Princess

The closer Dylan and I got, the more Owen seemed to stew in anger. I didn’t actually understand what exactly he was so aggravated, or rather, furious about. Not until now.

Dylan and I had been engaged in some pretty heavy uh...kissing (yes, I eventually got over my fear. I have to say, all those girlfriends Dylan had must’ve taught him something) then Owen had barged into the room, stopped and stared at us for a few moments. I hadn’t actually noticed him until he cleared his throat loudly and repeatedly actually.

Then we surfaced for air and when I saw Owen, I immediately removed my arms from around Dylan’s shoulders and blushed furiously. I’d never liked it when couples made out in public and felt self-conscious to have been caught doing it.

Dylan, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease, though maybe slightly smug. He kept his arms around me and smiled, asking, “What’s up, Owen?”

Owen’s mouth had opened and closed, as though he was trying to find the right words but somehow just ended up with a tense, angry, “Get out of my room, Fuller.”

I knew that it was unlikely that Dylan would listen to Owen so I furtively nodded my head at him. Sighing, Dylan dislodged his arms from me, whispered, “I’ll see you later”, planted a kiss on my lips and sauntered out.

Bracing myself for snarky comments from Owen, I stood up. “Is there something wrong?”

This time, he had no problems with speaking his mind. He glared at me, brown eyes filled with annoyance. “I understand that you’re supposed to be Dylan’s girlfriend and that it’s supposed to help you gather info and etc, but really, do you have to go to that extent?”

I frowned. Having Dylan around me had a hypnotic feeling, causing me to almost forget everything, even who exactly I was supposed to be around Dylan. I was Christina Drake to him, not Kristen Hart. And how had I forgotten why I’d even started dating him?

I was supposed to use him.

Screwing my eyes shut to keep myself from having a full blown panic attack, I tried to reason with myself. There had to be some way out for me. There just had to be.

“I’m sorry. I can see that you’re…” The words died in his throat and he laid a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it away, grimacing at his touch. Owen continued, “I really didn’t mean to upset you like this. It’s just that it’s obvious to anyone, that you’re starting to unravel.”

I really didn’t want to hear this, especially coming from him. But I couldn’t bring myself to move away. I’d always listened to Owen, I never knew why, but I did. Even now, I couldn’t break away from it.

“You’re not yourself anymore, Kristen. He’s changing you.”

I opened my eyes and stared at him. Incredulity wrote out my panic and coloured my tone as I spoke, “What makes you the expert on who I really am, Owen?”

“I may not be an expert but I’ve known you far longer than Dylan has.” I studied him to see if he really believed what he was saying. He did. His face was open, honest. “Half of the things you’ve said to him in that stupid game of yours, that Bullshit one, aren’t even true. Your favourite song isn’t by Fall Out Boy, that’s just some random song you knew he’d liked. You made up your father’s name-”

Flinching, I realized how closely Owen had been watching me. He knew all about our game and the things that I had said. But he was wrong about one thing. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do. Those things may not have been true but they were what I wanted them to be. I wanted to like a song, one that I would have never heard from I hadn’t met Dylan. I wanted my father to have been Quinn Drake instead of Kyle Hart, because Quinn Drake would’ve had more time for me than my father…’

“I wanted them to be true.”

“It doesn’t matter if you do, Kristen. Dylan Fuller like honesty, I’ve managed to see that much. How would you think he would feel if he knows that everything that you’ve told him, even your name, isn’t the truth?” Owen paused and I bitterly admired how he really should be on the stage, performing the role of a Concerned Friend instead of here, telling me things I did not want to hear. “I know you don’t want to hear this…but I still need to say it. Even if Dylan Fuller managed to get over all that, do you honestly think that he would love you?”

I was speechless. How did he see that? That I wanted that?

How?

I mustered up all my courage and slammed the door after me; I broke out in a sprint, hoping that if I ran fast enough, I could get Owen’s words out of my head.
***
People don’t usually know it but it only takes a heartbeat to fall in love…that is if you allow yourself to.

