Fake Girlfriend

A half an hour later, the girls came down looking for their treat which had not finished freexing yet, so we decided to distract them with a movie, the Pixar movie UP. They sat on the floor in bean bag chairs that they had dragged from the twin’s room, and Cole and I sat on the couch.

Sure, it was kind of lame that two seventeen-year-olds were watching a kids’ animated movie, but it was such an adorable movie. Ten minutes into it, we stopped for out popsicles, and I popped popcorn. When that was finished, we sat back down and watched the rest of the movie. Throughout it, Cole and I were making joking comments.

“You know,” I said. “That old explorer guy was an adult when Carl was a kid, and now they’re suddenly the same age.”

Cole chuckled, fiddling with a toothpick in his mouth from the one of the many popsicles he had.. “Out of all the things in the movie, that’s what bothers you?” I laughed.

The movie wasn’t quite over when the girls’ bedtime came, and their eyes were beginning to droop. We took the twins up stairs, and once in their pjs, Cole took them to their beds, and they slept without one complaint. I was shocked. They never went to bed so easily.

“They’re sleeping?” I asked when Cole reappeared from the twins’ room.

He grinned. “Didn’t I say I was good with kids?”

I just shook my head, amazed.

We went back to the living room where Joy was dosing off, trying to keep her eyes open for the rest of the movie. Coel chuckled and sat next to her on the couch. “Tired, girlie?” he teased.

“I wanna watch the rest of the movie…” she mumbled, already half asleep.

Cole grabbed a pillow on the couch, placed it on his lap, and lied her down on it. “You can watch it lying down,” he said, but as soon as Joy’s head hit the pillow, she was asleep. Cole laughed softly and brushed her hair way from her face, then kissed her forehead gently.

I sat down next to Cole while he affectionately fiddled with his sister’s hair. I found myself smiling involuntarily, and it caught Cole’s eye. He turned to me with a confused expression. “What?” he said.

“Nothing,” I replied, smile disappearing. It was hard to keep that smile from bubbling back to the surface.

We ended up watching the end of the movie ourselves. We had gotten to the part where the little boy’s father didn’t show up to his Boy Scout award ceremony at the very end. Cole got really tense and quiet. He turned away from the movie.

“You alright?” I asked.

“Fine,” he answered too quickly.

After all this time, I knew Cole’s reactions too well. He wasn’t acting normal. “Cole…”

He sighed. “It’s just that that sort of happened to me when I was littler.”

“You were a Boy Scout?”

“Yeah.”

I frowned. “And your dad didn’t come?”

His face fell even more. “Yeah.”

“Was he busy?” I asked.

He was looking down so that I could not see his face at all in the dim light the television gave off. His voice was completely monotone, but it usually was when he was trying to hide something. “No… he was dead,” he said finally.

And then there was a huge silence.

I suddenly remembered what Duncan and Sam had told me about how Cole was an expert at hiding the pain in his life. I figured this was a part of what they meant. It was nice to know that he trusted me enough to share a piece of that pain, even if it wasn’t all of it. I just wasn’t sure what to do or say now.

Eventually, I said the only thing I could. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. My foster dad was there. I didn’t like him all that much, but at least he was there. And it was hilarious to watch him because he was so bad when it came to scouting.” He managed to chuckle, but he still would look up.

I thought for a second, how it didn’t match up that Cole’s father died and he still had a sister way younger than him. “Then your sister…”

“She’s my half-sister. She knows that her dad isn’t my dad, but that’s really all she knows,” he answered. “It’s not something a six-year-old should be worried about anyways.”

Things still didn’t add up. If he had a mother, there would be no need for foster parents. I felt I was being nosy, though, so I didn’t push it. This was definitely a touchy subject for him. Instead of saying anything, I took Cole’s hand, and he finally looked at me with a small smile.

“You know,” he said. “You make it hard to keep secrets from.”

I was pretty sure we weren’t talking about his life anymore. We were talking about the other secret. “It’s about Delilah isn’t it?” I asked.

Cole frowned. “Thisbe…”

I sighed. “I know, I know. You can’t say, but you said I would be told and I haven’t.”

“I know. I’m not sure why she hasn’t told you.”

“She?” I asked, prying. “So it is about Delilah?”

Cole groaned. “Thisbe, can we please stop talking about this?”

I hadn’t realized how much this secret had been bothering me. “No,” I said sternly, but not too loud as to wake up Joy.

“It would be really bad if I told you,” Cole said. His voice was shaky, and his expression was desperate. “Imagine a huge secret your keeping. You told someone in confidence they wouldn’t tell anyone else, but then they go and tell people any way. I can’t do that to her.”

“Her as in Delilah,” I insisted.

Cole rolled his eyes and groaned again. “Alright, fine. Yes. It has to do with her, but please just let her tell you.”

“She hasn’t been in school all week!”

“And there’s a reason!”

“Then tell me!” I hissed, being quieter as I saw Joy shift on Cole’s lap. I hadn’t realized how sad and pathetic my voice sounded. I was desperate to know, and I was sure Cole could tell. This had to do with my best friend, after all. “…Please,” I begged.

Cole’s eyes got expressionless, almost cold at this point. “No,” he said, in a voice that seemed to say he would not budge. I frowned, sort of mad, and I let go of his hand. He frowned, but gave no other hint to his emotion.

About a minute later, the door opened, and Mr. and Mrs. Hendrick came in, cutting the conversation short—if there was even any conversation left.

***

The two of us walked to Cole’s car, and I didn’t say a word. Cole talked quietly and warmly to his sister, who had woken up when he picked her up to go to the car. Her little arms were around his neck, and she was already looking as she might just fall asleep again on his shoulder. Cole held her close and chuckled at the half-conscious things she was saying. I would have found the scene adorable, if I wasn’t kind of angry at Cole. He sat his sister in the back and buckled her in, and we drove off in silence.

Not even half way through the drive, Cole sighed. “You’re mad at me?” he asked.

“Sort of,” I mumbled, staring at the window.

He rolled his eyes. “Well, that’s fine, but just because you’re pouting like a two-year-old doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you, Thisbe.”

“I’m not pouting.”

He snickered. “Oh yes, you are,” he said. “Trust me. You’re going to thank me when Delilah tells you. You’ll be glad I didn’t say it.”

“She’s been avoiding me. How is she supposed to tell me, if she won’t even answer my calls?” I asked, glaring at him.

Cole sighed. “Fine. How about this? I’ll call John and see if he can talk Delilah into us all getting together this weekend.”

“Fine. But if she still won’t tell me by then, you have to,” I said.

“I’m not promising to that. I won’t tell you, Thisbe. I refuse to,” he answered. I looked back out the window, arms crossed. Cole chuckled. “There you go, pouting again.”