The Fake Girlfriend

Chapter 34- Time Passing

It had been one month.

One month since I agreed to give Nick a chance.

It had also been three weeks since I broke it off between us.

"I just can't do this, Nick."

I had been crying, streaks of black mascara from where the tears had ran down down my cheeks stained my skin.

We had just arrived back to his apartment after leaving a gala. I had tried to drink champagne to mute the thoughts in my head that were notifying me every time Nick's eyes followed Anna. From the moment she stepped out of the car, his attention was halved.

He had told me that he was over her, but I couldn't play this game anymore. I could not be the girl to dress his wounds, heal his scars, and kiss his bruises. I was not a rebound and I would not be treated as one. I'll admit, I had a bit too many bubbling drinks and they might have been adding to the anger that was penetrating through my tight dress- but I know what I saw. I also knew what I was worth.

Nick had been upset. He took it hard. I don't blame him. We had been in this perpetual state of falling for one another, but I couldn't be in a relationship with someone whose eyes always looked for someone else's in a crowd.

Unfortunately, while our real relationship was over, the fake one still flourished. According to the media, we were actually becoming very serious. I could be end-game for the last Jonas Brother. What the cameras didn't see was that after we were holding hands and giggling in the streets, the moment the doors closed behind us, we couldn't look each other in the eyes. They didn't know that I gladly accepted a check every week to plaster a smile across painted lips and bat my eyelashes at America's favorite.

At first, Nick and I tried to remain friends. While we weren't exactly enemies, we were ambivalent when it came to one another- or at least tried to be. I had been falling in love with him and the ache of being around him when we weren't acting was more painful than I expected. We didn't know how to navigate this middle ground of friendship. The gray area that I claimed to love so much when we had been on the rooftop now mocked me. Because of him, I now hated the color gray.

I would never tell Nick this- even though one day, I might- but I had been trying to break the contract with Scarlett. There were many legal reasons why I could not just walk out of it, many that included me losing a lot of money and my image being tainted. Scarlett had called me last week and while she talked calmly, I could practically hear the shaking of her heeled foot underneath the desk.

"You can't be serious, Rayne," she had scolded through the phone. "even if we could let you out of this contract without damage, would you really want that?"

That was the last thing I had expected her to ask me. She had always been straight business with a tongue that spit fire. I was quiet for a moment at the bluntness of her question. Did I really want that? If she could let me out of the contract, step away from Nick with no legal repercussions, would I honestly want that?

I thought of the ache in my heart and the way it kept me up at night. I thought of how it felt to be around the man that I was falling in love with- because let's face it, I still was- and know that I had left him because he deep down wanted someone else.

Sometimes, I thought that I had overreacted. Maybe that night, with the help of champagne glasses and the complex emotions of loving someone, I had self-destructed. I was scared that somewhere down the line, I wouldn't be good enough for him and this lifestyle, so I ended it before I was the one being blindsided.

I pushed those thoughts down as far as they would go in the corners of my mind. I couldn't think like that. If I did, I might never be okay.

After I gave Scarlett my answer, the conversation was short before it ended.