How to Get Rid of Your Ex Girlfriend

Shall I bore you with the details of those first two weeks? Nah, no one would care for those. Here’s a quick summary, so we can get on with life.

Nothing really changed, other than Tyler and I took care to act romantic whenever other people were around and Sophie avoided us both, which sometimes meant sitting with the popular girls instead of Sam, Lena (and Green, sometimes, whom I despise greatly), and Vickie. I could tell she didn’t really like them, but at the moment I think she was too hurt by my “romance” with Tyler to come near either of us. The whispers and strange looks subsided as soon as people got used to us, which thankfully only took about a week.

Whenever we were alone, we could go back to being our normal selves. It was refreshing, though after a while, acting like a couple lost some of its initial awkwardness and shifted more into habit. Sometimes we found ourselves holding hands more than necessary and sitting automatically closer to each other, even when we were alone. That, in of itself, was kind of scary.

However, I didn’t care, as long as I could pretend to be his boyfriend without involving anything too romantic. Such as kissing.

º º º

Picture it. Thursday night. The six of us, including Sophie, who’d grudgingly come along. We were hanging out at Sam’s house, playing truth or dare in a circle on the floor like a group of twelve-year-olds. Mind you, this was an accomplishment because Sam’s old rug was littered with everything from exercise equipment to empty pizza boxes and lone socks.

“Truth or dare?” Sophie turned to glare triumphantly at me. It took a second before I realized the spinner must have landed on me.

I grinned, despite the mean look on her face. “Dare.”

“Ah.” Her glossed lips curled up into a wicked smile. “No backing out.”

“I promise.” I held my hands up innocently. “Plus, you know I’d never back down.”

She cackled evilly. “Kiss Tyler.”

I froze. No fucking way. No. Not okay.

“You promised!” Sophie reminded me with narrowed eyes. “I’ve been waiting a while to call you out on these lies.”

“What lies?” I said, outraged.

The way her eyes were flashing like chips of blue ice scared me. “I know you two are just pretending to be gay. So Tyler can get away from me.”

“Sophie, that’s out of order,” Lena said quietly.

“I’ll apologize if they prove it.” She shrugged. “All I want is a good, long kiss.”

Sam laughed, but this was so not funny.

“What if we don’t want to kiss?” Tyler blurted.

“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t kissed him yet. It’s been a month. Unless you two move at the pace of snails-”

“We’ve kissed,” I snapped. “Adams, get up and let’s show these people we’re not liars.”

“But-”

I grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. Sophie would never leave him alone if we didn’t prove things to her. And she wasn’t the only one who doubted us.

“Better snap a picture and show this to all your little friends, Soph.” I was pleasantly surprised to hear my voice so venomous. She gaped, looking a little angry. I bet you she’d thought we’d cave in and admit to it so we could be laughed at by the whole school, taken as the losers who couldn’t even pretend to be gay. Just stupid liars.

I'm not a liar. Most of the time.

With that, I pulled Tyler into the corner. This was, however, not to offer a little more privacy, but so that I could talk to him without the others hearing.

“You aren’t-”

"Adams? This has got to look real..." I looked at him imploringly, almost sternly, speaking so quietly that I wasn’t sure he even caught the words. "We've spent two weeks acting like a couple, we're not getting called out on a technicality like this."

This was so much more than just a “technicality”, but neither of us attested to that. Maybe we thought if we downplayed things it wouldn’t be as bad.

"Right." Tyler's reply was short, a little breathless. A slight flush was creeping up on his cheeks, but his eyes glittered with a steely determination. "Now, then."

I sighed. "The things I do for you..."

Quickly, I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned forward. Almost unconsciously, my arms crept around his waist and his hands draped themselves around my neck. Warm breath blew into my face. I realized Tyler and I were inches apart, and almost laughed, because he must have been standing on tiptoe. I was afraid to open my eyelids...afraid that if I did, we might be staring into each others' eyes like lovers.

“…Now,” he breathed.

Our lips met.

It was the most awkward moment of my life.

He’s just Lena, I tried to tell myself. Pretty green eyes and straight black hair. She’s wearing a dress, and I’m in a suit. It’s prom, prom next year. We’re kissing. I’m happy.

This image served no purpose. I soon realized kissing Tyler was a hell of a lot different than kissing a girl. His lips weren’t soft and he obviously had a different sort of body. No lip gloss. Didn’t smell like perfume. The worst difference was the feeling swimming in the pit of my stomach, which I would have called butterflies, but in this case was probably nausea at having to kiss another guy. This was sick. Sick and wrong.

“Get a room!” yelled Sam, and we gratefully took this as an excuse to pull apart and throw him twin glares.

I was pleased to see Sophie looked disgruntled. I think she really thought Tyler might have been pretending. Which he was, only she never thought he’d go as far as kissing his best friend to get away from her.

Well, we had gone that far. We couldn’t pull out now, not without Sophie becoming re-obsessed and us becoming the laughingstock of the school. If we took it far enough, long enough, maybe we could say we did it to play a huge prank on all of them. But not now. I’d rather date Tyler than become an outcast.

If that’s a good thing.