marriage fraud

A week had gone by and Garo and I were successful at keeping our little act up. I was still getting an uncomfortable amount of attention and weirdly enough, more male attention than female. Regardless, everyone wanted me to either attend their party or sit with them during lunch. I was the talk of the town and it would've been fun, but knowing Garo was the one influencing everyone's opinion of me, kept me at bay. It stopped me from overindulging into anything that wouldn't last.

The best part for me in all of this was Chloe's constant calls and text messages. I had been dying to talk to her but Garo's plan of keeping her in the dark for a while was doing wonders. It made me question if Chloe had just kept me around for the sake of it and now that I was my own person and doing things she wasn't included in, it was bothering her. None of that mattered though because I was still very much in love with her and couldn't wait for things to fall into place. I was aware that at some point our friendship began disintegrating but I still cared about her, more than I cared about anyone else. I was doing all of this to hopefully replenish our friendship, at the very least.

I went through parts of Garo's notebook everyday to have a laugh or two and I was doing exactly that one Saturday evening when I was interrupted by my mother calling me downstairs. If I had known Chloe was waiting for me in the living room, I would've locked myself upstairs. That's how much I didn't want to face her. But nothing could've been done by the time I was on the base of the staircase with her eyes staring into my soul

"You don't come around often, sweet pea. I was starting to wonder if you two got into a fight or something." My mother said, walking out of the kitchen with a tray in her hands.

"Sair never invites me anywhere these days." Chloe looked at me.

"Why not?"

"Can you leave us alone for a bit?" I gave mom a I-will-explain-everything-later look and she was soon out of sight.

"So where's your girlfriend? I was hoping to see her here?" Chloe's demeanour changed as soon as I sat on the couch across from her.

"Why are you here?" I surprised myself. I was worried about the way everything made her feel, but I was also angry. Angry regarding a lot of stuff between us that was left unspoken.

"You tell me. Why do you think I'm here?" I couldn't say anything. I wanted her to speak for once. "Are you going to say something?"

"What do you want me to say?" I scratched the back of neck in frustration.

"Well, for starters, why the hell are you hanging out with Garo fucking Lewis?" She tilted her head, waiting for me to respond. "I thought you hated her?"

"No, you hate her. I just used to listen to you talk about her every second of every minute." I sat back, resting against the couch. "And nothing you ever said about her stands. She's pretty cool."

"Oh, so you're doing this to piss me off?" She clapped her hands sarcastically.

"No, I'm doing this because I'm free to choose who I date and hang out with." I stood up. "My life doesn't revolve around you. Shocker, I know." I didn't think the conversation would take a slightly hostile turn but it did.

"What about you and I?" She lowered her head, sitting very still on the couch.

"What about us?" I had dreamt up a whole another scenario where I asked Chloe the same question but under a completely different context.

"Are we not friends anymore?" She looked at me with a certain glint in her eyes that made me want to crumble and fall to my knees. I was crazy about her and it was killing me to have to pretend that I didn't care. For all I knew, she could've been faking it. She knew me too well. She knew I couldn't keep things from her the way she did.

"We're still friends." I took a few steps towards her. "But not at the expense of Garo. If you want me around, you have to respect my girlfriend."

"I'll try my best, but will she?" Her tone was smug.

"She will." I answered confidently.

"Great, so she won't mind all three of us hanging out together after school tomorrow?" I had no clue what Chloe thought she was doing but I didn't care.

"Try her." I shrugged.

"What do you mean she wants all three of us to hang out after school tomorrow?!" Garo was practically screaming at the other end of the call. I had my phone at a safe distance from my ear. She was loud.

"Can you stop repeating everything I say?"

"Why would you let that happen?!" I heard her groan.

"What's so hard about this?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that I can't stand her."

"Not even for an hour?" I sighed dramatically. "I thought you were good at this. You have the whole school convinced that you're in love with me." I smirked, hoping that'd provoke Garo.

"That wasn't easy, actually. I mean, you were a nobody before." I rolled my eyes. "People still ask me what I see in you."

"Okay, enough. You're doing this, whether you want to or not." I cleared my throat.

"Excuse me?"

"You keep forgetting, I still have your diary." I was being driven by the evil miniature me on one of my shoulders. "A cup of coffee with Chloe shouldn't be a dealbreaker."

"The moment I get my hands on that diary, your balls are being chopped off, Amhaz." I began chuckling and she ended the call.

I was trying to envision Chloe and Garo being around each other for more than five minutes and maintaining utmost civility. I wasn't sure how they'd pull it off but they had to. If they couldn't, I'd have a cool story to tell for years to come. It was a win-win situation for me

School was over and we were at a nearby café where most of the student body came with their laptops to pretend like they loved academic work. Garo and I were sat across from Chloe who was, strangely, very excited to see us. Garo, on the other hand, sat stiff on her chair, not even touching the glazed donut she had ordered.

"So, how did you two meet?" Chloe asked, sipping her coffee.

Garo looked at me the same time I turned my head to look at her. We knew we were in deep shit. We hadn't precisely planned the history of our false relationship beforehand. It felt like we were being investigated for marriage fraud.

"I lost my notebook and Sair found it." Garo smiled, glancing up at me and then back at Chloe. "We started hanging out and the rest is history." She rested her hand on top of my mine on the table. "What about you? Are you seeing someone?"

Chloe shook her head, forcing a smile on her face. "No, not really. But I'm happy for you guys."

"Hey, by the way, I saw you at this party a week ago," I gulped, kicking Garo's leg under the table. "I think it was Levi Lind's party. I should've told you about us then but I was busy with other friends." Chloe had a straight face on as she stared me down. It was as if she was making sure I hadn't put two and two together.

"What party?" I asked, scrunching my forehead in confusion. Garo's ways were rubbing off on me. "Chloe didn't tell me about any party."

"Uh...it was just this little thing. I hadn't been out in days so I decided to go." She explained, dropping her gaze to look at the table between us.

"I wouldn't call it little. Last Saturday was a movie." Garo blabbered on, making sure I catch Chloe in the lie. I was biting my lower lip, trying my best not to laugh.

"Last Saturday?" I asked, acting clueless and finally saw a flash of panic in Chloe's eyes but she recovered from it pretty quick. "Weren't you home watching some movie last Saturday?"

"I was. But then I left for Levi's party when I couldn't sleep." Chloe saved herself and she did it well. I wanted to go into it further and mention our texts but that would've made me look like an obsessive creep. So that was the end of that.

After sitting through twenty more minutes of painfully awkward small talk, it was over. We parted ways.

"She bounced back from that party thing faster than I expected." I commented as I walked Garo to her car.

"Sometimes, I can't believe you guys are childhood friends." She unlocked the door and settled on the driver's seat, rolling the window down. "It does not look like you know her at all." With that, she drove off and left me standing there, more confused than ever.