Playing Pretend

13 years later

Chloe was finally on her last box; all that was left was to take down the pictures on her wall. One by one she pulled the pictures off on her wall of her friends and places she had been, remember each one like it was yesterday. She started pulling on a photo of her and Samantha at the beach when she noticed there was another photo stuck on the back of it that had been covered up by the first. She slowly pulled it apart so it wouldn’t damage the picture to discover it was a picture of her and Evan when they were about six at her birthday party all dressed up. It was one of the last good memories of them together since after that their friendship crumbled.

“Chloe, the pizza is here,” yelled her mother Teresa. Chloe stopped staring at the picture and looked out her bedroom window to the house next door. Evan and his family had lived there up until a little after sixth birthday when they decided to move to a richer neighborhood across town. She didn’t know at that time that they suddenly inherited millions of dollars from some relative so they thought they were better than everyone else. They stayed friends up until that summer when they all went on vacation to Hawaii but then they had a falling out since they lived so far away from each other. It also didn’t help that for her sixth birthday they had pretended to have a princess wedding and Chloe and Evan kept calling each other husband and wife at school until the kids began to mock them for thinking it was real. After that Evan transferred schools and made new friends and didn’t have any time to drive across town to play with her anymore.

“Chloe, get in here before it gets cold,” yelled her mother again. Chloe dropped the photo into the box and left to get something to eat.

“It’s about time, I thought you had fallen into one of the boxes as well, I was going to send a search party for you,” said Teresa, passing her a plate.

“Thanks mom, no I just found an old photo and I was remembering the good ole days,” said Chloe.

“‘Good old days?’ Now you’re making me feel old. It doesn’t help that my only daughter is packing up her room to go away for college,” said Teresa, coming around the table to hug Chloe again.

“Mom, I’ll come home for the holidays, I promise.”

“I know, but I’ll miss seeing you every day. So what was the photo?” asked Teresa, sitting down to eat.

“Huh?”

“Oh great, we’re paying thousands of dollars so our daughter can go to school and learn things for a lifetime and she can’t even remember a sentence from a minute ago,” joked Teresa.

“Oh, the photo, it was an old picture of me and Evan,” said Chloe taking a bite, “from my sixth birthday.” Teresa froze and the color drained from her face. “Mom, are you okay?”

“Yeah, honey, I’m fine. What was it that you were remembering?”

“Just about our friendship and our pretend princess wedding and how we stopped being friends after,” said Chloe, paying no attention.

“Oh I’m sorry honey, you probably miss him don’t you?” asked Teresa caringly.

“Hell no, sorry mom, I don’t miss that self-centered jerk. He probably doesn’t even remember me or the life he had before he was a spoiled little rich boy.”

 As if on cue, the TV that was on in the living room just happened to switch to a segment about Evan Holloway. “Evan Holloway, famous for his roles in Faithfully Yours and Sweet Dreams, just announced his engagement to long-time girlfriend Erica Pride, co-star in Sweet Dreams. No word on wedding plans has been made but since this is America’s Cutest Couple, I’m sure it will be the event of the year.”

“Ugh, who cares?” said Chloe disgusted. Teresa face paled again. “Mom, are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine; I just need to make a phone call.” Chloe let her be and went ahead and finished the piece of pizza so she could get back to packing. As she passed down the hallway past her father’s office she heard her mother talking harshly in whispered tones into the phone so she decided to eavesdrop. “Have you been able to get ahold of him? Well his going to find out now. No, I haven’t told her. Let’s just wait, and keep trying.”

Chloe didn’t know what she was talking about and didn’t want to know. Next week she would be living in the dorms of UC Berkley and starting her own life, as if it’s a second chance on life.

Evan was lounging in his penthouse suite watching the news and drinking coffee. Right now they had on a special about his and Erica’s engagement. They had been together about 3 years now and he knew she was the one. They had met on the set of Sweet Dreams, a story about two people who meet at a bakery trying to buy the same last cupcake but keep being unavailable when the other is available for them to be together. It was a big hit and opened a lot of doors for him but Erica still struggled to get jobs. It didn’t matter though since they would be married soon and then some more opportunities would open up being the wife of Hollywood’s hottest actor.

Suddenly his phone rang, it was his mother again. Ever since the news had broken about his engagement she had been calling every day, sometimes multiple times. He loved his mother, but she was a bit overbearing sometimes. She had met Erica once, and they didn’t get along very well. His mother picked at every little thing that was wrong with her before Erica finally just left the restaurant crying. Since then he talked to his mother very little. Evan pressed the end button to ignore the call.

“Good morning, baby,” said Erica wrapping her arms around Evan from behind the couch.

“Good morning,” replied Evan looking up to kiss her.

Erica came around the couch and settled down on it to cuddle into Evan. “So I was thinking, I really don’t want a big wedding, maybe just a few friends and family in a sweet and private garden. What do you think?”

“Well, you have to keep in mind that right now I’m the hottest actor in Hollywood right now so everyone will want the hottest ticket in Hollywood, our wedding. With the amount of press coverage our engagement is getting, I’m not sure we could even pull off a private, let alone small, wedding.”

Erica though about it for a little bit, biting her lip, “You’re right, I guess I just want a small wedding because it’s easier to plan and we can do it anytime. I just want to be married to you and get it all over with,” whined Erica.

Evan kissed the top of her head, “I know baby, how about we plan the wedding for in two months? Would that be enough time for you? We’ll hire the best wedding planner, no, the best wedding planners; since it’s a big job we’ll need multiple, in Hollywood. That way you don’t have to deal with any of the stress of planning the wedding, you just need to get a dress and show up. If there is anything that we need to do or decide, we’ll be right next to each other making the decision. How does that sound?”

Erica jumped up and hugged him, “That sounds wonderful. I can’t wait. I love you.”

“I love you too, I’ll get right on it to get the wedding planners so we can start planning.”