So had I.
No one could claim we weren’t romantics at heart. I had my bulleted list of fictional heroes that I could feel myself get all swoony over. But that’s just it. They were fictional. Thus, they were also safe.
“What if he’s like Gray?” Lia had gushed about our mutual most recent bookish crush.
I imagined the fictional guy. His neat blond hair, his blue eyes, his square jaw. He was so stinkin’ adorable in the books we’d read, I could only imagine what he’d be like if he were real. So that’s what I did. I imagined him. With a few tweaks to suit me. Like, being a baseball player. That was the only outdoor anything I liked that could possibly steal me away from a book. He was kind. Funny. Easygoing to my admittedly neurotic personality. I mean, I stored my colored pens in order of the Pantone color chart.
Crap.
I’d let my mind wander again, and this time, I ran into Melanie. She was in my chemistry class, and I seemed to get paired with her often. Probably because I was terrible at math, and she was scared to even live without it.
Melanie’s blue eyes were the size of paper plates.Oh my gosh! She mouthed the words, but instead of stopping to chatter like she normally did, Melanie breezed past me.
I steered to the right to avoid running into a couple of guys from the football team.
“Brielle!” Another voice sliced through my nerves. Jenessa’s BFF, Claire, gave me a look that made me feel like I was totally missing something really important.
“Wait.” I reached for Claire’s sleeve.
She paused.
Students passed on either side of us, all heading to classes or their lockers.
“What?” Claire waited.
“Why the look?” I asked. I had to ask. Because just as I’d grabbed for Claire’s sleeve, another girl from our Wednesday night church youth group had hurried past but took the time to blow me kisses.
Kisses?
That was beyond weird.
“What’s going on?” I pressed.
Claire laughed, and her smile reached her eyes. Eyes that communicated that she knew. She knew everything.
I only wished I knew everything too.
“I had no idea.” Claire gave me such a look of sheer astonishment and if she wasn’t holding onto a pile of books, I could picture her holding up her hands, palms toward me, to emphasize her amazement.
“No idea? Of what?” I asked.
Claire tipped her head to the side and gave me a tolerant smile. “Ohhhhh, you know.”
“No. I really don’t.”
“When I saw those pictures, I didn’t believe you. I have to admit it. I thought you’d deep faked him or something.” Claire’s laugh echoed in the hall.
A cold, solid ball of guilt started to form in my stomach. She knewthat? Claire knew I’d created Brooks Mason, my fake boyfriend, using a combination of fictional characters and AI?
“But holy crap, Brielle.” Claire shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t know how you did it.”
“Did what?” I felt like all I could do was ask questions. Which was true. Because if I made any statements at all, I’d risk incriminating myself, or securing my position of the biggest loser—and liar—in the history of girls who tried to fit in but couldn’t.
And I wasn’t even the kind of girl that really worried about fitting in. I wasn’t, I tried to convince myself.
“I gotta go,” Claire flung the words at me and hurried away down the hall.
“But—” I stood there, my mouth gaping, like a fish that just realized it was out of water and had been for a lot longer than they’d realized. Being out ofwater could kill them.Wouldkill them. What had I been thinking? Creating a fake boyfriend using computer-generated art and a healthy dose of imagination. And what was Claire smirking about? And Jenessa and—
