Faking it.

CHAPTER 20

The next morning, Milli and Simon enter my house while I'm cleaning up the mess that I made for breakfast.

"Hola." Simon greets me and I turn around. "Since when can you speak Spanish?" "I can't. But I felt like saying Hola." He answers and I chuckle. We do our handshake and they sit down at the counter while I continue cleaning. It's still early, which makes me wonder why they are here. "What are you doing here that early? You aren't supposed to pick me up until 8." I say and Simon shrugs, helping himself at the fridge.

"My Mom made us wake up early to have breakfast together and then proceeded to kick us out." Milli explains and I laugh. "While we're at it. You're sleeping over at my house tonight. The Fam wants to see you again." She continues and I nod, smiling. That smile falters when I remember that not even my own Family wants me around as much as they do. Milli notices my change of mood and asks, "What's wrong, Hailey?"

That catches Simon's attention and we all sit down, me on the opposite side of them.

"It's just- Dad. You know that he almost never talked to me and such but now he's straight up acting like I don't even exist. Two days ago I came out of the bathroom and once he saw me he turned around and into Mom's and his bedroom. No awkward hello or can you clean this up afterwards. I don't know what went wrong but it's not fair. I deserve parents who actually care about me, don't I?" I ask at the end and look down at me fidgeting hands.

"Of course you do." They both answer at the same time. "Hailey. Every child deserves loving and caring parents. You are not an exception and never will be." Simon continues and I sigh. "But what did I do wrong?" I ask quietly. "Nuh-Uh Honey. We are not going there." This time it's Milli who speaks, and I smile a little. "It is not your fault your dad doesn't have the guts to build a normal relationship with his daughter. I repeat. His daughter. He needs to get that through his thick head at some point."

"Thanks guys. I wouldn't know what to do without you." I tell them and Simon shrugs. "You wouldn't survive." Milli punches him in the arm but we still laugh. It's true. I wouldn't survive without them.

"Okay enough of this depressing topic. We have 45 minutes to kill before school and I'm really in the mood for Maggs." Simon says and we stand up and go outside. When I turn the keys to lock the door I see Joey's spare key for his new apartment. We haven't talked in a while now and I really need to visit him soon.

Walking through the door of Maggs, the three of us are having an argument about if tomato sauce is jam.

"Maggie, is tomato sauce jam?" I ask her when we reach the counter. She thinks for a moment before answering, "I guess you could call it that."

Milli begins doing a winner dance, because Simon was trying to tell her that it isn't, and I couldn't decide.

I get behind the counter and start brewing our coffees. Although it's not even 8 o'clock, we decided on a really strong iced coffee.

"Not that I don't like having you here guys. But what exactly are you doing here?" Maggie asks and Simon nods towards me, filling our cups with ice. "Getting coffee."

Maggie rolls her eyes and stretches her hand out. "Money please." We all groan but hand her five dollars each.

"Shouldn't we get something like best friends discount, since Hailey works here?" Milli asks and Maggie smiles sweetly. "Nope." She answers popping the 'p'.

I hand them their plastic cups and take a sip myself. My goodness this tastes amazing. That's exactly what I needed this morning.

Maggie throws a cloth a me and says, "Make yourself useful while you're here." I put the cloth next to me and shake my head. "I made you fifteen dollars richer, I think that's enough for this morning." I tell her and she crosses her arms, giving me a look that she will make me clean either way.

"Would you look at the time." I say glancing at my wrist where there is no such thing as a watch. "We need to get going. You wouldn't want us late to school now, would you?" I say rushing to the door with Milli and Simon in front of me.

"See ya later, Maggs." We shout and exit the Café, but you can still hear her laughing.

When I look at my phone, I see that it's just a little bit past eight now and we need twenty minutes to school from here.

In the car, we roll all the windows down, and I prop my feet up on the dashboard. Simon rolls his eyes at my posture but still starts the car, turning on the radio.

When we pass a familiar street I see Elliot's house, and his Mercedes pulling out of the driveway.

Soon our car and his are next to each other, his windows rolled down too, but no music coming out. I lean forward and spot Tyler in the passenger seat too and then he notices me, slapping Elliot on the arm repeatedly to get him to look at me too. I smile and a well know song comes next.

"I like your Skechers, you like me my Gucci shoes! I'll buy you that purse, only if you show me your boobs! I like your Skechers, you like me too!" We shout at the top of our lungs, not caring that it's still pretty damn early in the morning. Tyler and Elliot give us funny looks, but we don't care.

"I could get used to this." I tell them and they nod.

Our two cars park next to each other, once we reach the school with ten minutes left until class starts. We step out and Tyler ask with a grin, "Do you guys do that occasionally?" "Do what occasionally?" Milli asks and Elliot rounds his car, standing next to Tyler now. "You know. Shout songs in the morning. Have jam-sessions in the car." He continues. And we shrug, nodding.

When we get inside the school we go our separate ways. Elliot and I walking silently to Art class until he breaks it. "Do you have time this week, so we could work on our project?" He asks and I nod. "But only on Saturday and Sunday. And then only until 4 because dance practise starts at five." "What? Are you not allowed to go out on school nights?" He jokes and I force a smile.

If only he knew I'm working my butt off 24/7.

"Anyways. I thought that we could take pictures in the park, since I'm passionate about basketball and you about dancing, we could do it outside. And it's supposed to be really sunny on the weekend." He tells me and I nod. "Sounds good."