She scrolled a bit more, noticing the filters used on Cherry’s selfies, her skin unnaturally smooth and pink. She paid extra attention to shotsthat mentioned the mysterious FG, as Ellis had started calling her in her head: Fake Girlfriend. If she went way back, she found posts with somebody named Alyssa who seemed to be an actual girlfriend, and commenters loved her. Asked questions about her. Commented on how pretty she was, what a cute couple she and Cherry made. Then, about two years ago, she seemed to simply disappear. Wasn’t mentioned. And the comments were relentless.Where’s your hot girlfriend? Did you guys break up? What happened? Your posts are boring now, bring back Alyssa!Ugh. Poor Cherry. Ellis was surprised to find herself feeling sorry for Cherry when she thought about her reading through all the things her followers said. God, people could be so mean.
Then several months ago, Cherry started mentioning hersweetie pietaking the picture, now and then. There were a couple videos where she appeared to be talking to somebody off-screen. More photos taken bymy honey. And the tone of the comments changed, too. Now, the followers wanted to see the new girlfriend. Wanted to know if she was as hot as the last one. And Cherry’s number of followers started to increase quickly. Significantly.
It was kind of ridiculous, really, how nosy people actually were.
How did Cherry not notice that? Or did she, and she didn’t care? These people didn’t care about her. They were entitled assholes who got off on spying on other people. A sliver of sympathy slid into Ellis’s heart, and she thought about how sad it was to think you had to invent somebody to love you for the sake of appearances.
She scrolled some more, stopping on shots she’d breezed by the first time, and that’s when she realized that the shoes Cherry had worn on their hike together were given to her by the sporting goods company that made them. She could see that now, could see Cherry’s review of them. She recognized some of the shots from the park that day, the sun coming through the trees, Cherry’s feet in the water, and that sliver of sympathy vanished. Seriously? She’d been working that day and didn’t think to tell Ellis.
“God, so many lies.” She shook her head, feeling nothing but utter sadness.
She knew she should probably talk to Cherry, but she wasn’t ready. She knew that. She was too mad. Too hurt. Too disappointed. The last thing she was in the mood to do was talk to Cherry. Saying something she couldn’t take back would be a definite possibility.
Still.
Cherry had her mom to deal with. That was gonna be rough, and she could probably use somebody to lean on.
A shake of her head.
“No. She’s got roommates. She can lean on them.”
That was cold. Harsh. She knew that, knew she’d said it out loud because she was trying to be mad about it. But there was no fire, no anger. Just defeat.
Chapter Twenty-one
Cherry sighed as she scrolled through Andi’s TikTok. Since the article had gone live onThe 11th Commandment’s website, Andi had lost over a third of her followers. In a twenty-four-hour period. Wow, lesbians hated infidelity. She’d told Andi who Ellis was, that she was the person she’d been seeing, and she’d tried to apologize for not being able to stop Ellis from writing the article.
Andi had been understandably shocked, and Cherry hadn’t spoken to her since. Thinking about their friendship wasn’t something she could do at the moment because it made her sad. Even though what had happened wasn’t her fault, she was inextricably attached to it all. She hadn’t been obliged to tell Andi who E. Conrad was, but she felt like she should. She knew Andi was going to need time to recover, but she hoped their friendship would still be intact afterward. It had been on her mind for hours.
And don’t even get her started on the subject of Ellis. Another person who hadn’t returned any of her texts. It had been three days now, and she was shocked by how much she missed her. It was a literal ache in her heart, and she didn’t know what to do with it. She’d cried. She’d thrown things. She’d screamed into a pillow. And now? Now, she was simply numb.
Unfortunately, she had to set all of that aside because she had more pressing issues to deal with as she pushed through the Dunkin’s double doors.
Lila was already at a table, tucked in the corner, her hands wrapped around a cup. Cherry didn’t know her well enough to be able to tellfrom across the store if she was nervous, but she kind of hoped she was. Because Cherry definitely was.
It was late morning on Friday, and for whatever reason, her workload was lighter than usual, but she hadn’t told Lila that. Rather, she’d scheduled this meeting at ten thirty in the morning so she could use her job as an excuse to leave. This was gonna be short and sweet—that was the plan.
Seeing Lila sitting at the corner table made the butterflies in her stomach grow until it felt like she had boomerangs bouncing around in there. Which pissed her off because she was the one with the control here. She stopped at the counter and ordered herself a cup of coffee she was reasonably sure she wouldn’t drink and tried to remember what Shea had said.
You’re in control. You set the pace. You can stand up and leave anytime you want to. Remember that.
She gave a slight nod to herself as she paid for her coffee and grabbed the cup. She glanced down at her feet, took in a slow breath, counted to five as she let it out, then headed toward where Lila sat.
Lila’s face lit up. There was no other way to describe it. Her smile grew. Her eyes sparkled—dark eyes just like hers, Cherry noticed again. She stood partway up, like a gentleman standing in a lady’s presence, then sat back down.
“Hi, Cherry,” she said, and Cherry was surprised by the softness of her voice. The gentleness of it. “I’m so glad you came.”
“Well, I thought twice.” She gave her head a twitch and corrected herself. “No. I thought about seventeen times.”
Lila smiled sadly. “I understand.”
“Do you?” It came out snarky, and Cherry only felt bad about that for a split second, but Lila nodded.
“Absolutely. You owe me nothing, and I’m very aware of that.”
“Good.”
Silence reigned for a moment or two. Finally, Lila inhaled a huge breath and let it out very slowly through her nose before saying simply, “What do you want to know?”
