Mr. Twang: A Fake Relationship Romance

“I don’t know what to believe. When we were together, it felt real. I thought he cared about me. He’s just such a good liar that I don’t even know anymore.” I slumped down into my chair. “I’m not ready for an interview. I think I need to go home and reassess things.”

“I want you to think about your fans before you give up. Whether you like it or not, you are a symbol to all of them now. If you just crawl in a hole somewhere, that’s the message they’ll hear—if you get your heart broken or fall for a shitty guy, just wallow in your misery forever.” Sawyer sighed again. “It’s the weight you carry. You’re not the only one that is impacted if you just become the girl who sang Shattered Heart again.”

“Maybe I don’t want that weight.” I stood up and shook my head.

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you want.” Sawyer watched as I walked towards the doors.

How did all of this become so fucking c

omplicated? Why did I let myself become such a horrible person?

My phone rang when I left Sawyer’s office and I saw Misty’s number. I had been avoiding her calls for too long. I walked to the park and called her back. Over tears and heartache, I shared the truth with her. I told her that the initial relationship was a lie, but it seemed to be something real, only to become reality in the end. She said my parents were worried about me. I had spoken to them a few times, but it hadn’t been much more than a confirmation that I was still alive. They wanted me to come back home, and so did Misty. I missed Texas, but Sawyer’s words were playing in my head. I made the world trust my lie—our lie. I owed them something better than that. They couldn’t know the truth, but I had a few sad songs in my heart that might help them move past it, even if I didn’t.

I don’t deserve success for my lie, but admitting the truth will hurt my fans a lot more than what they believe right now. I’ve become a symbol of heartbreak, so maybe the weight of it is the price of my penance.

After I got back to my apartment, I pulled up the singles from my new album on YouTube. I read through the comments and felt my stomach churn. They were spewing pure vitriol for Brendan while calling me a saint in the same sentence. I deserved the same hate that was aimed at him. He might have been the one that broke my heart, but it wasn’t supposed to end the way it did. It was supposed to be a message on both ends and tell the story of recovering from heartbreak from shared perspectives. I listened to a few of Brendan’s messages that I hadn’t instantly deleted. There was true sorrow in his voice, and I wanted to believe him, but his lies were so fresh that I couldn’t feel anything but regret over falling for him in the first place. It was an experience I would never forget, and our passion blazed hotter than the Texas sun in the middle of summer, but just like the sun—it went dark and left me standing in a cold desert alone.

Two months later

One day, I went to the studio and picked up my guitar. I barely bothered putting together a song. It was mostly a mismatch of heartbreak and despair, told in verses I sang through tears. Sawyer worked his magic and assembled it into a song he titled Shattered Again. It might as well have been a direct sequel to the song Misty posted on YouTube, even if the men that broke my heart had different names. He released it and it became the number one song on not just the country charts, but the entire Billboard. My lie had spread across the country, no longer contained to Nashville and the southern states. A rapper from New York even mixed it with one of his songs and his version started charting beside mine. I didn’t understand how it worked exactly, but I knew I was getting a cut of the money. I just signed the documents Sawyer put in front of me and tried to put the money to good use.

My parents will never have to work again. Misty’s student loans are cleared. Her parents are completely out of debt. Every charity in Nashville knows me on a first name basis. I’m not sure what else I can do except suffer through the words.

There was a glimmer of hope as I used the money I made from my lies to help other people. It wasn’t enough to wash away the pain, but it was better than holding onto my ill-gotten gains. I bought a house in a gated community where some other country music singers lived. It was a nice place, but there was an emptiness inside of it. I mainly bought it for privacy because the paparazzi loved to camp out near my apartment. I was numb to the flash of their cameras, but I still hated them. They reminded me of Brendan.

It was nearly time for me to go on tour as the opening act for a very successful country music band. The funny thing was that I was more popular than them after the release of Shattered Again. I could have easily toured on my own and sold out the venues, but I wasn’t ready for that. It was much easier to just sing a couple of songs and go back to the dressing room.

“Hey Lauren?” I heard a voice and lifted my head to see the lead singer of the group I was touring with at my door.

“Hi, Zack.” I forced a smile on my face as he stepped into my dressing room.

“You’re killing it out there.” He smiled and lingered at the doorway with one hand behind his back.

“Yeah, I guess so.” I nodded and shrugged. “As long as I do my part, I’m happy.”

“I’d like to see more than that.” He tilted his head to the side and pulled his hand from behind his back, revealing a single red rose. “I’d like to see you smile for real.”

“What?” I blinked in surprise as I stared at the rose.

“I know your heart is hurting, and I can respect that, but I’d be a fool if I kept watching you out there on the stage every night without asking you on a date.” He extended his hand, pushing the rose towards me. “Don’t let a liar ruin your chance at happiness.”

“I—I don’t know what to say.” I took the rose and held it in my hand.

“Make me the happiest man in the world and just say yes.” A smile spread across his face. “At least one date—what’s the harm in that?”

“Can I think about it?” I looked at the rose for a moment and then lifted my eyes to meet his.

“I’m not going stop asking.” He shrugged and took a step back. “I’ll give you a rose every day until you’re swimming in them.”

Is this… romance?

My relationship with Brendan had been so explosive when it finally became real that we skipped most of the early stages. They were nothing more than a charade. Zack was attractive and the kind of man I would have swooned over at one point in my life. I held the rose in my hand when he left my dressing room. I didn’t feel like I deserved to recover from the heartbreak I felt over the end of my relationship with Brendan. Zack’s request left my head spinning.

I joined him on the stage after their set was done the next night, and when he took my hand so we could all bow like he had every night that we were on tour, I felt him squeeze it tight. I turned to look at him and he smiled—it tugged at my broken heart. It tried to pull the pieces back together. The hurt was just too strong. There was a clear divide in the middle, and even in his absence, Brendan held the pieces apart.

I’m just not ready. Maybe I’ll never be totally able to forget him, but the pain is just too fresh to try again.

“I’m sorry, Zack.” I walked into his dressing room and extended my hand with the wilted rose in my grasp. “You’re an amazing man and I’m a fool for saying no, but you deserve someone much better than me.”