo so easily, right from the start, but Eva knew that wasn’t something she could do with Sveta. She wanted to do this right for Kate.
“So, Kate tells me you have two siblings?” Sveta asked as they started passing food around the table.
“Yes,” Eva said, relieved to start on a topic she could actually talk about. “I have an older brother who just left for college, and a sister around Rebecca’s age.”
“Right. Kate was telling me that you watched that movie last night with her.” Sveta tapped Rebecca’s shoulder, and Rebecca scowled and slouched further down in her chair. “Your mom must be so glad to have kids that are so close. These two heathens fight like dogs and cats!”
Eva barely managed to keep her smile from faltering, and Kate cleared her throat. “Mom, I told you,” she muttered. “Eva’s mom passed away when she was nine.”
Sveta covered her mouth with one hand, looking horrified at herself. “ Oh . I’m so sorry, Eva-”
“It’s okay,” Eva said quickly. She hadn’t expected Kate to remember that she’d been nine, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. “Actually, um… she did love that we were close, even when we were kids. Although Mattie and I definitely fight all the time.”
Sveta seemed grateful for Eva’s response and quickly changed the subject, and Kate’s knee knocked against Eva’s again. Eva caught her eye, and Kate raised her eyebrows, as if to ask You okay?
Eva nodded, hoping Sveta wouldn’t notice, and looked back at her plate. God. What a night.
Kate volunteered to clean up after dinner, so Sveta took Rebecca upstairs to finish her homework. Eva took a seat at the kitchen island while Kate started loading the dishwasher, and for a bit, they just coexisted peacefully. Eva probably could’ve asked Kate to take her home after they’d eaten, but she kind of liked being here. The whole point of the fake relationship was to fool everyone else, so they spent most of their time with other people, but Eva also kind of liked it when it was just them.
“So, Rebecca is kind of a shy kid, huh?” Eva asked.
Kate shrugged. “Yeah. She’s… pretty quiet.”
“I bet Mattie could help with that.”
Kate smiled, setting the last plate into the dishwasher and then closing it. “Probably.” She hopped up onto the counter, legs lightly knocking against the cabinets. “Hey… I’m sorry about what my mom said at dinner earlier. I swear I told her, but-”
“Kate,” Eva said, cutting her off. She stood up from the island and came around to stand next to Kate. “It’s fine, really.”
“Are you sure?” Kate looked worried, which Eva found a little endearing. “Because-”
“I’m sure.” Eva put a hand on Kate’s knee, and the kicking stopped. “Honestly, it’s kind of nice to talk about her like it’s normal, you know? Like it’s not this untouchable tragedy.”
It took Kate a moment to respond, and Eva, self-conscious, took her hand back. “That makes sense.”
Eva hummed and hopped up onto the counter next to her. “Is it weird not having your dad around?”
Kate exhaled slowly. “Yeah. I mean, when Cairo had to come do the whole ‘meet the parents’ thing, he was there, you know?”
Eva nodded, reminding herself not to be irritated every time Cairo came up in conversation. Kate was still Cairo’s, and Eva was just… watching Kate for her. Ugh, that sounded weird.
“But it’s not as weird as it used to be,” Kate continued. “I mean, it’s weird sometimes when I look at the photos on the wall and he’s not there anymore. Sometimes… sometimes I, like, fight with my mom, or she can’t figure out how to help me with my homework, and… I miss him.” She hesitated, kicking her legs again. “But sometimes I think about how he’s off playing nuclear family with his new wife and kid and I just… I hate him. Sometimes I’m glad he’s not around anymore.”
“I don’t think you hate him,” Eva said quietly. “You can be mad at someone and still miss them.”
Kate nodded a little, and then, to Eva’s surprise, she leaned her head on Eva’s shoulder. “You must miss your mom a lot, right?”
“Every day.” Eva swallowed, hyper-aware of Kate’s head on her shoulder. “But it’s been so long now, and… I mean, sometimes I’ll just be, like, doing dishes or watching TV or something, and I’ll be thinking about my family, and… sometimes I forget that it wasn’t always just the four of us. And it never lasts long, and I always feel so guilty, but…”
“I don’t think you need to feel guilty,” Kate told her.
Eva tried to smile. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
“Well, I’m honored.” Kate’s tone was lighthearted, but Eva could hear the sincerity in it, too. “You’re right, I think. I don’t really hate my dad. I mean, at least he’s not…”
“Dead?” Eva suggested, nudging her.
“Sorry.”
Eva laughed a little. “It’s nice having someone to talk to. You’re a really good listener.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Kate reached for Eva’s hand, and Eva let her take it. “You are, too.”
