Page 137 of Faking the Pass
Rosie
This wasn’t happening.
Not only was I having a conversation with my movie industry hero, I was about to have to lie to her.
“Actually, our story goes way back,” Presley volunteered before I could say anything. “We were high school sweethearts.”
Elka nodded eagerly. “I think I heard about that.”
“No one knows the real story though,” Presley said, and I cringed, anticipating the embarrassment that was on its way.
She was going to be disappointed when she found out just howun-romantic our dating past was, that after getting to know me in high school, he’d dumped me without a look back.
“I’d had my eye on Rosie since freshman year,” Pres said. “I went to every one of her plays—every performance. I was smitten. But I didn’t work up the guts to ask her out until we were seniors.”
I gaped at him. This wasnotpart of our official, rehearsed story for the media. Why was he ad-libbing now?
“That’s so cute,” Elka said, clearly eager for him to go on.
“We only dated for about a month in high school before our college plans tore us apart,” he said.
Three weeks, but who’s counting?And it was his disdain for me that had “torn us apart.”
I couldn’t say a word, waiting for him to go on with the tall tale.
“But I never got over her,” he said. “Rosie was the most remarkable girl I’d ever met. Talented, sweet, beautiful… and so smart.”
Now Iknewhe was just making stuff up. No one hadeverthought I was smart—certainly not my teachers who’d publicly called me out on daydreaming and missing half the lesson.
One had actually suggested my mom take me to a hearing specialist to find out if I had hearing problems, which I didn’t.
Attention problems, yes, particularly when it came to subjects I didn’t exactly love.
The theater program was the only place in school where I hadn’t felt like I was always lagging behind or a step off from everyone else.
“Presley,” I said, hoping to get him to stop. But he didn’t.
“Unfortunately we lost touch. I thought about her over the years, but I didn’t think she’d want to hear from me,” he said. “But when I saw her again, all of it came back as if we hadn’t spent a day apart. And then we all found out what a scumbag Randy R—”
Don’t say it, don’t say Rump, I pleaded silently.
“Ryland is,” Presley said. “And I couldn’t stand to see her marry a guy like that when she deserves so much better.”
“I’ve always hated that guy,” Elka muttered too quietly for any groups nearby to hear.
Presley didn’t seem to have heard her either. His eyes were locked on mine as he lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles.
“She deserves better than me, too, but here we are. I don’t know what I did to earn a second chance, but I’m grateful for every day with her. The truth is, I’ve been in love with Rosie basically my whole life.”
He swallowed and gave me a tender smile that broke my heart into a million fragments.
“How could I not be?” he asked.
His voice and his eyes seemed completely sincere, and I was literally speechless.
Though my brain knew he’d made it all up, my heart was bouncing around like a cheerleader on one too many energy drinks.
Oh no. I love him.
