Maybe it would all blow over and be forgotten tomorrow?
My phone buzzed again. Another text from Mandy.
Why didn’t you tell me you had a boyfriend who’s a model? And you’re training for the Olympics? I heard you broke the world record running to ur car!
Oh Lord. Now the lie had wings! And a tail! By morning, it would have antennae and, perhaps, a pair of snappy shoes!
Christ almighty. Haven’t I suffered enough? I thought, looking up at the industrial-style ceiling and trying to hold back tears.
Okay. Think this through. I’d said that everything happened in the Hamptons. That was way on the other side of the country, so it’s not like anyone could check the facts or anything. Maybe after a few days it would all die down.
My phone buzzed again, and I read the message. Dang it! No!
According to Mandy, who followed Janice’s “twitting,” Janice had posted a pic of me.
Oh no! What now? The picture loaded, and there wasn’t a gasp loud enough to capture my anguish. Her note said, and I quote, “Dakota’s new man and her Hampton friends.”
The picture was of a pack of grungy hyenas tearing at a piece of meat.
Why couldn’t she leave me alone? Why did she hate me so much? I swear, there was something wrong with that girl. It simply wasn’t natural to loathe someone as much as she loathed me for no goddamned reason.
Then I had an idea. A terrible idea. I scribbled it down and stared at the words, letting them infuse my mind while the world zoomed by in fast motion.
Don’t do it, Dakota. Don’t do it, said that little voice inside my head.
But I wasn’t listening.
Head spinning and heart pounding, I took a long sip of my mochaccino and then pulled my laptop from my backpack. What I did next is something I’m not proud of, and I won’t ever try to justify it, because there is no justification. I knew, even as I did it, regret would follow. Someday. But sometimes, you just reach your limit and stoop to a level you didn’t know existed inside you. You take a bad situation and make it worse. You give in to the other voice inside your head that tells you just this once, just this once you have to be bad in order to prove a point.
I am going to hell for this.
But I wasn’t hurting anyone, so would I really? I wasn’t stealing, or cheating on a test. I was simply going to lie about having a really, really hot boyfriend. One that would make Janice and her friends feel like they were dating my leftovers.
I frantically searched for the picture of the most gorgeous guy I could find. Bingo!
I sucked in a breath of worship and studied every masculine inch. Tall, perfect abs, sculpted chest, smooth olive skin, dark eyes, and slightly unkempt black hair falling about his face just so. He was the embodiment of my dream man: seductive, strong, confident, and mysterious. There was something about him that had me instantly fantasizing—who was he? Where was he from? What did his voice sound like?
And his eyes. There was an angry look about them.
Haunted. He’s haunted by something.
Ugh. You’re an idiot. He’s a model. He’s probably thinking about a sandwich. Or doing sit-ups.
Well, now he’s thinking about you. I saved the picture to my hard drive, created the new profile, and uploaded the image to Facebook.
CHAPTER FIVE
Wednesday.
The next morning, I rolled over in bed and groaned at the window. It was overcast, which always put me in a gloomy mood. It also made me want to stay in my bed where I felt safe and warm.
I lay there half-awake, half in a dream, staring blankly at my whitewashed antique desk in the corner, from which the blank screen of my laptop stared back, beckoning me to charge it.
Laptop!
I sprang from the bed. “No! Please, please, please tell me I didn’t do it!” That regret I’d been expecting came a little sooner than I’d hoped.
I fished my phone from my purse on the floor and tapped the app with the big F. As the little spinning doughnut danced on my screen, I made a small prayer to the gods of stupidity and asked for forgiveness.
I tapped my Friends page and waited for it to load.
Oh no. Eight. Yesterday, I’d had seven friends—Mandy and a few other random people who I wouldn’t exactly call friends. More like people with common interests in saving dogs at kill shelters. But today there was one new name.
The bottom of my world fell out. Oh no. I did it.
Santiago Asturias II from Barcelona, Spain, officially tagged as “boyfriend.”
Had my mochaccino been roofied? What in the world made me think I could pull a gorgeous photo off the Internet and pass him off as my boyfriend?