Every molecule in her body was screaming at her to stop, to walk away, to ask Kate to take her home, but she ignored it. As bad of an idea as it was, as much as she knew it was going to get her hurt later… for a moment, she let herself pretend.
What if this wasn’t fake?
She imagined herself as Kate’s girlfriend. She imagined collecting those notes that Kate was still writing in a drawer instead of throwing them out when she got home, wearing Kate’s gymnastics hoodie in the evening in her room instead of reserving it for the school hallways, and… meeting Kate’s family for real. She imagined this moment, but knowing Kate was hers to keep.
She was surprised to find that a part of her, however small, wanted it.
Shit.
The next few weeks passed, and soon it was December. As anxious as Eva was about her final exams, there was a nagging voice in the back of her head reminding her that the ski trip was in just two weeks, and she and Kate still hadn’t staged the breakup. It was like a timer ticking down in her head—as much as Eva was enjoying her time with Kate, it wasn’t permanent, and it couldn’t last. Sooner or later, she’d have to give Kate back to Cairo.
When they’d started this whole thing, she couldn’t wait for that day. The idea of fake-dating Kate had sounded like such a chore, and Eva had immediately regretted agreeing to it. She’d imagined that they’d stage some big, dramatic breakup, Kate would go running back to Cairo, and Eva would revel in her newfound freedom.
Now, though, she was getting worried. Breaking up with Kate had started to sound like it might hurt for real.
Of course, she had nobody to tell about these concerns, but Farrah could tell something was up anyway. She didn’t try to ask Eva about it—she never did, which bothered her sometimes, but in this specific circumstance was welcome—but she kept trying to cheer Eva up.
One afternoon in early December, the two of them snuck out during lunch to run to Subway. Farrah wanted to stay there and eat to avoid getting caught, but Eva was paranoid about running out of time to get back to school and having to walk into class late, so they compromised by eating under the bleachers.
“Do we have to be under the bleachers?” Eva complained, shifting a little. The grass was probably leaving stains on her jeans, and it was freezing.
“Yes, we do,” Farrah said impatiently. “We can’t get caught with these contraband cups out in the open, and someone insisted on coming back to school, ergo: under the bleachers we eat.”
“Who the fuck taught you the word ergo? ” Eva muttered, trying desperately to keep her sandwich from falling apart.
“I pay attention in class sometimes,” Farrah shot back.
Eva started to reply, but a pair of footsteps on the bleachers about twenty feet away stopped her, and they both fell silent.
“I don’t know, Kate,” a familiar voice said, and Eva almost dropped her sandwich. “It’s like… you never have time for me anymore.”
“Yeah, well, I have a girlfriend,” Kate’s voice replied. Her tone was short, impatient, and Eva felt a twinge in her gut, although she wasn’t quite sure why. “And you have a boyfriend.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends, you know.”
“What, am I supposed to wait around for you until you get bored of this guy and come running back?” Kate’s foot was tapping against the steel of the bleachers, a nervous gesture Eva recognized by now. Normally, she’d put a hand on Kate’s knee and the bouncing would stop, but of course, that wasn’t an option right now, and Cairo didn’t seem to know to do that. “That isn’t fair, Cai.”
Eva gingerly set her sandwich down, trying not to rustle the paper too much. “We should leave, Farrah,” she whispered. “This sounds private.”
Farrah shook her head fervently. “Are you kidding?” she hissed. “That’s your girlfriend and her ex!”
Eva bit her tongue. This was the worst part of this whole thing—she’d kept herself sane by reminding herself that this whole fake-dating thing was only temporary, that Kate was going to go back to Cairo eventually. But it was hard to remind herself of that and pretend she didn’t want Kate to get back with Cairo at the same time—especially when she wasn’t sure she really did want Kate to get back with Cairo at all.
There was maybe a tiny part of her that didn’t want that because she wanted to keep Kate all to herself, but it was more than that. In the few months they’d been doing this stupid, ridiculous thing, Eva had learned a lot more about Kate than she’d ever thought she would. She’d learned that Kate was annoyingly smart, that she could be pretty funny, and that she was so much kinder than she let on. Kate had opened up to her several times about her dad, about trying to be a good role model for a sister who never wanted to spend any time with her, and how her mom was trying so hard to take care of Kate and Rebecca but wouldn’t let Kate take care of her. Kate was such a good person, and… well, if Cairo could just drop someone like Kate in the blink of an eye like that, then Eva didn’t think she deserved her.