If you’d asked me to pinpoint the moment where I had truly fallen for Dylan Fuller, I would say that it was that day on the beach. He’d told me he never brought anyone else to that place and I knew that it was the truth because it wasn’t the place that had been that special, it was him.

The fact that this person-annoying, childish, unique and imperfectly perfect-would allow me into his world, the amount of trust he had in me to understand him, astounded me.

And in that heartbeat, something inside me had woken up, something that I had long denied.
***
“Greatest moment of your life?”

I actually paused to consider the question even though I’d already told myself that I would not answer any more of them. So I said, “Is it okay if we do something else today, Dylan? I’m not really in the mood to play that.”

Normally Dylan would’ve teased me and asked if I wanted to lose but he didn’t today. I hoped that it wasn’t because he could see how shaken I still was from Owen and my conversation a few hours ago. “Okay. What do you want to do?”

Thinking about this for a few seconds, I recalled all that Dylan had told me about Sean Fuller.

It was clear that they did not get along and that Dylan had a certain amount of contempt for his father. He didn’t know exactly how deep his father had invested on various drugs, car thefts and the bribing of officials but he did know that his father was planning something huge. There could’ve been other things that Dylan had told me but I could no longer remember.

Owen was right; I had really screwed this one up. I hadn’t even reported to Calloway about the huge thing Sean Fuller was planning.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Concerned green eyes bore into my own.

“Nothing really, it’s just some things that Owen had said to me. They’re not…nice.” I took a deep breath and took a plunge. “Have there been things that you’ve been keeping from me?”

“No. Has Owen been saying something?” If Dylan had been concerned before, he was really worried now. There was a crease between his brows that he always had when he was troubled.

I’d hoped that he would say yes, so that it would make me feel better but of course, he hadn’t. If a guy liked honesty but was not truthful to others, it would make him a hypocrite and that Dylan was not. And all I had accomplished by asking him that question was to appear like a paranoid girlfriend and cause him to be even more wary around Owen.

Sighing, I said, “No, he didn’t. It’s just that… I wonder how much you trust me.”
“Does this have something to do with my father?”
I thought for a few moments, wondering how much of the truth I could give away without telling him everything. Eventually, I settled for, “Sort of.”
Dylan was quiet, deep in thought. Then he broke out in a smile. “I think I may have a solution!”
“What?” It was alarming, how happy he suddenly was, I mean.

“I’m not going to tell you yet, Princess.”

This could not be a good idea.
***
Principal Lee gave us yet another day off (those things were really starting to become very frequent. I wondered what the other students were allowed to do during those days while Dylan and I had our dates) and Dylan asked me out on another date.

I was curious and more than a little irritated so I asked him, “Seriously, Dylan, where are we going this time? You can’t always expect me to go along with your plans.”

This wasn’t exactly true because there had been times when he tried to leave the date-planning stuff to me. But I was never very good at it so I usually left it up to him.

In any case, Dylan came clean with me. “I want you to meet my father.”

I stopped mid step. Inside, my brain was balking, hissing at me to do anything I could to get out of this conversation and speak to Owen but I tried not to show it although I was already breaking out in cold sweat. “Why? How would that solve anything?”

“I know I haven’t exactly presented my father in the best light but I think that maybe if you met him…you’d be able to understand things better?” He suddenly didn’t seem so certain any more, studying me intently for signs of reluctance.

Having heard him say this, I didn’t know how to get out of it. It was really ridiculous of Dylan to have thought that when I asked him if he trusted me, I wanted him to trust me even more. I’d just wanted to have some reassurance that I wasn’t the only one with trust issues.

If I agreed (which I really wanted to), I would be dead. Although Sean Fuller had not seen me, his guards had and one of them would definitely recognize me and I would be shot. But if I didn’t agree, I knew that Dylan would be disappointed. There really was no easy way to do this.

How did it all backfire so rapidly?

The bell rang, signaling the start of class.

Dylan casted one last worried look at me and I plastered a sunny smile on my face. “Um, yeah, I guess I would go. You’d better…better go for class.”

He smiled one last time at me, though it didn’t reach his eyes, nodded and went off.

I, on the other hand, had no intention of going for class. I needed to find Owen.
***