The Fake Girlfriend Rules

“I do, I win. You said it yourself that I won.” He bites his tongue and smiles, bouncing his brows at me. “Maybe we should make a friendly wager?”

“A wager?”

“Yeah, let's bet.”

“You really are confident. All right, what's the bet?”

“If I lose, I'll buy you dinner tonight.”

“All right, and if you win?”

“If I win, I get a kiss from you.”

Veering my stare, I think about it for a second. “All right, you're on.”

The bell dings and he pulls the trigger. The balloon on the clown's face begins to grow. His aim is spot on, and the balloon stretches until it finally bursts with a loud pop. The light in his lane goes off, and the man working comes over and hands him a stuffed penguin.

“Here you go,” he says, handing me his prize. “Now it's time for me to claim my reward.” He puckers his lips like a duck, closing his eyes. I give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Hey, that's not a kiss.”

“You never specified what type of kiss. You just said a kiss, and I gave you a kiss.”

“You're bending the rules.”

I shrug my shoulder. “Maybe, but the rules weren't clear. Next time make yourself clear.” I coddle the stuffed animal under my arm.

“Well, I did prove you wrong.”

“How so?”

“You have the proof right there.” His eyes flick to the penguin.

“I'm not going to say it,” I say sternly.

“Say what?”

“You know what.”

“I don't, you should refresh my memory.”

I roll my eyes and give him a sharp elbow to the ribs. “You're not getting me to say you win.”

“Uh, but you just did!” Doug points at me as he grins.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don't, you just hate that I win at everything.”

I laugh and just agree sarcastically. “Right, that's it.”

“See, now you're being honest with yourself.” He looks off behind me and smiles with clenched teeth. “I think there's a roller coaster calling our names.”

I follow his gaze and see what used to be our favorite ride in the park. “I can't believe it's still here. You'd think that it would have been replaced by now with something bigger.”

“Sometimes you just can't replace perfection.”

We walk to the corkscrew roller coaster, and stand in line. Doug puts his arm around my neck and pulls me in. “This ride was always my favorite.”

“I know, you made me ride it once a total of twelve times in one night.”

“Yeah, and you ended up puking the last time.”

“That's because we had just eaten clam cakes and chowder. If we had waited just a little bit like I said, the poor people behind us wouldn't have been traumatized.”

We spend the night riding as many of the rides as we can. The bumper cars, the teacups, the musical express, even the creaky, not so scary anymore, ghost house, until we finally make our way to the ferris wheel. The staff opens the door on our box, and we get inside.

The wheel starts to move, stopping every few feet until all the boxes are full. As it starts to finally spin, I look over at him, expecting him to be looking out at the view. But he's not. He's looking at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing, just being here brings up all kinds of memories from when we were kids. I like it, I like the memories.”

“Me too,” I say. Unable to keep my eyes on his, I dart them out over the water. “You know. . .” I start to say but stop myself.

“What?”

“Nothing, it's dumb, never mind.”

“No, seriously. I want to know.”

I turn back to look at him, and a million butterflies spill into my belly all at once. “Once, a long time ago, I almost kissed you on this ride.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, well, I wanted to kiss you, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.”

“How come? I mean, what stopped you?”

I'm looking him right in the eyes, but I can't find the words to tell him the truth. Laughing nervously, I glance away again. “I don't remember, I just didn't. We were kids, kids think and do stupid things.”

I can't open that wound. I've spent so many years stitching it up.

The past hurts. The past brings bad memories. The past is the whole reason I never took that leap of faith and told Douglas how I really feel. I pushed it away, and refused to let it gain any steam, smothering it before it became too big to handle, and I got hurt.

He doesn't need to know. We're already breaking the rules, why make it more difficult? None of this is going to last. I feel like I'm living in a movie that's going to end any minute.

We can't carry this on forever. And we shouldn't. The longer we do, the bigger the chance that one of us doesn't come out whole. I can't even think about that. It'll be the end to our friendship. Because that's what happens when two people grow apart. We're perfect the way we are.