She didn’t know if she deserved Kate, either. But that wasn’t an issue. If Kate was the kind of person who could fall for Cairo, then she definitely wasn’t the kind of person who could ever fall for Eva.
“Well, she isn’t coming on the ski trip, is she?” Cairo asked. “Because that’s our thing.”
“What do you care?” Kate snapped. “You have a boyfriend. ”
“Yeah, but… maybe by then, I won’t.”
Kate didn’t respond to that, and Eva felt her stomach twist. She put her sandwich back in the bag, suddenly not hungry, as Farrah looked at her with wide eyes.
This was good, right? This whole charade might finally come to an end soon, and soon, Eva would be able to go back to her normal life: background, invisible, and decidedly not in Kate’s circle.
So why did it feel so… catastrophic?
“I have to go,” Eva whispered to Farrah. Her brain felt like it was going to explode, and if she didn’t get out of there soon, she felt like she might burst into tears.
Farrah opened her mouth as if to say something, but Eva didn’t give her the chance. As quietly as she could, praying that Kate and Cairo wouldn’t notice, Eva rushed back to the building, her vision blurring with tears.
The hallways were empty, everyone either in class or at lunch, and Eva quickly realized that she had no idea where to go. She couldn’t deal with Kate’s friends in the cafeteria, she couldn’t cry in the library, and of course, Kate had driven her and Mattie to school, so she couldn’t even go sit in the car to pull herself together.
“Eva?” called a voice behind her, and Eva spun around to see Annleigh at her locker, looking concerned. “Are you okay?”
Eva started to nod, but then stopped herself. “I… I don’t know.”
“Is it Kate?” Annleigh closed her locker and crossed the hallway to Eva. “Did she do something to you? If she-”
“No, it’s- I mean, it kind of is Kate, but-” Eva stopped and buried her face in her hands. “I mean, she didn’t even do anything. She was, honestly, standing up for me, but…”
“Eva, what happened?” Annleigh asked, softer now. She put a hand on Eva’s arm, and the two of them sat against the wall, Eva sure to keep some distance between them.
“Farrah and I were eating lunch under the bleachers, and, um… we heard Kate talking with Cairo,” she admitted. “And Cairo was, like… jealous, I guess.” Eva chewed her lip. She wanted so badly to tell someone what she was feeling, how she knew Kate would never truly be hers but how she kind of wanted her to be. But she couldn’t tell anyone, and she definitely couldn’t tell Annleigh. “And Kate kept reminding her that she has a girlfriend, and that Cairo has a boyfriend, but I just… I don’t know what to do, I guess.”
“I don’t know, Eva.” Annleigh scuffed her shoe against the tile, shrugging a little. “I mean, that sucks.”
“I know you don’t like her,” Eva mumbled. “Sorry to-”
“No, it’s fine.” Annleigh shrugged again. “I don’t like that she’s meeting up with her ex in secret.”
“I mean… I just have this feeling that she’s inevitably going to get back with Cairo,” Eva admitted. It was close enough to the truth, anyway. “Like I’m kind of a placeholder. But I’m just getting so used to having her around, and the longer this goes on, then… the more it’s going to hurt when she and I break up, you know?”
Annleigh was cut off by the bell ringing, and both of them scrambled to their feet to avoid being trampled.
“Eva?” someone called over the din, and Eva’s stomach dropped when she realized it was Kate.
“I should go,” she told Annleigh.
Annleigh didn’t seem thrilled. “You sure? I can walk you to class-”
“No, I need to talk to her,” Eva insisted. “You go. I’ll see you later.”
Eva slipped through the crowd to Kate’s side, who looked annoyed. “Hey-”
“What the hell, Eva?” Kate hissed, grabbing her hand and pulling her into an empty classroom. “What do you think people are going to say about you cozying up to Annleigh behind my back?”
Eva pulled her hand away and crossed her arms, suddenly defensive. “What do you think people are going to say about you meeting your ex on the bleachers behind my back?”
Kate opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I- how did you-”
“Farrah and I were under the bleachers, it doesn’t matter.” Eva turned away, unable to meet Kate’s eyes. “But I heard the whole thing, and- Kate, I think we need to call it. Annleigh and I are… mostly cool, and Cairo is officially jealous, so-”
“Are you seriously trying to break up with me now?” Kate demanded. “The ski trip is next week -”
“So?” Eva threw her hands up. “I never even wanted to go!”
“It’s in the contract- ”
“Yeah, only if we’re still together.” Eva glanced at her phone and realized she only had three minutes to get to class.
“We are still together,” Kate insisted.
“Why do you care so much?” Eva asked, willing herself not to break. “Cairo wants to get back with you, right? So just go back to her already.”
