Page 59 of Faking the Heat

So I don’t say it. For them. Because they are happy and it is their last week and there is no version of this where the truth improves anybody’s evening.

That is the reason. I am being considerate.

There is a second reason underneath the first one, and I decline to go down there and look at it. I put my fork back in the sea bass instead. I take a sip of wine I don’t taste. Beside me Sterling’s thigh is still warm against mine and I do not turn my head, and I keep not turning my head for long enough that not turning my head becomes an activity in its own right.

“Well,” my mother says, her voice fluttering with a sudden, sharp excitement that makes my stomach do a slow, nauseating roll. She reaches into her designer handbag and pulls out a small, navy velvet box. It's an old box, the kind with a push-button clasp made of brass. “Since we're being sentimental and it's a celebration... I thought now would be the right time.”

She slides the box across the table. It stops directly in front of Sterling. The velvet is worn at the edges, a soft, antique sheen that tells of decades spent in a safe or a vanity drawer. My heart doesn't just hammer; it stops. I am officially in cardiac arrest. The air in the restaurant suddenly feels thin, the oxygen replaced by the heavy, cloying scent of lilies and old money.

“Mom?” I whisper, the word catching in a throat that has turned to sandpaper. “What is that?”

“It was your grandmother's,” she says, her eyes sparkling with a joy that feels like a heavy weight on my chest. There's a mistiness in her gaze that makes me feel physically ill. “The one she wanted you to have. I've been holding onto it for years, waiting for the right moment. And looking at you two tonight... well, it would make a lovely engagement ring when the time comes. Don't you think, Sterling?”

Sterling's hand freezes in mine. The warmth is gone, replaced by a terrifying stillness. He looks at the box, then at me, and I see the exact moment the trap snaps shut. The ring isn't a gift; it's a shackle. Every forehead kiss, every night in his bed while my parents dreamed of wedding bells twenty feet away, and it all fits in a box the size of my thumb.

I stare at the box, my vision narrowing until all I can see is that navy velvet. I don't want to see what's inside, but my mother reaches out, her manicured finger clicking the lid open. The ring is beautiful. It's an antique gold band with a delicate, cushion-cut diamond flanked by tiny sapphires that catch the candlelight. It looks like history. It looks like forever. It looks like the end of everything.

The math starts running in my head, a frantic, jagged calculation I can't stop. If I take that ring, if we let this play out until the performance becomes a reality, the stakes don't just double. They become absolute. If this fails, and things I touch usually do, I don't just lose a fake boyfriend. I don't just lose the lie. I lose Sterling.

I do the terrible math of loss. Derek took my pride. He took my confidence and left me questioning my own worth. But Sterling? If I lose Sterling, I lose the six years of friendship that kept me sane. I lose the way he knows exactly how I like my tea when I'm stressed. I lose the person who didn't judge me for my mismatched pajamas or my one slipper. I lose the one person who truly sees me.

“It's... it's beautiful, Carol,” Sterling says, his voice sounding like it's coming from a great distance. He doesn't touch the box. He just stares at it like it's a ticking bomb. His thumb, still hooked with mine, is trembling just enough for me to feel it. “Really. Thank you.”

“To the future,” my father says, raising his glass, his face glowing with a terrifying, earnest pride. “To finding the right person and having the sense to hold on.”

The room begins to tilt. The clink of silver against china becomes deafening, a rhythmic, mechanical screech in my ears. I can't breathe. My lungs feel like they've been lined with lead, and the perfume from my mother is suddenly suffocating, a thick, floral shroud. The ring on the table is glowing, a bright, hard point of light that is burning a hole in the reality I've tried so hard to maintain. I can see the shape of the future my parents are imagining, and it's a beautiful house of cards that is one gust of wind away from a total collapse.

“I... I have to...” I stumble over the words, my chair scraping harshly against the floor, drawing looks from the tables nearby. “Excuse me. Just for a second.”

I don't wait for a response. I practically run toward the back of the restaurant, my heels clicking a frantic tempo on the tile. I find the bathroom, a small, marble-tiled sanctuary that smells like lemon bleach, and I dive inside, locking the door behind me with a hand that won't stop shaking.

I sink onto the floor, my back against the cold tile of the wall, and put my head between my knees. I breathe in. I breathe out. I count to four, the way Sterling taught me. It doesn't help. The panic is a physical weight, a stone dropping into the pit of my stomach. I look at my reflection in the mirror, pale, wide-eyed, terrified. My makeup is perfect, but the woman underneath is a hollowed-out wreck.

I'm in love with him.

The realization isn't a wave; it's a structural collapse. It's the sound of the floorboards giving way beneath my feet. The kitchen floor conversations, the way he defended my career to my mother, the way I've filled six pages of my sketchbook with the curve of his jaw, none of that was a performance. I wasn't selling the lie to my parents; I was selling it to myself. I've taken the most important thing in my life and I've turned it into a game, and now the game is over.

If I stay, if I take that ring, I am gambling with the only person who actually matters. And if I lose, I lose everything. There is no version of this where we go back to being just friends. There is no reset button for a lie this big. The charade had an exit sign, a clear edge where we could stop and laugh and go back to normal. But this? This is a cliff. There is no way down that doesn't involve a fall.

A soft knock on the door makes me jump. “Mandy?”

It's Sterling. His voice is low, filtered through the wood, but I can hear the sharp edge of concern, the tactical officer scanning for a threat. I don't answer. I can't. If I speak, the truth will come out. And once it's out, I can't put it back in the box. I can't return to the safety of 'maybe.'

“Mandy, honey, open the door. It's just me.”

I stand up, my legs feeling like they're made of water, and I unlatch the lock. Sterling is there, filling the small hallway, his face tight and worried. He looks at me, really looks at me, noting the paleness of my skin and the way I'm clutching the edge of the sink. He doesn't say anything clever. He doesn't make a joke about the sea bass. He just steps inside the small space and pulls the door shut behind him, locking it.

“Hey,” he murmurs, his hands coming up to rest on my shoulders. His touch is heavy and warm, and it makes the tears I've been holding back finally spill over. “Talk to me. What happened back there?”

I lean into him, my forehead hitting the rough wool of his blazer. He smells like cedar and the cold night air and safety. The comfort of it is the problem. It's exactly the problem. He's so good at this, so steady, so unhurried, so certain. He is the hero who saves everyone, and I'm just another person in the middle of a disaster he's trying to manage.

“The ring,” I choke out, my voice sounding like broken glass. “Sterling, the ring. We can't... we can't do this.”

“I know,” he says, his hand moving in a slow, steady circle on my back. His voice is soothing, the tone he uses on calls when he's talking someone down from a ledge. “I know it's a lot. Your mom, she just... she got carried away. We'll handle it. It's just part of the act, Sparkles.”

I pull back, looking up at him. His eyes are soft, filled with that protective, nurturing light that has always been my favorite thing about him. But for the first time, it doesn't make me feel safe. It makes me feel like I'm drowning. Because he's still calling it an act, and I'm realizing that for me, the curtain went down a long time ago. The scripts have been burned.

“Is it?” I ask, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Is it just an act? Because I can't tell anymore. I can't find the seam, Sterling. I don't know where the lie ends and we begin, and I'm terrified that if I keep looking, I'm going to find out there's nothing left of the friendship to go back to. I'm going to find out that I've broken the one thing that was actually real.”