Best Served Fake

fifty-one // squashed lemon

The upside to having a tolerant single mother was that I could skip another day of school to undertake a five hour round-trip to Casserine, to yell at my kind of ex-boyfriend's older brother. My car was in perfect nick on Kai's dime, and I had audiobooks (all featuring sad girlbosses) and Taylor Swift (all the sad girlboss songs) lined up to keep me entertained. I didn't have a plan, exactly, but I had two and half hours to formulate one. I hadn't called in advance, and wasn't sure what I'd do if Zac wasn't home. I mean, it was work hours. I didn't even know what Zac did.

It was probably a bad idea.

Definitely a bad idea.

But by the time I'd settled on the fact that it was most certainly not a good idea, I was already driving through the winding, empty streets of the country town, and my phone was cycling through downloaded songs because the service had cut out a few kilometres back. What kind of country town had no reception?

I loved Casserine, when appreciating it in the daylight. There was practically no one living here, and it felt like a capsule of decades long past. There were endless yellow fields, bleached by the hot sun, and cows dotted through them in tiny spots of black, white and brown. The houses were mostly single story, and looked vintage rather than dates. Zac's was one of the biggest places I'd seen, with that little second story adding height and charm.

I stepped out of the car reluctantly, feeling awkward. It wasn't cold, but I wrapped a pale pink scarf around my neck anyway as if it could provide a safeguard against my nerves. Instead, I just fiddled with the woollen tassels at the bottom, betraying my nervousness.

No. This was for Kai. I was going to do this.

I marched up the porch steps with purpose, praying that Zac was home. What was I supposed to do if he wasn't?

I heard footsteps within the house reacting to my hard rap on the wooden frame. Shit. I wasn't sure if I actually wanted him to be home, because my stomach turned when I saw the handle turn.

"Valerie, hey," Zac said, the tone effused with both surprise and welcome. He looked slightly more unkempt than he had for the wedding, when he'd been coiffed and suited. He was still handsome, but those broad shoulders were covered in a thin blue cotton shirt, and grey trackies hung from his hips. Clearly, he was working from home and hadn't been expecting company. He peered past my shoulder, as if looking for someone. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting you. Did you bring Kai?"

No, he actually dumped me. I didn't say that, though. Kai's newfound bought of honesty seemed to pertain only to our friends, because Zac evidently had no idea that Kai was captaining the let's-ignore-Valerie ship, and he might think it was slightly odd for his brother's ex-girlfriend to drive to Casserine on a whim to sort out Kai's living situation if I was to explain. It would be a valid thought, because I was increasingly aware of how fucking weird it was that I was here. But, hey, c'est la vie.

So, instead, I just shook my head. "I didn't. I wanted to talk to you."

"And you thought driving out here was the easiest way to do that?" Zac asked, sceptically. He leaned against the doorframe, seemingly unsure whether to invite me in, or if I was merely here to deliver a quick message. I understood his confusion.

"Uh, I would've called." I waved my phone at him. "But there's no reception here. And I also don't have your number."

"Kai didn't want to supply it?"

No, because he won't talk to me. And also— "I want to talk to you about him. I don't know if he'll appreciate it."

Zac's nod was understanding, and he opened the door wider to invite me in. The warmth in his eyes at my arrival had dimmed at the realisation that I wasn't paying house calls to reminisce about Kai's childhood or the events of the wedding. Which I wasn't.