My Fake Fiancé

Chapter 26 - Surprise

We exited the dense woods after a long, eye-opening walk to find only one nearly empty car waiting. I was back to my sane self and let out a sigh of relief that I didn't have to face any of the others.

Ugh. Why did I have to go and embarrass myself? I mumbled to myself, annoyed. The dash in the rain was more embarrassing than the kiss. At least I had an excuse of being drunk back then.

I looked around for a certain someone.

"That punk has deserted us," Ricky said with a disappointed tone. I couldn't say I was disappointed, though. No one said anything else as we loaded ourselves in.

"Why did you guys stop in the first place?" I asked. "As delusional as I was, I'm sure that I didn't tell you to stop in the middle of nowhere."

"Oh, you're aware of that?" Alex asked with a smile that suspiciously looked like a smirk.

Yes. That's the only way I could describe my earlier behavior. Delusional. Paranoid even. Now that I had broken out of it, I wanted to bury myself right here on the deserted highway, where no one could find my body, which was going to die out of humiliation.

"Wait, where's Joel?" I asked, trying to avert answering his question. That caught his attention, and they all looked around.

"He was there when Lilly was throwing a fit at all of us," Elle said, like she was just stating a perfectly normal truth. Well, she was, but still...

They were making calls to find Joel, but for some reason he didn't seem to pick up. Bad connection, I guessed.

"There he is!" shouted the boy from the driver's seat. We all looked the way he pointed. There he was. The boy I had lashed at for ignoring me when I was the one who hadn't cared for even a second.

I remembered the last thing he said and how he had said it. We all have our own battles to fight. To be honest, I never cared about Joel. He was a polite guy, but I wasn't close enough to him to call him a friend. Or to get upset over something that he did or didn't do.

Why did I say those stupid things to him?

I felt ashamed, especially when I saw his lowered gaze and the droop in his shoulders. I didn't know what was bothering him, but I knew that I had made it worse. And I hated myself for it. But I didn't have the courage to apologize or make it right.

But the guilt gnawed in my heart as he got in without a word, ignoring all the questions directed at him. Eventually, everyone gave up and let him be.

My eyes kept darting toward where he was sitting. I had a lot of shit to clean up. Not complaining because I was the one who made it in the first place.

I asked Alex to switch seats with me. Thankfully, he agreed after giving me a questioning gaze. I shifted to my new seat, but Joel didn't seem to notice me. So I took the matter into my own hands and whispered as low as I could so that no one else would hear me.

"Do you think I can fix up this mess?"

He startled a bit, like he was oblivious to my presence, but then relaxed as he came back to reality.

"Hey," he said, apparently not listening to my pathetic attempt to start a conversation that should potentially lead to my apologizing.

After a minute of silence when I was rethinking about trying again, he asked, "Did you say something?"

"Oh... yeah." I prayed to God that I didn't mess this up further, "I asked if I could still fix things."

He raised an eyebrow.