Page 61 of My Fearless Fake Fling

Seventeen:

“First, what you have to know… Do you remember that night I had just graduated and was coming to the bonfire? Your brother and I, we saw you kiss Harrison.”

How could I ever forget that night? I’d made the biggest mistake of my life that night, set everything in motion that night. “Yes,” I said. “I remember.”

“Har had shown me your picture from Christmas. You had on this ruby-red sweater and a black skirt and tall, black boots. You took my breath away, Kam. Then he told me about all the fun the three of you had together, and I started crushing pretty hard.”

“Len.”

“No, please let me get this out. When I saw you kiss him, it felt like you’d socked me in the gut with a sledgehammer. And I was so angry at him… HeknewI wanted to get to know you, maybe ask you out. Har and I fought, with fists, over you. He and I used to be so close until your brother came into the picture. Then, Harrison tells me that I can’t try to date you because it would just be too weird. Kam, all I wanted was for you to get to know me, to see if you couldn’t find in me the same things I seemed to pick up on in you.”

“He told you not to get to know me?”

“Yeah, baby, he did. Then they went ahead with the plans to join the service.”

“No, you’re wrong. He joined to get away from me. My brother joined because they were best friends.”

“They’d been planning it for close to a year.”

“You’re lying. My brother would have told me. He would have.”

“Listen to me. He didn’t tell you because he knew how you’d react. They both really wanted to enlist. But your brother wanted to keep it a secret from you because he said you’d guilt him into not going.”

My mind raced in a million different directions. Len could not be telling the truth. No way. No way would my brother have hid wanting to join the military from me. “I’m hanging up now,” I said.

“No. Please no—Baby, Kam, I’m telling the truth. I freaked out after Harrison died. I’m not proud, but it happened. I stayed away from you because those were my brother’s wishes, and then he up and died on me, leaving me completely alone. And I took it out on you because someone had to hurt more than I did, and you were already dating that douche and like I said, I was really messed up.”

“I didn’t evenknowyou,” I said. I balled my fist and punched the pillow because it was too late to scream in frustration.

“Shi-oot, I know, it wasa projection. All of it. It took a lot of therapy to realize I’d been jealous of your brother, your family, for having the relationship with my brother that I didn’t any longer.”

“You ruined my life,” I said in a hard whisper.Great.The tears began to form again.Just fricking great.

“I’m sorry. You cannot know how sorry I am. As messed up as it sounds, when I harassed you, it meant I was still connected to you which kept me connected to my brother. I still had that last piece of life with Harrison. Then you dropped off the face of the planet and I realized how truly screwed in the head I’d been. So I set out to change things. That’s why I moved closer to Grand Rapids, to start over. Become a better me.”

He laughed into the phone, but not aha-hakind of laugh. More the I-can’t-believe-how-stupid-I-was kind.

“You know,” he said. “I only started calling myself ‘Leo’ when Har showed me your picture. I thought ‘Leo’ sounded sexier than ‘Len.’” He sounded sad.

“I like Len.”

“Yeah, well, I like Kami—a lot. I had no idea you’d moved to my city. But imagine my surprise when you showed up to my jump school. That stupid crush came back despite the fact that you weren’t the same you any longer. Seeing your smile—the way it lights up the room, the sound of your laugh… listening in to you and Lacy joke around, getting to join in when I could. I had tobe a part of that. There’s your whole truth.”

“I don’t know what to say, Len, to any of it.”

“Oh—wait,” He paused for a moment and I heard him swallow. “Brian and I fought and I sort of gave him a black eye. He said that since you were fun Kami again that he wasn’t sure how he felt about the other chick. So I punched him. You can hate me for it, but I don’t regret it. Now,there’syour whole truth.”

“Do you even love me or was that a lie?”

“Kam, I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”

I sat up in bed, but that didn’t feel like enough. With the phone to my ear, I got out of bed and paced the room. Maybe there was a bar close by. Those—shoot, what had I been drinking the night Len had become my boyfriend?—well, I could seriously use one or three of those.

“You still there?” he asked.

“Yes. I need time, though. To process everything.”

“How much time? We leave on Friday.”

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