Lauren and I broke up the next day.

Rather, I told her to break up with me.

just tell them i'm too good for you.

I'd managed to avoid a conversation with Reece by setting an alarm and ducking out of the house at the crack of dawn. Five hours of sleep a night was not sustainable, but I didn't regret going out the night before. I was positive jittery with anticipation for Saturday, but seeing Aaron's car parked to school just reminded me that he wasn't speaking to me, not until I broke up with Lauren.

I weighed up the pros and cons in my head.

Pros; while I was dating Lauren, it wasn't weird for Caleb and me to been seen together. I could get lifts from him and talk to him and have dinner at his house with a perfect cover story.

Cons; contrary to what I'd thought, 'dating' Lauren hadn't gotten Reece off my back. He was watching me even closer, hung up on the theory that I was sleeping around town. It had upset Aaron. Finally, it made me feel pathetic to hide behind Lauren to avoid questions. I'd always thought I was the kind of person brave enough to not deny my sexuality if asked point-blank, but suddenly I was fake-dating a girl to avoid it coming up.

Besides, dating Lauren was only exacerbating my crush on her brother. It had been a novel idea that backfired.

So, I texted her that we needed to figure something out.

She called me soon after, all business. "Let me guess. It's not me, it's you?"

I laughed easily. "You've been amazing. Really. But I'm done hiding behind you."

She hummed, audibly pleased. "Was it me who got that through your thick skull, or have you had a pep talk since?"

I liked to think I had only my own resolve to thank. I was kidding myself. "I don't know how I'll ever repay you."

"I have a few ideas," she said immediately. "But first things first. How are we going to play this?"

"At the risk of sounding completely cliché, can we say we're better off friends?"

She mused over this on her end. "Well, no one in my family seems to believe I'd be able to end a relationship amicably, so it would be nice to prove them wrong."

"Will they buy it?" I asked. "Do we need to stage a dramatic parting of ways?"

"God, one dinner with my family and you're as bad as them," she sighed. "I am not that scary. I'll tell them... with you going to university or whatever next year, and the stresses of maintaining my pristine academic record, we decided to mutually take a step back, as to not let things boil over."

"And you can sell it?" I asked.

"I could sell that I liked your dumb self enough to date you," she growled. I laughed at her, as the bell summoned me to class.

"It's been a pleasure to be your first pretend boyfriend, Lauren."

"Yeah, you were alright," I could hear her smirk. "And now you're fully available to pursue my brother, with my blessings."

I huffed in a way that was probably completely unconvincing, so I covered my tactlessness with the usual dose of sarcasm. "Thank you. Jake really grew on me."

"Dork," she accused and hung up on me with a final farewell. I walked to class with a weight lifted from my shoulders, chin held high.

Miss Riley called me up at the end of her class, her expression unreadable. She handed me my latest test, with a red 75% beaming up at me.

"Your ideas were clear, your paragraphs were concise, and the information was presented accurately," she assured me when I accused her of going easy on me. "You could make a B at this rate. How's the tutoring going?"

"Great," I told her. "Lauren is a genius."

"I hope you haven't been telling her that," Miss Riley warned me. "That girl has come to me with corrections for my own writing. She's doesn't need the ego boost."

I smiled fondly.

"And Ms. Hassan told me you're making great progress with her," Miss Riley continued, and I stilled at the mention of her name. "Although she said you missed yesterday's session. In fact, according to the absentee list, you missed four of your classes yesterday."

"I went home, sick," the lie was minor compared to the whoppers I'd told her in the past. "My attendance is perfect this year."

"It was the one thing you had going for you for a while there," she acknowledged, clasping her hands in front of her. "Ms. Hassan asked me to offer you a Friday slot. To make up for what you missed."

I felt my mouth go as dry as cotton, and my toes clench inside my shoes. After she'd called my home, speaking to Reece and tipping him off to my absence despite all I'd told her about him, I didn't feel like seeing Alba. I didn't feel like I'd be able to look her in the face without breaking all composure. She had no right to track down my home number; she was a school councillor, for crying out loud.

"I'll be fine," I assured her. Maybe by Wednesday, I would have forgiven her, but Friday was too soon to sit opposite her. My life with Reece was a meticulously preserved organism. If disturbed, it could tip everything into chaos. After the year before, ditching school was a particular trigger for Reece. He saw it as the ultimate defiance of my privilege and responsibility. And it reflected poorly on him when he couldn't convince his seventeen-year-old ward to get to school on time.

"I'm proud of you Miles," Miss Riley said, eyes smiling behind her thick-rimmed glasses. "You've really pulled your socks ups. There's nothing I love more than a student taking accountability."

