CHAPTER ONE
Hawaii was totally messing up my plans. To be fair, I rarely made plans, and when I did, they generally went badly. But this one was facing an extra challenge. Why did Maui have to be so insanely beautiful before we’d even reached the ground?
As the island grew larger beneath us, I inched the airplane’s window shade up to reveal more details. Vivid turquoise-and-blue water. Brilliant green hills. Bright white line of waves.
My imagination filled with images of sights that awaited, begging me to photograph them. Towering waterfalls wreathed in rainbow mist. Ocean sunsets of tangerine and pink. Turtles and whales and tropical flowers and—
No. That was the old Kenzie. The version of myself I’d left behind eight months ago. The impractical dreamer with impossible wishes.
The new Kenzie had to pretend not to take too much notice. She could enjoy the scenery, objectively. But she didn’t obsess about the best camera angle to highlight a waterfall’s height, about the time of day to shoot the ocean to show the brightest shade of blue, or about the proper shutter speed to capture a leaping whale. She didn’t spend the day getting sunburned while waiting for just the right shot of a turtle coming ashore, or developing prune fingers from hours of snorkeling with her GoPro, filming colorful fish.
And she definitely didn’t think about the Nikon DSLR camera tucked into the back of her closet at home in its nice leather bag, alongside the tripod, assortment of lenses, and portfolio full of landscapes and animal photos.
New Kenzie cared about college applications and chemistry club and Future Healthcare Professionals of America meetings, and this week would be full of air-conditioned dinners and sitting quietly under umbrellas on the beach, and possibly days on the golf course, where the waves were a distant backdrop without sound or sea spray.
New Kenzie was utterly boring.
But also safe, family-approved, and free of criticism.
So this was my path, and I would continue on it, even though that had been growing harder lately, taking a steep climb up a rocky hill. Pushing the limits of how long I could try to be someone else. I would not let Hawaii be the thing that sent me tumbling back down.
Our descent grew choppy, wind buffeting the plane from side to side.
Beside me, Mom clutched her book to her chest. Not a romance novel or thriller or other vacation-appropriate fiction, like normal people read. Instead it was a too-long optometry text for her latest continuing education course. Based on how tightly she was squeezing it, she would have been better off holding a barf bag. Although if the book were covered in vomit, that might be an improvement.
A distraction seemed in order.
“How’s the book?” I asked. “Can I borrow it when you’re done?”
Her eyes got slightly less glassy. “I’m learning about a new method of detecting glaucoma. The idea is fascinating, but the writing style leaves something to be desired. I don’t think this editor should be reviewing professional publications.”
“Ah. Um. Well, great topic, though.”
So not-great. But over the last eight months, I had to admit, my feigned interest in the family career sure had made her a lot less frowny when she looked at me. Plus, the question had achieved the desired goal of distracting her from imminent puking. Finding thin
gs to criticize about others often had that effect on her—and for once, the disapproval wasn’t directed at me.
“Jacob mentioned he read an article about that,” I added.
The glow in her eyes intensified. The only thing she loved more than my made-up, newfound love for optometry was my made-up, future healthcare professional boyfriend. It was good to know my imagination was able to please her, even if I rarely was.
We jostled against each other as the plane dipped lower.
“Close the shade, please. Or put on your sunglasses. The UV rays are terrible for your eyes.”
I sighed and shut out the beautiful view. Maybe it was for the best, to keep me from dwelling on out-of-reach dreams.
“I hope your sister and Neal had a smoother ride.”
Yes, Alana, my twenty-two-year-old sister, was dating a guy named Neal. It was like she’d set out to find the most boring guy possible and had ended up with the only college-age guy with that name, just to prove she continued to be the perfect daughter. The one destined to achieve the ideal balance of collegiate-career success and a stable, predictable relationship that my family valued.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” I said. “If their plane had crashed an hour ago, the runway wouldn’t be clear for ours to land.”
“Mackenzie! Don’t joke about that.”