Kate looked away, like she was searching for the words. “Just… come on the ski trip, okay? We can call it after that, I just… was kind of looking forward to it. Please?”
Don’t do it, Eva told herself. Say no. She’s not yours.
“I’ll go if Farrah goes,” she decided. It wasn’t no exactly, but… it was close enough.
Kate looked annoyed. “She’s never going to agree.”
Eva shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Can we be done here? I have pre-calc in one minute.”
“Eva, wait-”
But Eva was already out the door.
At first, it seemed like a foolproof plan. Kate would stop bothering Eva about the ski trip, Farrah would never give in, and they could be broken up by the time Clark got home for winter break. It was all very neat and tidy—with the exception of the fact that Eva was going to be heartbroken, and that she wasn’t sure how she was going to face coming back to school in January knowing Kate and Cairo would be back together, but that didn’t matter.
All in all, she was patting herself on the back for it—at least, until Farrah showed up at her door a few days later.
“You,” she said accusatorially, pointing a finger at Eva before she could even get a chance to say hello. “What did you do?”
Eva blinked, and Farrah pushed past her, abandoning her shoes by the wall and heading straight for the couch.
“Yeah, sure, come in,” she muttered, mostly to herself. “Me? I didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, you did,” Farrah insisted. “Your stupid girlfriend won’t stop harassing me about the stupid ski trip.”
Eva winced. “Oh. Right.”
Farrah raised an eyebrow. “So? What the fuck?”
“I, um…” Eva took a seat next to Farrah on the couch, reaching for a pillow. “I may have told her I’d only go on the ski trip if you went.”
“ What? ” Farrah demanded, grabbing another pillow and throwing it directly at Eva’s face. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t go,” Eva protested, scrambling to the other side of the couch. “So don’t give in, please.”
“But you have to go,” Farrah insisted. “You know Cairo is going to try to make a move on Kate.”
Eva shrugged. “So? Let her. I’m so sick of her staring daggers at me all the time. ”
Farrah threw another pillow at her, nearly knocking over the picture frames on the side table. “Are you seriously just going to roll over? Cairo always gets whatever she wants, and I’m sick of it. I thought you were, too.”
Eva shrugged a little.
Farrah sighed, moving to lay down with her head in Eva’s lap. “Cairo always gets everything, but you get to have Kate.”
Eva’s stomach twisted, but she tried to play it off with a smile. “I thought you didn’t like her.”
Farrah shrugged. “I’m not her biggest fan, but… I like that she makes you happy.”
Eva bit her lip and looked away.
“I mean it,” Farrah continued. “I still think she’s obnoxious and stuck-up and annoying as hell, but I can tell she likes you, and you clearly like her. When she’s around, you just… kind of light up, I guess.”
“She’s right, honey,” said a voice, and Eva turned to see her dad sitting at the bottom of the steps. “Ever since you started dating her, you’ve been so happy. You’ve really opened up to the world. You’ve… Well, you’ve made your old man very happy.”
Eva offered him a smile, and he nodded and headed back upstairs. Once he was out of earshot, both Farrah and Eva started giggling.
“That was pretty sweet,” Farrah whispered.
Eva nodded, a little preoccupied. Either she was a really good actor, or…
Or her feelings for Kate were just that obvious.
And if Eva’s feelings were that obvious…
Later that night, Eva couldn’t sleep.
She’d been tossing and turning for almost two hours, according to the clock on her nightstand, thinking about what Farrah and her dad had said earlier that day. She knew that all it probably should have meant was that she was an excellent actor, that she and Kate were pulling off this fake relationship flawlessly, but…
She’d told herself that it would be easy to say goodbye. She hadn’t even worried about the possibility of getting remotely attached to Kate, let alone… well, falling in love with her.
Eva thought about how desperate Kate had been to get her to come on the ski trip, or how she’d stood up for Eva against Cairo instead of giving in. She’d been hoping that Kate was just coming to her senses and realizing she was too good for Cairo, but maybe there was more?
Before she could lose her nerve, Eva grabbed her phone, squinting against the sudden shock of light. It was almost one in the morning, but she pulled up Kate’s contact anyway.
Fine, you win, she texted. I’ll come on the ski trip.
She went to put her phone down and try to get some sleep, but it buzzed almost immediately. Despite the late hour, Kate had already responded.
yay!!
i cant wait
see you monday?
Eva reacted to the last message with a heart and put her phone down, still thinking.
Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she was going to get her heart broken all over again during this ski trip.
But maybe it would be just a little bit worth it.