A Cupid's Guide To Fake Dating

Chapter 8

‘GEEZ, YOUR MOM must really have a lot of free time if she’s thinking of planning your birthday party,’ came the sour voice of Maria from the other line.

I rolled my eyes, ‘Believe me, planning is her job.’ Mum was a planner. She literally planned out how she would live the day down to how she had her bath, how she ate, where she went and who she visited. And she never liked it when things didn’t go as planned; which was the total opposite of Raymond. I really wondered how those two pulled it off at times.

‘I feel sorry for you.’

‘Yeah, you should really-' the sound of a door shutting closed with a low bang across my room caught my attention and I peeled my ear from my phone.

‘Young man, don’t you dare close your door on me!’

Young man? Lay. Whenever mom started her sentences with the word young, then you know she was really angry about something.

Saturday mornings were like a weather forecast in my home. It ebbed and subsided at will. It had times when it was summer bliss and other times when it was winter with thunderstorms. Right now it was a back and forth thunderstorm banter between Lay and Mum.

I got up from my bed, completely forgetting I was still on the phone with Maria and darted over to my room and looked through the c***k. Lay stood in front of his room door, facing mum whose back was facing me. His face was quivering with complete fury. For an eighteen year old, Lay was quite tall. His tall stature towered over mum but she still maintained her balance. It kind of reminded me of when real dad and mom had their once in a while banters.

Lay sometimes reminded me of my real dad too. His casual attitude, lack of enthusiasm for anything and everything. I feared that just like dad, he too would leave one day.

‘What else do you want me to say?’ he sounded irate, his brown curls falling over his pale forehead. His skinny arms crossed as he leaned casually on his door. ‘I told you I went for a stroll.’

‘Your teacher called to tell me you've been missing your suspension classes.’ Mum matched his tone. She rarely bothered with Lay. But then the moment she did, they always ended up having fights. 'Do you want to be a drop out so badly?'

Lay didn’t even answer. He didn’t even look stricken over the fact that a teacher called mum. If anything, he looked like he was going to pass out from standing. I almost felt sorry for him. Not wanting to be noticed, I closed my room door shutting away their conversations and walked back to my bed. The last thing I needed was Mom seeing me and then transferring her frustrations on me, especially since I’d been ignoring her ever since Monday. Once, I heard her telling Raymond how she’d noticed that.

Picking up the phone, I could hear Maria still talking.

‘Where were you? I just realised I was talking to myself for two minutes.’

‘My mom and Lay are at it again,’

'Hmm, sounds interesting,’ she muttered in sarcasm. ‘Anyway, you won’t believe what I heard from Kana’s group on Friday. She and Austin-' I knew the news she was about to tell me, so I zoned her out for a bit not wanting to hear it again.

Outside my window, a blur of movement caught my eyes just across the street. Phone still in my hand with Maria’s voice still blaring in the background, I walked slowly to my window and glanced out. I saw my typical quiet neighbourhood, nothing out of the ordinary- except for the arguing couple standing casually on the sidewalk.

Peering closer, I saw who they were. It was Austin and Kana. Judging from how Kana was yelling profanities- I was surprised no one in the neighbourhood had come out to shut her up yet- they were both having a serious argument.

‘Hello? Earth to Elena?’

‘Maria, you won’t believe this.’

‘What? What is it?’

‘I’ll call you back.’

Before Maria could wail in opposition, I hung up. Two fights in one Saturday. The universe must be having a blast.

I continued to listen to their conversations, picking up words like ‘girlfriend,’ ‘love’, ‘jerk.’ It was probably the cupid in me but watching couple’s fight had always been my weakness. And for whatever reason it was, seeing Austin make his girl- I mean ex-girlfriend angry (even though she wasn't the best of them) somehow made me feel for her.

More reasons to not like the guy.

Eventually she gave up and with a stomp of her feet; she walked away leaving Austin who was unfazed by everything.

Heartless jerk.

Then I noticed in his hands his skateboard. An imaginary light bulb afloat over my head suddenly ignited and without a thought, I reached for a grey hood, put it on and was out of my room. Luckily Mum and Lay were nowhere to be found.

Running out of the house and ensuring no one saw me was easy cake. However, making sure Austin didn’t see me and catching up to him was a new challenge. He had already skated down a few metres away. My guess was he was heading towards the community centre.

I went the opposite direction into the woods which were a shortcut, hoping that I would at least cross paths with him there. I could even make it seem like I was just passing by. My town’s community centre was like a recreation park. It had vast vacant buildings, a studio, gym and a relaxing lobby. It also had a small park and a basketball court.

One of the reasons why I liked my neighbourhood was because it was like a ten minute walk from my home and because it gave access to the graffiti ground I loved to secretly come see since Mum won’t let me hear the end of it if she ever found out.

Coming out of the woods, I came to the busy street filled with moving cars and people. I kept my cool, not wanting to give the impression of a stalker, surveying and hoping to catch a glimpse of a skating teen. Just then I saw him, skating not too far from where I was.

I almost had the feeling that he saw me, and that caught me off guard- it was his stance and with the way his head was turned to my direction. Startled, I started to walk down the passageway, mixing with the crowd, although there weren’t a lot of them.

He hadn’t seen me, had he?

Just to be safe, I stopped walking and turned around. He was gone. Suddenly, I felt stupid and a rush of shame slowly made its way up to my cheeks.

What the hell was I doing?

Sighing, I started my way back home. Even though I had made a total fool of myself, it was kind of fun. I almost felt like a childish spy. Not wanting to pass through the forest again, I turned a corner into an alleyway.

‘This isn’t enough!’

I sharply halted, turning my head to the direction of the sound. I reminded still in an attempt to hear another sound again. But seconds passed by fruitlessly and I got nothing but the soft chattering from people as they walked by. Maybe I had heard wrong-

‘When are you going to pay us full, huh? You think we own some charity club or what?’

My head snapped to the left where I was sure that was where the voice was coming from. Unconsciously, my feet moved and soon I found myself creeping through the other side of the narrow alley. High walls of bricks stood parallel on either side, various objects caused the sun’s glow to cast a strange, alien-like silhouette and not to mention the stagnant smell that almost made my eyes water.

Anyone would run away and I had contemplated doing so but the noises urged me further. Actually, my curiosity was stronger than my fear of being caught.

The path twisted to a sharp curve to the right and a big red dumpster was positioned just by the side. I tiptoed towards it and knelt down. Taking a deep breath, I peered out slowly.

A small crowd of men gathered and in the midst of them was a familiar face I recognized all too well.

Austin.