Ah, the We Are Not Amused voice. Hadn’t heard that one recently, mainly because I’d been keeping my jokes to myself. I definitely hadn’t missed the way it made me feel silly and childish, even though I thought I was funny. Old Kenzie was sneaking through again, as if the wave-swept shores below were pulling her out of the depths.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” I said quickly. “The odds of a commercial airline crash are, like, one in one point two million.” I’d memorized that fact prior to boarding to impress someone—and to calm my always-worried mother. It was extremely gratifying to be able to use it to get myself out of trouble. “They’re probably already at the resort with Gran.”
Mom’s grip on the book loosened. Until the plane shook, and she hugged it to her again. She inhaled slowly before glancing sideways at me. “It was too bad Jacob couldn’t join us.”
Yeah, well, it was hard for imaginary people to go on real vacations.
My nonexistent boyfriend, Jacob, was attending a nonexistent weeklong biology academy over spring break, fulfilling the lie that I, too, had found a nice, dull future optometrist to date. We supposedly video chatted about chemistry and college c
oursework and medical breakthroughs, which would have made me run away screaming if it had been true, since those were also frequent topics at family dinners.
But it made my parents say things like I’m proud of you and We’re so glad you’ve found someone serious like your sister has. Which were a huge improvement over what I used to hear. When are you going to grow out of this phase? Or Why don’t you respect the family legacy like your sister? And my personal favorite, Nature photography is a cute hobby but is far too risky and pointless for a real career.
“He was sorry he couldn’t come and wanted to make sure I thanked you for inviting him,” I said. “But the program was important to help him get an internship this summer.”
“Of course. Career comes first.”
I sincerely hoped that was a my family thing and not an all adults thing, because the idea of career coming first for the rest of my life was almost enough to make me want to stay in high school forever.
My parents found work so important that I still couldn’t believe we were here. But the family optometry practice started by my grandfather was doing well, and my dad’s blood pressure had been high enough at his last doctor’s visit that he and my mom had decided to take a week off.
Hooray, hypertension.
“We look forward to meeting him one day,” Mom went on. “And if that internship doesn’t work out, we’d love to have him at our office for the summer.”
“Right. I’ve told him that. But he likes to stay close to home. His family is important to him, too.”
“As it should be.”
Family was the only thing that came close to rivaling work, although for the Reeds, the two were intertwined, like the roots of a tree. Or like an invasive species of vine strangling the tree and slowly sucking the life out of it until the tree withered, died, and toppled to the ground.
No, I wasn’t proud that I’d made up a fake boyfriend to impress my family. Yes, it was rather pathetic—but since I had been out with real guys before, it at least comforted me to know I wasn’t totally incapable of finding an actual human date.
And of course, lying was wrong.
But part of remaking myself had been proving I was serious and capable of an adult relationship with future potential. Something my parents had lamented was decidedly not true about those actual human boys. A fictional boyfriend who liked puzzles and science documentaries and was considering a career in optometry like my pare
nts was just the thing.
Naturally, he went to college across the country, so my family wouldn’t have a chance to meet him. Ohio State, to be specific, since it was one of the largest schools in the country and my parents had never mentioned knowing anyone from Ohio. The key to lying was making the lie hard to disprove. Like his name—Jacob Miller, handpicked from the most popular baby names list and the database of most common surnames in the US.
Really, my parents would have been impressed at the research that had gone into this lie. Especially coming from me, the child who was impulsive, disorganized, and terrible at planning. Direct quotes.
The plane bumped its way to a landing. My mom gripped the seat to keep herself from falling forward as we decelerated.
“Well,” I heard my dad say from across the aisle, “if it gets worse this week, go ahead and give me a call, and we’ll get that figured out.”
He handed a business card to the guy in front of him.
It was possible Dad wasn’t fully grasping the idea of vacation.
He and my brother, Tyler, stood and grabbed our bags from the overhead bins. Dad’s perfectly ironed, green-and-orange Hawaiian shirt burned my eyeballs. Was he trying to blind everyone around him in some twisted effort to force them to need
his services? It made me extremely glad that I’d locked my Instagram account months ago and no one else in my family used social media, so there was no chance of anyone seeing me in a family photo with such an abomination to the world of fashion.
Mom stood, and I moved to follow.
“Were you planning to leave your headphones?” she asked.
Oh. Right. I grabbed my earbud case from the seat-back pocket. And really, couldn’t she have reminded me nicely?
