Page 78 of Fake Crown

“I don’t know why you don’t make your own post,” Jaxon says.

“In my experience, speaking my truth to an unforgiving audience just ends up making me look like an asshole. Best to keep my head down and move on.”

“I mean, sure, if you’ve done something wrong, that’s true. But the person who’s done something wrong is the one running the ball right now. She’s tackled the girl you’re actually in love with to the ground, and you’re on the sidelines pretending the game isn’t even being played. You’ve been treating Val’s version of events as the truth.”

“That’s not really true. Anyone who matters knows she’s lying.” Though I can see his point. In the past, I’ve laid low because I fucked up or the attention was a temporary high from an incredible achievement. There was no need to feed the fire in either direction.

“Do they? I don’t know, man. You and Posey have kept a low profile around campus. Could look like hiding to some people. Not a single post on any of your socials about her. None about you on hers.”

“I rarely use that shit. Neither does Posey.”

“And Val has weaponized your indifference.” Jaxon stares at me.

I grit my teeth. Fuck. Point taken. To anyone outside my extremely small circle of friends and family, Val would appear more important than Posey. My accounts have photos of me with Val, even if Val is the one who posted them.

“Posey and I have only been together a few weeks,” I say. Worse than that is we’re technically broken up right now—fake relationship or not. “She doesn’t even—she won’t even admit this is a relationship.” Or was. But I’m hoping for is. Our calendars are still attached, so I know exactly what she’s been doing the last week since she’s been home. Helped ease my absolute panic over her leaving like she did. If she meant to dump me, she’d have scrubbed me from her life. I didn’t enter anything into my calendar on the off chance she might reach out, might miss me. No such luck.

“It’s your life. You can do whatever you want. I’m just saying, if I didn’t live with you, I’d be questioning what the hell went down.”

“I don’t understand why people care.”

“She’s made them care. While you were swimming, she fed the world a pack of lies about your idyllic relationship. You didn’t care, and she benefited from it. A lot of those people probably feel like you broke up with them, cheated on them. Scroll through Val’s account and read some of her captions. She tagged you in a lot of them. It’s like a cosign when you don’t respond or get her to take them down.”

I rub my forehead and click on her profile to go through her feed. As much as it pains me, Posey said something similar about Val feeding her followers a steady diet of lies. Perhaps it’s time I listened to the music I covered my ears against when we were together.

Three hours later when there’s a knock on our apartment door, I’m exhausted from reading every sappy caption Val attached to a photo of me over the year we dated off and on. Even I’m feeling sorry about this version of Brent and Val breaking up—they were epic. It’s amazing how easily she dressed up a relationship that was little more than casual sex into a fantasy fit for a romance novel. No wonder people are pissed off. They’ve already been duped once into believing something that wasn’t true. Posey and I have made it easy for her to do it a second time by trying to fly under the radar.

My head is a muddle of thoughts when I open the door to find an irate Posey on the other side. She holds up her phone with the picture of me that Val took when she broke into my apartment a few weeks ago.

“What the hell is this, Faulkner?”

“Looks like a photo of me sleeping,” I say, and when her jaw clenches tighter, I realize I’ve let my frustration leak into the wrong conversation. She doesn’t deserve my smart-ass remarks.

“Why did we even bother with a stupid fake relationship if you were going to let your dick run away from you the minute I left the country?”

“A stupid fake relationship?” I step back from the door and sweep my hand to let her in. Jaxon left for his class and won’t be back for a few hours. I have practice in half an hour, but we might as well hash this out now. “Come on in. Let’s talk about how there was nothing fake about our stupid relationship. I’ve been wanting to have this conversation for weeks.”

“I’m not coming in,” she says. “I came to tell you that I faked all those orgasms to match our fake relationship, and I hope you’re very happy with Val.” She spins on her heel, and I grab her upper arm.

“Posey, wait. I’m in a shitty fucking mood, but obviously you are too. I’m not back with Val. That photo is just another lie.”

“So you didn’t go to her place the other night?”

I purse my lips. “I did. Again, not what it looked like. You of all people should understand that.”

Tears fill her eyes, and her bottom lip trembles. “She’s trying to ruin me. Why would you go see her?”

I drag her into my arms. “I thought I could talk some sense into her. Didn’t go well.”

“Well enough,” Posey mutters against my shirt, but she’s squeezing me tight. “Everyone thinks you’re back together between those photos and the stupid half-naked photo in bed. I used to love those photos. They’ve been ruined for me forever.”

“As long as the real thing hasn’t,” I say. She came willingly into my arms.

She shoves me away and wipes her eyes. “And I’m crying. I don’t cry about stupid shit or stupid boys or any of this.”

All right. Not sure what to say to that. She’s crying because she cares, but I’m fairly certain pointing that out right now would get me punched. I can’t force her to be honest with herself or with me. “I’m not with Val, and I will never be with Val again. I promise. Whether or not you and I can work this out, Val and I are done.”

“Work this out? There’s nothing to work out.”