My Fake Boyfriend

Chapter 9

It's been a few weeks after me backing into Casey. He still hasn't let it slide, letting out a few jokes about it here and there, and he's basically told the whole school about it. I'm surprised there is not a newspaper headline that says:

"Sarah Bayn runs over beloved boyfriend"

And as for the whole fake relationship situation, we pretend to be a couple at school and in public, but once we get into our neighborhood we go our separate ways. Into our different houses, and we never hang out unless it's with school friends and we absolutely have to be a couple.

And honestly I don't know how I feel about it. On the one hand I was begging not to be in a relationship and I'm kinda glad that he's not falling too deep into it and neither am I. But on the other hand, I love spending time with him, I enjoy his company and whenever we are together, no matter if it is to keep our friends happy, he always makes me laugh and smile. I'm so conflicted, I guess it is good that we have space from each other.

My phone dings,

"Yo Sarah, come over please we need to talk" Casey texts me. All of a sudden I get nervous. What would he need to talk about? Does he want to actually fake breakup? Is there another girl? Did he cheat?

So many thoughts are running through my mind. I quickly slip some shoes on and make my way to his house. I'm in front of his door about to ring the doorbell when the door suddenly opens. There stands his sister Polly.

"Hey Polly! So good to see you! I got a text from Casey telling me to come over, can I come in?"

"Oh...yeah" she giggles and lets me through. She skips past me, she's nine years old so it was kind of cute. I smile and ask her where I could find Casey. Getting more nervous as the minutes go by, she tells me he's in the basement. I find that weird, knowing his bedroom is on the second floor not in the basement. That's just the perks of being friends in our childhood. Having play dates with one another at each other's house. But I shrug and make my way downstairs.

All of a sudden I hear Polly shout, "Wait! Don't do down there yet! I-I should go see if he's ready for you..." she gets all giddy and starts twiddling her fingers. I find it cute but odd, why wouldn't he be ready?

I let her go down and I hear whispers coming from more than one person, I get very curious and very anxious all at the same time. But I wait for Polly to come back because I don't know who's down there or why he needed to get ready so I decided to give them the space they needed.

Polly comes back up a few minutes later and nods her head as in he's, or they, are ready for me. As I walk down my palms get sweaty and I wonder why the basement is so dark.

Oh no. He wants me to join a cult. Maybe I should just go home. I don't know if I can do this.

My mind and heart are racing. I'm off the stairs and I call out Casey's name, getting scared. Basements always creep me out, no matter who's it is, especially dark basements.

"SURPRISE!"

The lights turn on and all of my friends and family pop out of hiding spots and I scream, loud.

As I look around I see my friends and family all smiling and laughing, and I also notice that there is a "Happy Birthday" banner hung up, and birthday balloons and cake.

I smile because my birthday is only a few days away, but who would plan this? And why would they have it at Casey's house? It surely wasn't Casey because we legit had our first interaction only months ago after years of not talking, and I'm sure as hell he couldn't remember.

One by one everyone comes up to me and wishes me a happy birthday, so I put on a smile and thank everyone, I finally see Casey in this huge crowd, I have a lot of family so it's more family than friends, I go up to him and ask him, "Who did all this? It's amazing and no has ever thrown me a surprise party before! Will you tell me who so I can go thank them a million times?" I smile big and I look at him and he's also smiling, but not a seductive smile like he usually has on, a genuine smile, like he wants me to keep talking.

"Only the one and only...me!" He gestures towards himself and I start laughing. He can't be serious. He did this?

"How did you even know my birthday?"

"Sarah, you are forgetting to remember that I was your best friend for all of 13 years, and that I never forgot those balloons you put out in front of your house every year."

I smiled and he leaned in towards me and whispered, "plus it's my girlfriend's birthday so I should at least man up and help her celebrate"

"Oh, your girlfriend huh? Are you sure this isn't to cover up a lie of some sort?" I smirk as I tease him and we both laugh it off.

He puts his arm around my waist as we go from person to person, group to group, saying thanks for coming and answering any and all couple related questions that came our way, to make "us" seem believable.

"Oh my god! You guys make such a cut couple! # couple goals!" Thanks.

"When did you meet? How did the budding romance start? Oh my god! Could Casey be a romantic?" We are neighbors. We were best friends. And yes.

After cake and presents people started to slowly make their way out, which to be honest I was kinda of glad for. My face started hurting from smiling so much. Sometimes it was a fake smile, especially to Audrey, who in fact was there. But other times it was a really real smile. Like anytime I talked, looked or even thought about Casey.

After everybody left, we started to clean up. My parents, Casey's parents, me, Casey and Audrey were picking up. We insisted Audrey to leave as we didn't need any more help thanks to our parents, but she stayed anyway and I had no idea why she did.

Audrey was laughing at anything and everything Casey said, I thought it was kind of odd but I went with it knowing that Audrey herself is odd.

As I was washing the dishes, Audrey pulls Casey aside to a nearby room, out of my sight and hearing. I think nothing of it because I thought maybe she needed help with a homework assignment or something like that because she was complaining how hard her Advanced Calculus class is, and they are in the same class.

Once I finish the dishes about 20 minutes later I realize that they aren't back yet. I get curious as to what is taking them so long so I go over and silently eavesdrop on what's happening.

"Oh come on, she's not even that attractive, I mean look at her hair. Hello? So 2016. I, on the other hand, am hot, beautiful and most important, I know all the latest fashion trends. So ditch her. Ditch Sarah and be with me baby. I'll even give you what I know she isn't giving you" Audrey said behind the door. I couldn't listen anymore, but I also couldn't just let Casey "cheat" on me so I did the only rational thing one girl could do in this situation.

I opened the door.