I’d been doing so well lately. I’d only lost one school binder so far this semester, which my parents had never learned about, and forgotten lunch money twice, which, who needed to eat three times a day, anyway?
“Good news, Kenz,” Tyler said as he let me into the aisle. “We’ve landed. You can text Strawberry Jam again.”
If Jacob had been real, the nickname might have bothered me. But that was on me for deciding that my fake boy’s middle name was Andrew, giving him the initials JAM.
I ignored the teasing, as always. “He’s in class. I don’t want to disturb him.”
“Are you sure about that?” Tyler asked, raising an eyebrow.
I actually wasn’t, since I hadn’t seen a clock recently and hadn’t calculated the time difference. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
We followed the other passengers off the plane. The airport had a casual feel, with skylights letting in bright Hawaiian sun. People in flowered shirts as hideous as Dad’s exited planes, while many with lobster-worthy sunburns prepared to board them.
I was definitely not noticing the vivid fuchsia orchids forming beautiful leis, or imagining the flowers in full bloom on actual plants. Or seeing how bright white and silver the clouds were, cleaner and fluffier than back home in Sacramento.
Instead I selected a topic guaranteed to make my parents proud—by pointing to a display in the nearest airport shop.
“Hey, blue-light glasses,” I said.
Dad whipped around. “Where? That’s a travesty.”
“Such a rip-off,” Mom clucked. “Poor souls, being tricked into thinking those are needed, and at such high airport prices.”
“Regular reading glasses, too.” Dad shook his head. “Convincing people they can diagnose themselves instead of getting proper checkups.”
“Truly tragic,” said Tyler in a dramatic voice that would have sounded mocking if used in relation to an actual tragedy.
Still in the airport, and they’d already resorted to work talk and criticizing others. Two activities my parents would win gold for if they were Olympic sports. But my plan had succeeded—I’d gotten approving looks, distracted myself from thinking about photography, and ensured they didn’t suspect I’d been thinking about it, all at once.
My mouth watered as we passed Hawaiian restaurants and food carts offering coconut French toast and SPAM and fresh pineapples. My parents were such unadventurous eaters, I’d be lucky to try the iconic shave ice this week.
“Ooh, SPAM.” Tyler craned his neck to see a menu.
“I’m not sure about the safety of meat that lasts that long,” Mom said.
“Doesn’t tuna last forever?” I asked. “It has those fats that are good for your eyes.”
“I don’t know if SPAM is the same, but that is a good point.”
That tone of voice was a more recent addition to her arsenal—one I called Surprised, Grudging Respect.
This was why I’d made the change. The new me invited so much less drama. If I’d been doing what I wanted, what the old Kenzie would have done—flitting from place to place, running into things because my face was glued to my camera, taking photos of everything in sight—they’d have been telling me to stop dawdling, to pay attention, to quit getting distracted and keep up. To apologize to the poor man with a walker I’d knocked over while watching a pretty
cloud. Not that that had ever happened.
“The condo has Wi-Fi, right?” Tyler asked. “I need to keep up with my coding project.”
Despite being a sophomore, two years younger than me, he was working on a fancy program for his computer class. He said it would update the optometry office’s recordkeeping or bookkeeping or something like that. Something I should have understood about running the business side of the practice but didn’t, despite working there for months, because—boring.
“Yes, Tyler,” Mom said. “I’ve told you many times. Everyone has Wi-Fi these days.”
“Yeah, but they better have good signal strength. Not like the time we went to that conference in Boise and I could barely download the baseball scores.”
“I’m sure it will be fine. But remember you’re to limit screen time this week. We’re supposed to be spending time together as a family.”
Good luck getting him to comply with that. Not like Mom and Dad would enforce it, anyway. Not against the brilliant baby of the family, who got good grades without trying and won math awards and who never got criticized for not wanting to join the family practice, because computer programming was a parent-approved career path.
Baggage claim was located in an open-air space, allowing the humid, warm outdoors to seep in. My skin instantly felt sticky. Mom sighed and fanned her shirt, but it made me think of magical tropical nights under the stars and jungles teeming with life and hidden waterfalls.
Which I would not be photographing.
We retrieved our luggage and made our way toward the exit. A cute guy stood alone, leaning against a pillar.
He was watching us.
