Chapter 23

November 29, 2015

Mitch:

It feels so empty, lying to them like this. Abby is breathing heavily on the other side of the guest bed at my parents' house, occasionally sighing in her sleep in the quiet darkness. She is attractive, charming, smart, funny, sweet... just not as much as he is. We've only been apart for three days and I already miss the hell out of him and his stupid jokes and creepy smiles. Every minute spent with him is an insane high – never dull, never empty, never lonely. When I'm not with him and his contagious grins and wet slurps, it feels like the world is frozen in time, spinning in reverse. It feels wrong somehow. There is no color in the world. I don't want to pretend anymore, at least not around people we trust. I have finally made up my mind – this is the first and last holiday that our families will think that Abby is my girlfriend; having a fake relationship is just breaking our real relationship apart. Us going home separately clearly hurt his feelings, and he had obviously been hoping that I would change my mind about the plan. Even though he knows that my relationship with Abby is strictly professional for the sake of privacy, he is jealous that I take couple selfies with her but not with him. I can honestly see myself staying with him for the rest of my life, something that I never thought I would be able to say, and I don't want to sacrifice that just because I am a little afraid of what our families might think. They have had more than enough time to adjust to my profound level of queer, and I'm just so tired of always having to hide something from everyone.

I scroll through the collection of ugly fucking selfies we have been sending each other during the trip and I can't help but want to be there with him, stealing deviled eggs out of the fridge and getting French kissed by Shadow's slobbery tongue. I could use him here, too, to torment the hell out of Marley and Kyleigh and make stupid challenge videos with Connor for a sizeable bribe. After living with him around the clock for almost a year, it feels unnerving to not have him lurking around a corner, sneaking bits and pieces out of my take-out and drinking everything with sugar in it before anyone else can have it. It feels hollow, not having him a yell and a few steps away. I understand that everyone needs their space, but space isn't helpful when neither person wants it. It feels like a punishment, and I can see the lingering sadness in his eyes in his idiotic pictures.

I miss my main Bac, and if this is what it feels like to miss him, I can't imagine what it would feel like to lose him.

---

November 29, 2015

Jerome:

I know it's not really her fault... But I fucking hate her. I hate her girly laugh. I hate her cheesy smile. I hate her flowery perfume. I hate her long ass Rapunzel hair that always gets stuck to all of our clothes. I hate watching her hang all over him. I hate seeing pictures of her kissing him. I hate seeing her walking around in his clothes. I even hate when she talks to him about the next part of our plan. It's the fakest fucking relationship in the history of the world but I'm still jealous as hell of it. How sad's that? How much of a fucking control freak am I that I can't even let him work with the lady I hired to be his on-screen girlfriend? And I'm two seconds from changing her flight so she doesn't hafta come back to Florida with us at the end of the trip. I don't want her there. The only person who wants her there is Alex because he likes oogling at her ass. She can keep the extra money – it'd be worth it. We have enough pictures of them together to slather on interwebs for months. We really don't need any more.

Why does she get to be up there with him and his family but I don't? He didn't hafta come with me to see Helen for the next round of staged selfies. He coulda stayed at the house and screwed around on the computer or made out with Shadow or cleaned out the goddamn fridge like he does at home. Why couldn't we spend two days up there and two days down here? She coulda got a hotel room and followed us. No one needs to know the truth but us and our families, and even then they've been expecting this to happen since we were kids. Nothing Mitch does ever comes outta the deep blue.

It doesn't feel the same when we hafta hide it. It feels like a dirty little secret we should be ashamed of. And if things keep going the way they're going right now, I'm gonna end up marrying the asshole someday. How's he gonna lie about that? Why are we trying to hide it in our private lives? I get why he wants to lie online because we'd both lose a shit ton of subs and money if we came out. But why can't we tell our parents? I know Dad ships the fuck out of it and so do Mitch's parents. And Marley can just take her other-half-family's opinions and shove 'em somewhere nice and dark and tight where no one'll ever hear about it again. She should know better than to start that crap up again after what happened last time she pissed us off. The rest of his family's toxic enough. He doesn't need to hear shit like that from his fucking sister, too. We'll see the aunts and uncles and cousins and friends on their mom's side of the family try to bullshit money out of us when both of our names're on the bank account. We'll just see how great that's gonna work. Can't wait 'til we're all one big happy family

I love my family, don't get me wrong, and I know he loves his family and wants to spend time with them. But my family isn't complete without him here. And Christmas's gonna be even worse when he won't even be here for me to smash a gingerbread house in his face just to watch Shadow lick it off. I'd miss him if it was a regular day but the fact that it's a family holiday... It just really stings he didn't come with me. I want the holidays to be over already so we can go back to our little family down in Flori-dumb. It feels like things are spinning outta control without him there to help me work out my plots and double-check the work on the scratch paper. I miss being the court fool to his king, tryin' to keep him entertained and out of trouble while he builds up our virtual kingdom and signs our contracts. And I miss my pet Dondo. Maybe we can get a dog if Alex bails on us. We can even get a cat if I can somehow get him to get rid of Abby. At least then I wouldn't mind if it shedded clumps of hair all through the laundry.




Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top