Pretending To Love Mr Hill

Chapter 15

The next morning was Saturday, Amelia woke up feeling strangely energized, the kind of light, restless energy that usually only came after a full night of deep sleep.

She lay on her back for a long time, doing nothing but staring at the ceiling, she found her herself thinking about Travis, the crooked smile he’d worn when he caught her staring, the way his eyes had softened when he thanked her for dinner, the ridiculous sound of his belch in the car. A small smile tugged at her lips before she could stop it.

She found the whole thing ridiculous, she was lying in bed grinning over a man who wasn't thinking about her, she reached for her phone.

A new message from Travis sat at the top of the screen.

"Good morning. Hope you had a wonderful night?"

Amelia smiled involuntarily, of course she had, who wouldn’t have, after the way the evening had unfolded? But she couldn’t exactly say that so she simply typed back.

"Yes. Did you?"

She wasn’t expecting him to reply so quickly, but less than two minutes later her phone buzzed again.

"Yes I did."

A second message followed almost immediately, like an afterthought

"Thanks to someone special"

Amelia scoffed under her breath, but a ghost of a smile still lingered on her lips, what did he think he was doing? She decided two could play that game.

"Oh, really? Who?"

His reply came instantly:

It’s actually nobody you know

The laughing emoji at the end of the text caught her off guard, she hadn’t pegged Travis as an emoji user. Something about it felt strangely intimate, like she was seeing a version of him the rest of the world wasn’t allowed to see, she typed back, still smiling:

Try me.

The next message arrived within seconds..

Let’s just say she’s my “fiancée.”

The word fiancée sat inside quotation marks, the smile on Amelia’s face died, an unpleasant ache settled low in her stomach. She had almost forgotten. For a few hours she had let herself believe this was real.The quotation marks dragged her straight back to reality.

This was still an arrangement, it was a temporary performance, she turned her phone off and tossed it onto the other side of the bed, then she grabbed her pillow, pressed it hard over her face, and screamed into it, all the frustration she didn’t know what to do with was let out.

When she finally pulled the pillow away, her eyes felt hot, she sat up, pushed her hair out of her face, and headed for the bathroom. She needed coffee. Immediately.

Breakfast was quiet. She moved through her small kitchen on autopilot, the memory of the text still sitting in her chest, aterward she pulled out her laptop and opened her school group chat, half-hoping there would be something useful or urgent to distract her. There wasn’t. Just the usual scattered messages from classmates she barely spoke to.

She closed the laptop and pushed it away, she turned on the television and scrolled until she found a rom com she had already watched a million times, the familiar opening scenes played, but her mind only half registered them.

Halfway through she stood up to make popcorn. As she waited for the oil to heat, a quiet thought crept in, days like this were when she most wished she had friends nearby. The only real friend she had was Cecilia, and Cecilia was miles away, she wasn't even sure it counted because she was her sister.

Sometimes her life felt small and a little sad when she let herself look at it too closely. She swallowed the feeling and carefully poured the kernels into the pan, she mindlessly watched them pop, then mixed the finished popcorn with the melted butter she had warmed in the oven and a light sprinkle of sugar.

By the time she returned to the couch with her bowl, the movie had almost ended. She had to rewind it.

When the credits finally rolled she felt restless rather than settled so she decided to clean. She turned off the television, connected her phone to the small boom box in the living room, and let Taylor Swift’s “Ophelia” fill the apartment. The music was bright and a little chaotic exactly what she needed.

She bobbed her head lightly to the beat as she retrieved the broom and dustpan from the kitchen, she swept from the kitchen through the living space and into her bedroom, the repetitive motion calming her nerves.

Afterward she mopped the same path, working until the floors shone and her arms felt pleasantly tired. When she finished she decided the bathroom could wait until tomorrow at least that way she would have something to do.

She really needed a hobby. Or a fuller life. She couldn’t wait for the internship to be over so that school would fill her days again at least then she would only have Sundays to feel this hollow.

She bathed earlier than usual, standing under the warm water until the last of the restless energy drained out of her. Afterward she heated the leftover mac and cheese from two nights ago and ate it slowly on the couch while starting another movie she had seen before.

Outside the afternoon light began to soften into evening, her phone still sat powered off on the nightstand.

Part of her wanted to turn it back on and finish the conversation, she wanted to pretend the quotation marks around fiancée hadn’t stung. Another part of her was afraid that if she opened the door even a little, the confusing warmth from last night would rush back in and make the promise she had made to her father even harder to keep.

In the end she left the phone where it was.

She curled into the corner of the couch, knees drawn up, the empty mac and cheese bowl on the coffee table, and let the movie play.

For the first time since waking up, the smile she had worn that morning felt very far away. The apartment was clean, the popcorn bowl was empty.

She pulled the throw blanket higher around her shoulders and stared at the screen without really seeing it.