His light brown hair streaked with blond was pulled into a stubby ponytail at the base of his head, leaving strands loose around his face. It was so shiny that I wanted to run my fingers through it or ask what conditioner he used. A T-shirt hugged nice arm muscles, and cargo shorts showed off tanned legs. He could have played a young Thor. When he caught me checking him out, his lips lifted.
Oh well. Not like I’d see him again.
As we moved toward him, he pocketed his phone, shoved away from the pillar, and approached. His eyes were locked on me. I slowed. My family paused.
And the cute guy’s arms were around me before I could shove him away.
What? I mean, sure, he wasn’t bad to look at. And I had been staring. But I didn’t make a habit of hugging strangers in airports. I stiffened and was ready to plant my knee somewhere that would have made my junior high self-defense teacher proud, when his mouth dipped close to my ear.
“Hey, Kenzie.” His voice was low and rough, his breath warm on my neck.
I yanked back. His arms kept me from moving too far, so we were inches apart as I stared into the brightest sky-blue eyes I’d ever seen, framed by long lashes. The mischievous light in them matched the quirk of his lips.
“Surprise!” shouted my family.
My gaze darted from them to the boy, bouncing around, as I tried to figure out what kind of trick this was.
They were all smiling, though the boy’s expression resembled more of a smirk.
My family, at least, did not see this as me getting mauled by a random stranger.
The boy released me, stepped away, and moved to my dad with his hand outstretched. “Hello, Dr. Reed. It’s nice to finally meet you in person. I’m Jacob.”
CHAPTER TWO
Sorry, what now?
The boy shook my dad’s hand, my mom’s, my brother’s.
“Look, Kenzie is speechless,” the guy said. “I think the surprise was a success.”
Of course it was a success, you fake, lying liar. You aren’t real. Who are you?
But I couldn’t say that aloud, because I was also a fake, lying liar. If I told them this wasn’t my boyfriend, Jacob Miller, I would have to confess there wasn’t actually a Jacob Miller. In the middle of an airport, where their disappointment and judgment would be on display for the world to see. Right before they locked me in the hotel suite for the entire week.
And if they learned I’d been lying about Jacob, eventually the other untruths from the last several months would come out, too. Namely, the lies that I didn’t mind giving up photography, that I agreed with my parents’ opinions about it being too risky as a career choice, that I was enjoying my science clubs and couldn’t wait for college. That I was happy with this new version of me and not feeling at all trapped or miserable or like a wild tiger in a tiny cage, slowly wasting away toward a tragic end.
Hey, this guy is a fraud. Oh wait, I am, too.
I gritted my teeth and smiled. “I am definitely surprised.”
Our gazes locked. His easy smile taunted me. Slight dimples in both cheeks gave him a playful appearance that was both attractive and aggravating. Somehow this stranger knew—about the fake boyfriend and about the fact that I had to play along.
He grasped my shoulders. “You look great. I can’t believe I’m finally seeing you in person again. Screens don’t do you justice.”
“So true,” I said. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
He was way hotter than any boy I’d dated before, and I wasn’t sure what my parents would think about the long hair. Perhaps too edgy for the guy I’d made up, though I liked it.
His dimples deepened. “After the number of times we’ve talked, I’ll try not to be hurt by that.”
Considering that number was zero…
“No offense.” I gave him a sweet look. “It’s like when you see someone in a place you don’t expect, it takes you a minute, you know? Your teacher at the grocery store. Or someone who resembles a fictional character.” I paused a second. “Like, from a book.”
“I understand completely.” His eyes twinkled. “If I met a fictional character, I’d want to hug them to make sure they were real.”
“Or maybe pinch them.” I smiled again and hoped my reply came across as the threat I meant it to be.
“Exactly.” His half-smirk said he understood me perfectly. “Well, I’m just glad it worked out for me to come.” He hugged me again and whispered into my ear, “I’ll explain later.”
I twitched. I wanted to drag him off immediately. What could his explanation possibly be?
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. All of you.” I turned my plastered-on happy face to my family.
“We thought you would enjoy the surprise,” Mom said.
“Plus, five months is too long not to see you.” Fakey McFaker gave me such an adoring look, I might have believed him if I hadn’t known that cute, innocent face hid a pretender.