"I still need to pass my mid-years," I reminded her.

She shook her head. "I don't mean grades. It's amazing to see you doing better academically, but you're like a different person in class too. You're engaged, you listen, you're focused... and your confidence with the material shows in your writing. I'm pleased things seem to be getting better for you. It's like I'm seeing you finally wake up."

Wake up? I felt like a train had hit me. "I'm feeling a lot better."

She tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing slightly. I realised I'd slurred through that entire sentence. "Are you still ill?"

Nope. Just the usual fatigue. "A bit headachy. I have to... I have class...?"

She waved me off without a second glance. I moved through the rest of the school day in a haze. Aaron was hiding, nowhere to be found in the lunch hall or library. Max again offered me a seat at the team's table, but I refused without looking to Caleb for his cue. He wasn't avoiding me, per se, but I was avoiding his enthralling blue gaze, so I couldn't really tell.

I was getting tired of catching the bus home, but I had no one left to steal lifts off. Lauren texted me to let me know that she had informed her mother of our breakup, and transcribed her mother's response; firstly, do I need to go have a talk with him, and after Lauren's explanation, a shame, he was a nice boy.

Caleb texted me to ask why I'd ended things, in a way that wasn't accusatory but did come off as a little hurt that I hadn't warned him. I didn't respond. He might have benefitted from my fake relationship with his sister because it drew attention away from his fake girlfriend, but I had no responsibility to keep him up to date on my life. As much as I ached to tell him everything.

I fell asleep with a textbook on my chest, only roused when I heard Reece come home and start banging around downstairs. I stayed deathly still on my bed with my eyes firmly shut, as he climbed the stairs and opened my door without knocking.

"Miles?"

He had no respect for the sleeping dead. I pretended to stir and opened my bleary eyes, shuffling up in the bed. His shirt was dragged down by sweat stains. I didn't greet him, just waited for him to say his piece. He gestured to the textbook, which had tumbled into my lap.

"I haven't seen you open that thing in two years."

Irritation immediately washed over me. "You're going to bitch at me for not studying while I'm studying?"

He flicked on my overhead light, erasing his creepy silhouette. He frowned at me, but to his credit, he didn't step into my space. "I don't want you out that late on a school night again."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and nodded warily.

"You..." he hesitated, shifting his feet. "You still got the ashes?"

I felt my lips part in disgust. "What, you think I lost mum? You're the one desperate to get rid of her."

"Miles," he spoke harshly, and I leaned back into my pillows. He sighed, obviously an attempt at a guilt trip.

"If you go out, at least leave a note. That's common courtesy."

He pronounced courtesy incorrectly. 

"I'll do you one better," I snarked back. "I'm going out Saturday night."

"No," he said simply, and I let my jaw drop.

"It's Aaron's birthday."

"I said no."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Because you're..." he hesitated, visibly unsure of himself, "... because you're grounded."

I couldn't help myself. I laughed out loud.

"You can't ground me."

"I just did," he set his jaw, stubborn as a mule.

"You can't stop me from going out."

He considered this. "I can't. But if you do, there'll be consequences."

I leaned forward on my bed, my confidence growing alongside my rage. "Fuck that."

"Hey," he did his best to sound intimidating, but it wobbled. My arrogance blossomed.

"Fuck that," I repeated, sliding out of bed and storming to the door. "And fuck you. There, and you still can't ground me for that, because you're not my fucking father."

A storm rolled over his features, making me shrink back just the slightest bit. "As if you'd listen to your father if he was here. As if you'd listen to anyone."

"I listen," I immediately spat back. "I've heard every word you've ever said to me."

His brow crinkled in confusion, and I took the opportunity to slam the door in his face. It didn't lock, and he would have no trouble forcing his way through if he wanted to, but I heard him sigh again through the thin wood and retreat downstairs.

I kept my eyes open with Yungblud music videos off to the side of my textbook. My vision blurred by the third chapter, and I gave up after the fourth. The lights under my door going out as Reece headed to bed early gave me all the excuse I needed to ditch the books and crawl into my personal drag Narnia. I uploaded some colour sketches to Sephora's Instagram and accepted a few follower requests tentatively, before pulling up my sheet music and whisper-singing along to the acapella tracks Jamie had sent me for Saturday.

It had been a while since I needed to use my falsetto range. Lady Gaga and Green day didn't generally require anything over a G5. I sent a few videoed fails to Zsa Zsa, wanting to give him something to laugh at.

I uploaded a still frame from the 1975 movie musical, with the date and time of my performance. It was the first time I'd advertised an upcoming show, and it gave me butterflies.

morman.vixen: i see you shiver with antici...