Chasing Calloway

Twelve - Any Sane Person

Song Of The Chapter || Perfect Places - Lorde

𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐄

Gwen's ice cream parlor. It was a small place on campus, but it had charm. It could get a little busy in the spring, but in the winter it was almost always empty, especially since anyone could pick up a pint of ice cream at a grocery store for way cheaper. But it didn't matter. Not to me. Gwen's had character. A story. Worth way more than the two dollars I save by grabbing some Ben-&-Jerry's.

"What's the real reason you asked me here?" I interrogate, taking a plastic spoonful of cookie dough ice cream and popping it in my mouth.

"Can't a guy just wanna hang out with his fake girlfriend?" Shrugs Rhys. He's already wolfed down half of his mint-chocolate chip ice-cream. Worst flavor ever, by the way.

"Rhys, you don't do anything nice for anyone." I counter, pushing my ice cream away. "Didn't we agree that was a defining characteristic of yours?" I expect him to maybe laugh at my comment, but he doesn't. He sits there with his lips pursed in a thin line, trying to formulate his next words.

"I don't like Garrett."

"What else is new?"

He lets out the lowest chuckle at my response. "No one deserves to feel invisible." Is all he finishes with.

Maybe my eyes and ears deceive me, but I could swear that there was a bit of empathy in his voice. I'll be damned.

"I appreciate it. But I don't need the pity party." I shrug. "He doesn't like me that way. I know for good now. So this whole thing." I motion between the two of us."Can stop now."

Panic enters his eyes, if only for a moment. Then its replaced with the casual snarkiness I had come to expect from Rhys. "You're giving up already, Calloway?"

"Not giving up if there was nothing there in the first place." The words taste like metal in my mouth as I say them. That's what I was to Garrett, nothing. Just a friend, if even that. Still, I hold my composure and act like it doesn't bother me. "I'll stop by their apartment tonight and tell them it was a practical joke. I'll tell them you paid me to do it or something." They just might buy that. They know I need the money. Then I can be done with this whole Rhys Sinclair nonsense and go back to what matters.

Back to studying, keeping scholarships, friends, Garrett. The guy who brushed past me like I didn't exist today. A grimace ever so slightly at the memory.

"Yeah, your friends won't be suspicious or mad at all." He taunts. "While you're at it, do you want me to put a big red stamp on your forehead that reads 'guilty'? Or should I wait for your roommate to do it?"

"They'll understand." I weakly argue. Though I'm not entirely sure they will.

"I wouldn't bet on it." He counters, finishing off the last of his mint chocolate chip ice-cream.

I cross my arms in frustration. "Then what do you expect me to do? Keep up this charade even though I know it won't work? I'm not going to put myself through that."

"Then don't."

It takes me a full few seconds to register his words. He sits across from me, leaning back and his crossed arms mirroring mine.

"What?"

"Then don't. You said it yourself, any point that someone wants out, they're out."

The word 'Kaput' rings heavily in my mind.