fake | tratie | EDITING |

[ twenty two ]

Confusion flooded my senses, leaving me defenseless. Everything around me vanished but Ashley and her victorious smirk.

"No." My lip trembled, but I miraculously kept my voice steady. "Travis would never do that to me."

She nodded with fake sympathy. "Oh, of course. That's why he told me it was all a big rouse to mess with you."

Shaking my head in disbelief, I left her to retrieve my arrows at Chiron's go-ahead. But she trailed behind me, twisting her own arrows from the target and ground around her. She smiled like we weren't having a world-burning conversation.

Well, for her, we weren't having one.

"You seem to have forgotten what happened last time you were in the arena," she prompted, gathering her arrows carefully to stall for more time to talk to me.

Regardless of how much I told myself not to listen to her, I wracked my brain for anything that went down that could've aided her claim. All that happened was that Travis and me were fake dating at that point. Connor made comments about how we hadn't even shot any arrows because we were too busy being coupley, so I'd challenged him to...

Oh.

Oh no.

"That's right." Ashley lit up when she saw my face of realization. "The little contest you lost. Winner pranks loser, if I recall? No holds barred?"

I felt myself twitching, but couldn't stop it. The faint image of my heart stopping and me collapsing on the ground flashed through my head. What if I died right here from Ashley telling me a stupid theory? 

"We... we were dating before then," I lied. True, it was fake dating, but I held onto what I could.

She barked a laugh. "Maybe the whole 'fake dating' thing wasn't a big enough prank."

How does she know it was fake?

Travis told her. He told her everything. Why had he said he wanted to shake Ashley off when he was really just stringing me along?

"That's right," she continued heartlessly. "He wanted to make it seem more real, and he got the perfect excuse to when he won that archery contest."

We'd stationed ourselves back at the marker for shooting, and I remained stony-faced to avoid suspicion. Ashley couldn't know I was actually considering believing her. I wanted so badly to shun her, to have confidence that Travis felt real feelings for me. 

But I couldn't be sure.

"I told you that he wanted me, not you." Her harsh words were punctuated by the thwang of her bowstring as she let an arrow fly. "You didn't listen. I was just trying to save you the heartache."

When she finished her sentence, my heart thudded. Head spinning, I attempted to shoot another arrow. My fingers shook, and when I released it, the arrow dove straight to the ground a few yards ahead of me, halfway to the target.

"Why on earth would he date me if he wanted you, then?" This time, my voice wavered. I mentally kicked myself over how badly I'd fallen into her trap.

Surely, this had to be a trap.

"I told you, he wanted to prank you," she said flatly. "You're enemies. Everyone at camp knows it. You really thought the person who hates you most would just suddenly feel things for you?"

I hated that she made sense. Loads of sense. How could I have thought things were any different? Obviously, he was my nemesis. He couldn't feel anything but hatred for me. This was all a cruel prank.