nutritious meal on a park bench, complete with hotdogs and French fries. Or at least, Hunter was enjoying the meal. I’d mostly been picking over the fries while taking a bite of hotdog, here and there.
Hunter set his phone down in his lap before he eyed my partly-eaten lunch. “You’re not eating.”
“Yeah, I am,” I argued as I held up the tray of half-eaten fries. “I’m still on that diet, though, so I can’t have too much—”
“You need to eat something, Patrick.”
“Okay, okay…” I rolled my eyes before taking a small bite out of my hotdog. “Since when do you care about what I’m eating or not eating, anyway? I thought you were hypnotized by your phone.”
“Hypnotized?”
“Yeah, you’ve been looking at it ever since we sat down.”
“Sorry,” Hunter apologized. “I was just laughing at something Dakota posted.”
Dakota.
Even her name felt like a wet blanket being thrown over my shoulder, a reminder that what I had with Hunter was just a part-time fling, something he was going to move on from whenever he got the chance.
“What did she post?” I tried to keep my annoyance with her existence out of my tone. “Was it a meme or something?”
“Here,” Hunter said, handing me his phone.
I looked down at the screen and saw a picture of Dakota leaning against that same machine from the arcade near the front of the building. She was wearing gray sweatpants and her arms were crossed, like she was irritated by the game itself.
I then noticed that the game’s screen was flashing a familiar name: Amanda, Will You Go To Prom With Me?
There was also a caption underneath the photo, which I spotted as soon as I scrolled down:
“BRB guys, gotta beat this high score so I can get rid of @HunterPerry’s old username #AmandaWHO #NewGirlfriendProblems #PrettyandPetty”
“This was what you were laughing at for so long?” I asked.
“Yeah. I just thought it was funny.” Hunter laughed again. “She asked me about where I’d gone, and I told her I was at the arcade—”
“And she followed behind you? Why?” I pressed. “Was she trying to meet up with you?”
“No.” Hunter shook his head. “She just wanted to make sure we were covering our tracks. Just in case someone saw me there.”
“So, what? She can say she was there with you, too?”
“That’s the idea.” Hunter grinned. “Dakota’s like the perfect cover.”
“I didn’t realize you two were sharing locations,” I murmured.
“Why wouldn’t we?”
“Because that’s what actual boyfriends and girlfriends do?” I replied. “Because the more you invest in your fake relationship, the more it becomes a real one.”
“I’m not investing anything in that relationship, Patrick—”
“Is that why Esther did another story about you two?” I interrupted. “The one where she featured you two as the hottest celebrity couple?”
“You read that?” Hunter hummed. “I didn’t realize you kept up with entertainment news like that.”
“I don’t,” I admitted. “But you’re my student, so it only makes sense for me to keep up with you.”
“Yeah, well, if you take anything Esther Ruiz says seriously, your world is going to be filled with disappointment.” Hunter grinned. “According to Esther, Dakota and I are going to be engaged any day now.”
“Congratulations.”
“Patrick,” Hunter said my name with an incredulous tone. “There’s not any truth in that. And you know that.”
“I don’t know what I know.” I kept my voice low.
“Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’ve somehow offended you by being with Dakota,” he continued. “Even though, you already know what’s going on with us. Why are you acting like it’s real?”
“Because it is real,” I replied. “It’s real to Esther, and it’s real to the rest of the world, too. And I just—”
“Patrick,” Hunter interrupted with a serious look on his face. “You’re not… vacation isn’t over for you, is it?”
My heart sank at his assumption. “No. That’s not what I’m saying, at all, Hunter. Is that what you want?”
“No.” Hunter shook his head again. “Fuck no. I just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page.”
“Yeah, we’re on the same page.” I faked a smile, even as my heart sank further and further down my chest.
How long was it going to be like this? How long was I supposed to sit here and pretend like I was okay with Dakota, like I was happy with her following our every move, going behind us to edit our memories together in real time?
And how long until the vacation we’d claimed for ourselves was actually going to come to an end?
“You should eat the