Royal Dilemma

Chapter Thirty-Eight

(Charli's Point of View)

CJ is Caleb. Caleb is CJ.

I roll over on my back so that I'm laying in the middle of my bed. I open my eyes and stare blankly at my ceiling.

Caleb is CJ and CJ is Caleb.

My head hurts.

The more I turn it over in my head the more it makes sense. It's so obvious, glaringly obvious. I feel like an idiot for not seeing it before.

Of course Caleb and CJ are the same person. They're so alike. They have the same sense of humor, the same positivity, the same easy-going vibe.

I know why I didn't see it, because I wasn't looking for pieces of CJ in Caleb, not initially. Then when I was looking for pieces of him he threw me off the scent. I also have a hard time believing, even now, a prince spent all that time slumming it with me.

CJ is a prince. That was his big secret, aside from the Shirashio thing of course.

This whole time CJ has been right in front of me, sitting in a booth, talking to me about video games and movies.

He lied to me. He sat there every week and lied to me, the same way he lied to me every week with that fake face of his. They're all lies of omission but I feel like those are almost the worst type of lies.

I rub my chest to try and make the painful tight feeling ease up, it's no use.

I'm tired of thinking someone is one thing and them turning out to be another. I'm sick of misplacing my trust.

Before Piper, there wasn't a single person in the whole world I could put my trust in and it took me a long time to open up to Piper. Opening up to CJ felt like taking a step forward, in a good direction. He was thoughtful and he did everything he could to make me happy.

Then he wasn't who he said he was and I found out my trust had been broken, even if I should've known better than to give it to him in the first place.

When I found out Caleb paid for my school I thought maybe I was ready to open up again, I thought I could trust him. Caleb lied to me too though.

Is this what life is? Opening up and being shut down, again and again? If this is it, I don't want any part of it. I'm done. No more.

I reach for my phone when it starts blaring and bring it to my ear. "Hello?"

"You're never going to guess what just happened." Piper's excited voice comes through the speaker.

"What happened?"

"Colin gave me a flash drive this morning and I just plugged it into my computer and it's a video game! A video game! Can you believe that?"

I try to force some excitement into my voice. "That's awesome!"

"It's super cute. I seriously can't believe he did this, there's the sweetest note at the end. I can't wait to talk to him tomorrow."

I try to muster up some excitement for her because she's my best friend and this is a big deal. "Are you gonna give him a chance?"

"Yeah, I am. I can't believe I thought he wasn't interested anymore and the whole time he was making this. It's so awesome, I can't wait to show it to you."

"I'm really, really happy for you Piper," I tell her honestly. "You deserve to have a boy make a whole ass video game for you."

"Thank you, I love you so much. I'm gonna let you go, I wanna think about what I'm going to say tomorrow."

"Okay, I love you too."

The line goes dead and I drop my phone on the bed next to me, the pain in my chest worsening, something I hadn't thought was possible.

I'm not about to tell Piper about all of my drama when she has something really awesome happening in her life, my bullshit can wait. I turn on my side and come face to face with a photo booth picture of Piper, Kate, Hannah, Lily, and me on a night out together.

Lily's words from the bar a few weeks ago run through my mind, rain, shine, night, or day, I have all of your backs. I wonder if she really meant that.

Before I can ponder that too much I'm picking up my phone again and dialing her number.

"Hello?" Lily answers sounding impossibly perky.

"Hey... It's Charli."

"Hey, Charli, what's up?"

She doesn't sound surprised to hear from me even though I've never so much as texted her.

I hesitate, I'm not sure I want to dump all my issues on her.

"I'm just sort of having a bad day," I admit.

"Oh no, what's wrong?" She sounds genuinely sympathetic.

"It's a really long story, and it's sort of my own fault a little bit..."

"I'm not doing anything, I have time."

I tell her about CJ and everything that happened between us, and then I tell her about Caleb too, including the fact that he's a prince. She surprisingly only mildly freaks out about this. After I tell her about Caleb's confession she goes quiet.

"Tell me what you're feeling right now," she says.

I readjust the way I'm sitting against my headboard. "I just... I feel duped. Again and again. I'm sick of it, I don't want to deal with it anymore. It's never going to end well."

"He lied to you and that was really shitty of him," she says. "But it sounds like he's done lying and he really loves you and he wants to make things work."

"It's just not going to end well." I pick at a loose thread on my knee.

"I think you're just saying that because you're afraid of getting hurt again," Lily says. I hear a rustling on her side of the line. "But that's always a risk in relationships, romantic or not. You took a risk reaching out and telling me all of this and it seemed to have worked out fine."

I swallow, saying nothing.

"He hurt you," she continues. "Twice. But it seems like he really cares about you and that you might care about both versions of him too. I think if you can work past the lying eventually you'd be really happy together."

"You were so willing to get hurt for this man last year," Lily reminds me.

"But getting hurt sucked."

"You survived it though."

I did survive it. I run my hand through my hair and turn my head to look out the window.

"Thanks, Lily."

"I have your back, Charli."

I feel hot tears sting my eyes and I swallow a few times. It's so nice to hear that and actually believe it.

"I'm really glad we're friends," I tell her.

"I'm really glad too."

Author's Note: Only two chapters left!