Page 72 of Fake Crown

Val isn’t the victim here, but her deep silence, and Brent’s insistence on ignoring what’s being said, is letting others create the narrative. In most instances, it’s that I lured him away and/or he cheated. No one, not a single person, appears to believe Brent was unhappy and he left Val willingly. I’m the mermaid in the ocean singing the sailor into the water to drown. Except, I think I might be the one drowning.

Those stupid photos on Val’s account from Bermuda make us look extra guilty. I’m in a few of them—not with Brent—so it appears as though we connected there. The comments on that post are out of control. Conspiracy theory central.

When I called Julia, my sister, for advice, she told me that those who matter know the truth, and those who don’t aren’t important anyway. Easy to say when you’re not the one being bombarded with Northern University’s warped version of events. Of course, since she’s in training to become the king’s secretary in Bellerive, she’s had to take on the never complain, never explain mentality of the royal family.

As for me? I’m getting tired of pretending to be meek when I’m not normally the one crouched in the corner hoping no one will notice me. The problem, right now, is that I’m not completely sure speaking up will do anything. Or at least not anything good.

It’s Thursday afternoon, and I fly home for the holidays on Sunday. A few more days, and I’ll be out of this environment, and I’ll be able to breathe again as long as I keep my phone off. Brent leaves Sunday too. Originally, I was supposed to leave Saturday morning, but I switched my flight to match his. Didn’t tell him that part.

His parents have rented a house in Utah for ski season, and that’s where he’s spending some of his break. With his training schedule, he comes back to campus a few days before me.

Not that any of that matters, because we agreed to only one more week.

Why I’m going through all this vitriol and strife for one more week of lattes and incredible sex is beyond me.

That’s not true, at least not anymore. I know exactly why I agreed to another week, and why I’m taking the abuse from my peers on campus. Despite how shitty this situation is, when I’m around Brent, it’s like I’m lit from the inside. There’s a glow, a warmth, that I’ve never experienced before, and I can’t get enough of it. I want to bask in it constantly.

I tried to shove some distance between us the night we came back from Chicago, but Brent was so tender and sweet with me when we went to bed that my resistance crumbled. My big, sex-crazed, chlorine-smelling jock is hard to resist.

But to what end? I have no idea if he truly wants something beyond this week. The thought of asking terrifies me. He’s the one who keeps extending the timeline, so I can’t help thinking there’s a chance he wants more. Is it normal for someone to go from one relationship right into another?

The whole thing feels messy, and it pisses me off. I want to go back to when we were holed up in my bedroom pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist after we came back from Bermuda. Great sex and lattes were my only priorities.

Ugh. Stupid swimmer boys who make me want things I never thought I’d want again. Perfectly happy to become a Victorian spinster and dote on Julia’s kids with whoever she eventually marries.

I do not want a boyfriend. I do not want a boyfriend. I do not want a boyfriend.

Up ahead, I catch a glimpse of a familiar black jacket, and Brent is standing in the middle of the path with other students streaming around him. He has a latte in each hand, and my heart kicks at the sight of him. I mentioned this morning how much I hate walking back from class with all the social media bullshit, and here he is. Poseidon come to life—chiseled like a Greek god in a sea of people who do not matter at all to me.

Without a word, he passes me my latte, and he falls into step beside me. I glance at him while I take out my AirPods to slip them into my pocket, and there must be something on my face that gives me away, because he grins.

“Thought you could use some company,” he says. “I was in the neighborhood.”

Since the entire campus is technically our neighborhood, it’s plausible. “I can always use coffee.”

“Your addiction to caffeine has no limits.”

My addiction to him also appears limitless, and that’s far more worrying than the amount of caffeine in my system.

Brent is at practice when Destiny and Nadiya turn up at my bedroom door. They both have their phones in their hands, and I swivel on my desk chair to face them. Their expressions are grave, but I don’t touch my device. I turned off my push notifications when it became clear getting them would kill my mental health. Knowing I’m leaving on Sunday for a while is about the only thing holding me together.

“Val just went live,” Destiny says. “Blew shit up even more.”

Nadiya bites her lip. “She said you and Brent hooked up behind her back at the wedding. Said she and Brent were together at the time.”

“She was a fucking mess in the live thing,” Destiny says “Crying. Mascara down her cheeks. Said she’s been absent from social media because the breakup has traumatized her, and she didn’t know how to handle it.”

“Should I watch it?” No part of me wants to see her dramatic lies, but she’s been quiet for weeks. I have no doubt that when she clicked the go live button she knew exactly what she was doing.

“Nope,” Nadiya says. “No. But we thought you should know.” She glances at Destiny. “We also think you should maybe change your flight and leave earlier.”

Leave earlier? Whatever Val said and did in her live stream must be really bad for Nadiya and Destiny to be on the same page. While Nadiya is only confrontational with people she knows well, Destiny has no problem telling everyone exactly what she thinks. Both of them are always straight with me, whether or not it’ll bruise my feelings.

“Look,” Destiny says. “I get that you like Faulkner, but is he worth all this? He hasn’t posted a single thing to deny all the shit takes people have come up with about you.” She holds up her phone. “I bet he’ll have zero to say about this too.”

“He won’t have been able to see it,” I say. A lame excuse. In her hundreds of thousands of followers, there will be someone who will have recorded it. Right now, it’s probably making its way from platform to platform, dragging me so hard I’ll have the burn marks for years. “Was any of what she said true?”

“Not a word,” Nadiya says. “Not a single fucking word.”