That was a nasty combination in a girl.
And I knew why she was mad. We’d gone viral. Someone had leaked her AI boyfriend scheme, taken that video, and then sensationalized it on social media.
Brielle would want to know who had leaked it.
And I knew who it was.
It was me.
Brielle stared at me with wide green eyes that blinked furiously. She was trying not to cry, and I felt like a complete jerk. Well, more of an idiot.
“Youtold?” She gaped at me as we sat on the beat-up couch in our basement, away from my mom. Dad had gone out to play an early game of golf on this unseasonably warm February day. I had no siblings, so we were alone—on a couch—in a basement. I was pretty sure Brielle’s dad wouldn’t approve, but I could guarantee him that nothing was going to happen except maybe my murder.
“I didn’t tell anyone we weren’t really dating.” I tried to fix it. I think I made it worse.
Brielle reared back against the couch cushions. “Oh! So, you kept quiet about what would make you look like a moron, but you spilledmybusiness?”
“I just mentioned it to Jenessa.”
“Jenessa!” Brielle’s voice was shrill enough to break glass. “You do know she is the school’s biggest gossip? She thrives on this sort of thing. Why on earth would you tell Jenessa?”
As if I had even thought it through. I hadn’t. In fact, I thought Brielle and Jenessa were friends, so didn’t that mean that Jenessa would know about the AI thing that started all this? I thought back to my first day in school, and that was the problem—it was really the first time I thought it through. Jenessa thinking I was from North Carolina . . . and . . . yeah. Okay. So there had been enough clues that she didn’t know that Brielle had faked her boyfriend before I showed up, and that Brielle didn’t actually even know I existed. I’d just assumed and, well, here we were.
“Jenessa is one of the reasons I made you up!” Brielle swiped at her eyes, fury and hurt welling in them. “She was always on me about guys, and I just wanted it to stop. Now you told her? That you were an accidental look-alike to my AI boyfriend?”
I winced. This was one big reason I hadn’t bothered with a girlfriend in the first place. The drama was obnoxious. But now what? Break up and risk the extra credit project? Break up and make both of us out to be complete liars? There wasn’t a clean break anymore. We’d waited too long.
“Jenessa?” Brielle threw her head back. Then she snapped it forward. “How’d she get that video? She wasn’t at last night’s game.”
I shrugged. That I didn’t know.
Awareness flooded Brielle’s face. “Claire. I bet you anything Claire took it, trying to be cute, sent it to Jenessa, and knowing my little AI fun, Jenessa did her reel, and here we are.”
“I don’t get why it’s such a big deal on social media.” I stated how I really felt, and Brielle blinked at me like I was stupid.
“Have you never read a romance novel?” she asked.
“Do I look like I have?” I shot back.
Brielle crossed her arms and eyed me dubiously. “Bruh, I’m at least well-rounded in my experiences. I read romance novels,andI understand baseball. You just know one thing. Baseball.”
“And that’s bad?” Maybe Iwasstupid.
Brielle smiled a little. A very little. More like a smile of disbelief than one that implied she was lightening up. “Romance novelsneverhappen. Not in real life.”
“Ooooh-kay,” I answered.
Brielle adjusted her seat on the couch, and it bounced because the springs in it were old. “Romance novels are like . . .” she scrunched her face and looked at the ceiling as she tried to figure out what to say. “Romance novels are stories that girls want to believecouldhappen, but are so ridiculous and unreal, they never would.”
“What does that have to do with us going viral?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because. Let me put it simply,” she smiled again, only this time like I was a toddler and she was teaching me how to think. “Girl creates an imaginary boyfriend, complete with pictures of someone really, really good-looking. Then, a guy shows up at school who is exactly like the imaginary boyfriend, and then they start dating. It’s like a fairy tale come true. And that video from last night? It makes you look like—like Flynn Ryder fromTangled. Cute, considerate, playful, and all mine.”
“I’m not all yours,” I said quickly.
“Iknow. Hence our problem.” Brielle mashed her lips together and glared at me. “Everyonethinkswe are a walking romance novel come to life. There’s no way out of this now, unless we break thousands of hearts around the world, pretend to hate each other, and never speak to each other again.”
Silence.