Five months ago, I’d supposedly met my boyfriend at a weekend retreat in Atlanta for the Future Healthcare Professionals of America group. How did he know that? Fake Jacob had not been based on a real person. Tragically, I had attended the healthcare weekend, missing our school’s fall festival, which I loved. I just hadn’t met
anyone.
When I got home, the first words I heard from Dad were about how Alana and Neal had finished their interviews with the graduate optometry program in Fullerton for the following fall. It slipped out that I had met someone, too, and of course he was interested in optometry, to help with my new image. I’d quickly created a story. Then over the last few months, I occasionally mentioned our fake online chats and pretended to receive daily texts. Naturally, he disliked social media, so no one could find him, which drove my brother crazy but impressed my parents, who thought screen time would lead to worldwide blindness and the downfall of civilization.
Two could play this guy’s game of words.
“Oh, I agree,” I said. “I missed you so much, I don’t know how I lived without you.”
“Then this surprise came just in time. I would hate to think I was the cause of any distress in your life.”
The look he gave me was direct, sincere. Whoever he was, he was good.
Mr. Phony Baloney turned to my parents. “How was your flight? Thank you again for letting me come last-minute when my program was canceled. It almost makes up for missing out on the experience I would have gotten.”
Again with details he couldn’t know. His spring break program didn’t exist. I’d made it up because it sounded like a logical reason for someone to decline a trip to Maui.
“We’re glad you were able to find a last-minute flight,” Mom said. “I hope your professor will be okay.”
“He should be since they caught it right away. Appendectomies have a ninety-nine percent success rate. It was just bad timing.”
They nodded sympathetically while I wondered if Lying Von Liarson had his appendix, so I could punch him in it.
“I hope he doesn’t rush back to work too quickly. Too many people neglect their health.”
Ironic, coming from Dad, when we were taking this vacation because he’d put everyone else’s health above his own.
“Wise advice,” Jacob said.
I snorted.
What game was this guy playing? Was he trying to con my family? Was he here to steal from us? Had my ancestors wronged his, and this was an elab
orate revenge plot where he wormed his way into our confidence and destroyed our business, or murdered us in our sleep, cut us into tiny pieces, and destroyed the evidence by feeding us to the sharks?
Playing along meant I could be inviting a criminal into our lives. But I wasn’t ready to lose my family’s newfound acceptance until I knew it was the only option.
And now I wanted answers. I needed to get him alone so I could interrogate him and figure out why he was pretending to be my fake boyfriend and how he—a stranger—even knew I had a fake boyfriend. My best friend, Lucia, was the only one I’d told, and she wouldn’t say a word.
Bogus Boy slipped his arm around my shoulders. His scent hit me, and I inhaled deeply before I could stop myself. Why did the insidious impostor have to smell like a delicious banana-coconut smoothie when we hadn’t even been in Hawaii for half an hour?
And why was he driving me to alliteration?
“You haven’t said you’re glad to see me,” he murmured.
I twisted to look up at him, hoping my family wasn’t getting suspicious. “I’m still having trouble trusting it’s you.”
“Of course it’s me, Kenz. Who else would it be?”
Our smiles fought a silent duel.
We must have been convincing as a reunited couple, because Tyler said, “You guys are so cute, I might puke.”
The faker looked away first. Which I took as a win, until he stepped closer to my mom.
“Let me take that, Dr. Reed.” He maneuvered her suitcase away from her, rolling hers and carrying his own bag as we moved on.
I shot daggers at h
is back with my eyeballs. Tyler fell into step beside me, and I tried to make my expression less murderous.
“He seems nice,” my brother said. His lips quirked. “I was starting to think you’d made him up.”
“As you can see, he’s very real.”
Too real. Inescapably real.
Like an octopus clinging to your face and suffocating you.
We took a shuttle to the car rental, where Dad picked up a van and loaded our luggage into the back row.
“Try to keep your hands off each other,” Tyler said before wedging himself next to the bags and taking out his phone, likely hoping he could get away with using the device unseen.
That left the center row for me and Fake Jake.
Tyler’s remark would have embarrassed me if this guy had been my real boyfriend. I slid to the window, while Jacob sat by the door, ...
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