The Fine Print of Falling

Chapter 3

SASKIA

He hadn't even raised his voice. That was what scared the hell out of me. He'd said it softly, evenly, the way people talk when they've been carrying something for a very long time. My mind sprinted through every terrible possibility and couldn't settle on one. The floor felt like it had tilted an inch to the left. My fingers went cold. And no matter how hard I tried to think of anything else, the sentence kept arriving the exact same way, calm and impossible to argue with. I gripped the edge of my nightdress again, sweat pooling in my palms. I turned to him mid-step and asked in a shaky voice, "What do you mean?"

He blinked and moved from the wall. He lowered himself back into my bed and crossed his legs.

Did he want money? Or was this his chance to get revenge? My pulse thudded in my ears. I stared at his back as it flexed when he moved.

He turned to me slightly and patted the space beside him. I moved, my legs having a mind of their own. I lowered myself into the space beside him, suddenly aware of the heat coming off him.

"If we are going to do this, then we need to do this right."

“What?"

"Fake relationships always get discovered because it is being done sloppily."

I scratched the back of my neck in confusion, blinking with my lips slightly parted. "What?" I stuttered.

"I mean, if we are going to pretend, then we actually have to act like we are dating for real."

"Is that all?" I asked, my tensed shoulders suddenly dropping.

A long pause. He leaned back slightly, eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder.

"People are going to get suspicious, Sas. We haven't spoken in five years."

"Then we get our stories straight."

"We need to know each other again."

The words settled heavily between us. I had changed and so had he.

I stood up and pulled open my vanity drawer. I stared at the notebook I had been too scared to write in. The same one he gave me the night before we started high school.

I pulled it out and sat next to him. His eyes lingered on the notepad, his throat bobbing, but he didn't say a word. I flipped it open and wrote on the first page.

RELATIONSHIP AGREEMENT.

"First thing. Why did we decide to start dating?"

"Easy," I murmured as i wrote. He stared at it over my shoulder and chuckled slightly.

"I asked you out?"

"It's only logical that you can't resist a smart and popular girl like me," I shrugged.

He looked like he wanted to counter it but held back. "Makes sense." He nodded. "I guess the captain of the debate club and valedictorian couldn't resist the charm of his best friend since elementary school."

"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds so romantic," I murmured, ignoring the way my stomach was twisting in knots.

"Deal. I ask you out. But only if you agreed because you always had a secret crush on me."

I raised my brows at him, and he shrugged.

"It's only fair."

"Alright." I stifled a laugh and scribbled into the diary.

"What kind of boyfriend am I supposed to be?"

I stroked my chin, thinking. I had not really considered the kind of boyfriend I wanted him to have. I was so focused on work.

I thought about it for a while before I leaned in. I hadn't noticed before how sharp his jaw had become. His eyes widened with my proximity.

"Just be you."

The words came out so easily that they startled me. We both stilled, staring at each other, our breaths mixing and flaring at my nose. He cleared his throat and looked away. I lowered my head, scribbling into my notepad again.

"How many fake dates do couples even go on?" he asked, picking at the fabric of his joggers.

I bit my bottom lip and shrugged. "I have no idea," I said, still scribbling whatever I could remember on the page.

"Maybe Anouk would know more."

"Right, right." He nodded eagerly.

"We are going to post a lot of content and pictures. Are you okay with that?" I held my breath.

He was not the picture-kind of person, and I hoped it was not going to be the dealbreaker for him.

"I know."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding in. "You'll have to smile in pictures." My voice sounded lighter than normal.

"I smile."

"No, you don't," I grumbled. "You occasionally look less annoyed."

He forced a smile, his eyes crinkling and his lips barely curling on their own. "Better?"

I tilted my head and shook it. "We would have to work on that smile." I shook my pen in his face and continued scribbling everything about him I could remember.

He shifted in the seat again and cleared his throat. I lifted my head slightly, eyes still glued to the page in front of me.

“Why me?"

My pen pressed into the page, ink bleeding through.

"I already agreed to help you. I am just curious, why not another influencer or maybe another friend from your circle?"

Silence and crickets.

“Why me?"

"Because I trust you."

The words slipped out before I could stop them. I clamped my hand over my mouth, feeling my throat bob violently.

He just sat there staring at me. He suddenly looked away. I lifted the notebook, hiding behind it before he could see my face.

Suddenly, for the first time that night, I realized that I was alone in the room with him. I stared at his side profile. Somewhere over the last five years, the boy next door had disappeared. His nose was well-defined, his jaw stronger and sharper, and his lips ...

'What the hell, Sas? What the hell are you thinking about him?'

"And what about intimacy?" he asked suddenly, as if he was reading my mind.

"Huh?" A loud gasp escaped my lips.

He raised his brows, his dark brown eyes glistening under the dim light of the room.

"You already said it," I choked out. "That if we are doing this, then we are doing it for real. So we don't give ourselves away."

He rubbed his palms together and then ran his fingers through his hair.

Just like always.

"And what are you going to tell your parents?"

"I would handle them." I shifted in the bed, feeling the headboard squeak against the wall. "You would handle yours, right?"

"Right.'

I raised the notebook to his face. "Our relationship rules."

He grabbed it from me, fingers brushing my skin, the hair on the back of my neck standing in response. He read through, eyes glancing over the lines and humming at intervals. He grabbed the pen from me and scribbled something at the end.

He handed it over to me. I flipped the page open, and my stomach twisted.

'After this, Sas and Dris would remain very good friends.'

I read the line over and over again. I didn't know why, but something about that felt wrong.

"Do we have a deal?"

I looked up and nodded slowly. I stretched my hand to him.

"Deal?"

"Deal."

I got up and picked my phone. I dialed Anouk's number. It rang thrice before she answered.

"Saskia?" She was still awake. Probably waiting for my call.

"I found someone."

"That was fast. Who?"

"Idris Calloway."

An awkward, long silence.

I tried to ignore the feel of Idris's eyes digging into my back as I shuffled and kept the phone glued to my ear.

"Your Idris Calloway?"