Chapter 61

Why did that news send dread into my heart? “I thought you hated the internet.”

He smiled like it was a joke.

“Help with what?”

“You’ll see.”

“How did you know I was here?” I asked him.

“Mom and Dad have a GPS in your phone. Tell me you knew that.”

“I know. I just don’t know why they insist on giving that information out to everyone.”

“Because I brought you a surprise. A make-up gift. Something your friend assured me you’d be happy about.” With that he smiled at mea and the dread in my heart turned to ice.

“A make-up gift?”

“A present to make up for my extremely horrible behavior.”

I smiled nervously. If Jmea was involved, this couldn’t be good . . . or maybe Claire had been giving her the “try harder” speech too. Maybe she really was trying harder. Maybe she’d watched that video Drew made and realized my life was hard sometimes too. This was the first burst of hope I’d had in an otherwise awful day. My brother had come and was extending a peace offering. A peace offering from both him and mea.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

He smiled like he was the one getting the gift, went back to the door, and opened it. In walked Tom . Not fill-in Tom . The real-life, honest-to-goodness, in-the-flesh Tom . I’d forgotten how beefy he was. His arms seemed huge. Too big. Had I liked that at one point? His hair was perfectly arranged, his smile perfect and white, and he must’ve been to the tanning bed because his skin was darker than ever.

Drew was walking slightly behind him and had a big, proud smile on his face like he had just brought me a pile of money or something.

“tia,” Tom said, then scooped me up in a lung-crushing hug. He was going to break my spine with his comically large arms. Then he set me down and turned toward my friends. This was all happening entirely too fast and my brain was having trouble keeping up. So when he said, “I’m To—” my scream of “No!” was one second too late.

The flash of vindication in mea’s eyes let me know this was the plan.

“Wait. You’re Tom ?” Laney asked. “UCLA Tom ?”

“That’s me. And see, tia, I’m not embarrassed by you. I’m here to finally meet your friends. It’s long overdue.” He kissed my cheek and I had to physically stop myself from wiping it when he pulled away.

Claire had a look on her face like . . . well, like I had been lying to her for the last month. “tia? What?”

“He broke up with me in the parking lot at prom. But he exists. See?”

“So, what? You just called a friend to pretend to be him?”

“You had someone pretend to be me?” Tom asked.

My shoulders started to shake and I had to wrap my arms around myself to stop them. “I just needed to extend the night a little bit. You were there. You were supposed to go inside with me, not break up with me.”

Tom closed his eyes like he had made the biggest mistake in the world coming here today. I really wished he hadn’t.

“Really, tia?” Drew said.

I pointed at mea. “She was trying to prove Tom didn’t exist.” I had become a child. It was pointless now. I’d dug myself a grave and I was being buried alive in it. “She did this.”

“So you lied to us?” Claire asked.

“I’m sorry. I really, truly am. I didn’t mean to lie. Tom exists. He just left me in the parking lot, so I felt like it really wasn’t a huge lie. I just rearranged the order of how things happened . . . with a fill-in guy.”

“So who was that fill-in guy?” Claire asked.

“She still called him Tom when I ran into them at the ice cream shop the other day.” mea was loving every second of this. She’d worked hard for this payday and it was probably going exactly like she’d imagined it.

“That was Hayden.”

“Blind-date Hayden? So that really wasn’t a blind date, then. You obviously already knew him.”

“Yes.”

“So that time did you mean to lie?” Claire’s words were ice cold.

“I messed up.”

“You think?” Laney said quietly.

“Why, tia?” Claire asked.

“Because I was scared.”

“Of what?” It felt like it was just Claire and me now. Her icy stare from before turned sad.

“mea didn’t think Tom existed. I thought that . . .” I trailed off because it sounded so lame now.

“I’d believed you all along about Tom .”

“I know. I just thought you wouldn’t that night. I thought it would be the last piece of evidence you needed from her to prove I was a liar.”

“You proved you were a liar pretty easily all on your own.”

My heart sank even further. “I know.”

“Why didn’t you trust in our friendship?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because my relationships have always been so surface. I haven’t really been myself. Ever. I never let anyone in.” I knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment it came out of my mouth but it was too late to take it back. “That came out wrong. I didn’t know they were only surface. I thought we had a great relationship until I realized what it was like to really open up.” I closed my eyes. I was only making this worse. “I’m sorry.”