Fake It Til You Make It

4

Esmeray wakes up with a pounding headache in an unknown bedroom. She slowly sits up and notices Cameron asleep on the ground. Oh shit. She gets up and tip-toes around him in search of her shoes but has no luck finding them.

"You good?" Cameron asks, startling Esmeray.

"I'm fine. Where the hell are my shoes? Fuck, and my phone. They've probably been calling me all night." Esmeray goes in circles searching the room.

"They?" Cameron questions while sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Ryan and Valentina. Dude, where are my shoes and phone?!" she asks more aggressively.

"Can you relax?"

She finally stops moving and turns to Cameron. "No, I can not relax. I don't know what the hell happened last night, I'm assuming this is your house and that makes me feel ten times worse. I want to find my shit and leave."

"Damn, Esmeray, am I really that bad?" he almost sounds genuinely offended. However, there was no way Cameron Carter could feel that deep of an emotion.

"Yes, you are," she answers sternly. "Where's my shit, Cameron?" Cameron stays silent for a second, he genuinely looks hurt, like Esmeray's words made a crack in his cold black heart. Esmeray had every reason to hate Cameron. He was a terrible person for what he did to her and he probably doesn't even remember. "Are you fucking clueless? You think tucking my drunk ass in your bed is going to make me like you?"

"I thought it would let you sleep it off. My bad for looking out for you when you're shitfaced at my party."

"I don't need you to look out for me. I have friends for that."

"Well, your friends were nowhere to be found. A thank you would suffice, Díaz," he says with an attitude.

"I'm not thanking you for shit! I'm going to say this as nicely as I possibly can. I don't like you, Cameron Carter. You are a shitty person, especially to me."

Cameron stands up but keeps his distance from Esmeray. "What the fuck did I do to you?"

"From the day you met me, Cameron, I became the butt of all your jokes. You picked on me constantly, you and your asshole friends would always make bets on me. You treated me like a joke and destroyed my self-confidence and my mental health. You fucked me up!" she explains. Her voice begins cracking but she holds her tears back because she refuses to cry in front of Cameron Carter.

Silence filled the room and Cameron's face was bare. He had no expression, no sign of remorse for what he did, nothing. He found her heels and her phone and handed them to her.

"You can leave," he says calmly.

Esmeray shakes her head and scoffs. She wanted to be strong enough to brush it off and just leave but her pride wouldn't let her. "Fuck you, Cameron Carter. You're a fucking dick." she spits. She checks her phone quickly before leaving and realizes how many calls and texts she got from Ryan and Val. She slammed the door behind her when she read Ryan's texts telling her he was outside to pick her up.

Cameron sighs and brushes his hands through his hair. He didn't know what else he could've said to her. He felt like apologizing at that moment would've been stupid and forced. She wanted to leave so he let her leave.

His door opened and both his parents entered looking grave. "So is that the new girl everyone is talking about?" his dad questions.

"What do you mean?" Cameron asks in confusion. His mom hands him her phone and he sees more rumors about him and Esmeray. People saying things about how they work together and went to Cameron's room together at the party so they must be fucking. Or even worse, they're together.

"I am so sick of this shit, Cameron. Every week it's a new girl but this has gone on way too long. People are approaching me and your mother blaming us for the way our son acts. So what's the deal? Are you with her?" his dad is clearly aggravated and tired of Cameron's shit.

"No, I'm not with her. She just chewed me out before she left." Cameron responds.

"Well, you better make it work with her. If we see anything else with a girl that is not her, you're cut off. No allowance, no parties, and definitely no girls. You're going to want to move out, I promise you, son. Get your shit together." his parents leave and Cameron feels stuck.

He has two options: stop messing with random girls or somehow convince Esmeray to date him. Neither sounded like good a option to him.

~~~

A few hours later, Esmeray comes into work and of course, Cameron is already there. She had no intentions of speaking to him or even looking at him. She didn't want to think that Cameron was a bad person but after she told him what he did and all he said was leave definitely convinced her that he truly was a shitty person.

She almost made it her entire shift not speaking to him until just the last thirty minutes when he called her name. She was going to ignore him but he kept calling her until she unhappily acknowledged him.

"Esmeray, I truly am sorry for what I did to you." he starts.

"Yeah right." she laughs credulously.

"Listen, I thought it was all just harmless jokes, I was a kid, Esmeray."

"You were also a freshman in high school," she adds.

It set in for Cameron that doing this might be a little harder than he thought. "Okay, I'm a dumbass, everyone knows this."

"Understatement," Esmeray mutters under her breath.

Cameron sighs before continuing. "I am so sorry that I hurt you. I mean that. And I know you hate me, but if I could just ask you one little thing that would be great."

Esmeray crosses hers arms across her chest. "You must've grown balls overnight."

"People are still talking about us. People at the party are talking about how we went to my bedroom and are blowing it out of proportion. They're also saying shit about how we work together and are constantly around each other. Even when we ran into each other at the beach." he explains.

"Fucking wonderful," Esmeray says sarcastically. "Am I being stalked? People care this damn much?"

"Apparently. Listen, the rumors got back to my parents and they are sick of my shit so I was wondering... maybe we could just play along?" Cameron finally gets to the point and Esmeray can't believe he dared to ask her that. She can't help but crack up in his face.

"No, absolutely not," she says gravely.

"Please, Esmeray. I need to get my parents off my back," he begs.

"I expect nothing less from you. You're selfish, of course, this is for your benefit."

"This could benefit you too!" he argues. Esmeray leans into her hip looking unconvinced. "You may not acknowledge them but people are constantly trying to get at you. Maybe this will get them to back off."

"That's the best you could think of? Half the time I don't even realize people are hitting on me."

"Okay, fine. I will..." he takes a second to think. "Be your slave." Esmeray cocks her head, intrigued to hear what else he would say. "Anything you want, anytime you want. If you want some fast food at three A.M, call me. If you want a ride anywhere, call me. Anything you want, anytime." he must be desperate. Esmeray thinks to herself. She contemplated in her head whether she should go with it or not. She hated Cameron, but Cameron wasn't the type of person to cater to someone's every need so the fact that he's offering it must mean he's in deep shit with his parents. It was like a lightbulb turned on in her head and she realized how she could benefit from this.

"I'll give you an answer tomorrow." she eventually speaks.