fake | tratie | EDITING |

| twenty three |

Ben smiled and laughed with me all the way to his car, but the second we shut the doors, he switched to his defensive mode.

"Alright, what's wrong?"

I gulped. "Uh, I got heatstroke? Isn't that pretty bad and stuff?"

"I know your panic attacks when I see them, Katie."

Sighing, I knew I'd been found out. There was no hiding anything from Ben. "A lot just happened between Travis and me, that's all."

"Care to talk about it?"

I shook my head. "Not now. I just wanna listen to music and chill."

He nodded, flipping on the radio and motioned to his phone. "Take your pick."

I forgot how wonderful it was to just be with Ben. We never got the chance to be alone together, and though we fronted our relationship with sibling bullying and bossing around, we really did get long. The fact that we never saw each other presented the possibility to open up to each other without the worry of blackmail or secret-telling. We weren't involved in each other's lives enough to hold things over the other's head, so we could talk without restraint. I loved being around him to talk.

Plus, he always paid for lunch.

"Liv got a job offer at the University," Ben regaled, catching me up on his fiance's life. "She's thinking about declining, though, because she's really enjoyed her time at the Juvie."

I rolled my eyes. "If anyone heard that out of context, they'd flip."

He laughed. "Kinda comes with the criminology job description, to be fair."

Forgetting about camp was a wonderful thing. I let Ben talk away about his life in New Hampshire, about plans for the upcoming wedding. I ate my food and didn't have to offer any of it to Demeter. (Not that I didn't love my mom, but it was nice to have a full plate to myself.) The burger joint Ben had brought me to radiated with normal people's vibrancy, reminding me that nobody else had to deal with a charmspeaking jerk or a stupid Hermes kid.

...And I was thinking about them again.

"He's really bothering you," Ben pointed out. "If I need to drive back to camp and show him what Gardner kids are made of-"

"No," I said slowly. "It's just... Ugh. It's dumb."

He reached across the table and pat my arm. "If you're worried about it, it's not dumb."

"I just... I don't know."

"Spill."

I inhaled a long breath. "It was all a prank."

"What was?"

"The whole thing."

"Spill."

And spill I did. I would've started crying had I not been less mad in an emotionally-unattached area. But I didn't feel a thing as I explained to my brother the intricate trap that Travis wove for me. How I fell into it without hesitation after he'd seemed vulnerable, how I couldn't believe how stupid I'd been.

"-and the worst part is, I genuinely thought he was being real." I buried my head in my hands, propping my elbows on the table.

Ben's mouth was glued shut the entire time I spoke, letting me empty out my need to rant without interruption. His jaw twitched when I mentioned how it was all rigged. He waited to make sure I was done and spat out, "And he told you all of this?"

I took a distracted bite of a french fry to calm my nerves. "Mm... well, no. Ashley did."

"Who's Ashley?"