Chapter 05: What The Stars Don't Promise.

SYDNEY.

I stood in the doorway for one long second, looking at Corbin with his shirt half open and Sasha standing close enough that I already understood everything.

Then I turned around and walked out.

It was not my business.

Whatever Corbin wanted to do with his body and whoever he wanted to do it with had nothing to do with me.

We were friends, we had always been friends, and friends did not get to be angry about things like this, not even fake girlfriends.

My real problem was waiting for me outside that room.

Marcus had asked me to dance earlier and I had said yes, because some stupid part of me still wanted to feel his hand on my waist one more time.

While we moved together he had leaned in close and told me that if I wanted him back I needed to prove it, that we needed to have sex first, and that he had already booked a room and I should come find him whenever I was ready.

I had walked away from him without a single word because what exactly was I supposed to say to that.

I was a lot of things but I was not stupid.

I had spent too long guarding my virginity to just hand it over on demand like it meant nothing, and even if I needed to hand it over, it should be in a pink room, and not some cursed party.

I walked straight through the party and out the back doors into the garden, where the music turned soft and far away.

I sat down on the grass among the flowers with my heels kicked off beside me, and let myself finally breathe.

This was only the second party I had ever been to in my whole life.

The first one was prom, the night I told Corbin I liked him.

I watched his face do something so cruel that I spent the rest of the evening hiding in a bathroom stall, and I still did not fully understand what fifteen year old me had seen in him, or why I ever believed we could be something more than what we were.

I had grown out of that a long time ago, that version of me felt like a stranger now.

And yet here I was again.

Outside a party, alone, surrounded by flowers, while everyone else was inside living their best night.

I leaned back on my hands, looked up at the sky and found a star that seemed brighter than the rest.

I just stared at it and wondered what it would feel like to be that star.

No heart to break, no name to remember, no boy asking for proof of love before he gave any back, just quiet and far away and untouched by all of it, existing without needing to feel a single thing.

I was still looking up when a hand touched my shoulder.

I did not turn around because I already knew who it was.

Corbin.

I had heard him calling my name somewhere behind me, running like this was some kind of emergency, and I did not fully understand why he even bothered chasing after me like we were something real.

We were not, not to each other, and definitely not to whatever he had just been doing upstairs with Sasha.

I supposed he owed me no explanation either, he was a grown man having fun the way any normal person was allowed to.

Corbin sat down beside me without asking and looked up at the same sky I had been looking at as everything around us went quiet.

"I know you want to explain what happened between you and Sasha," I said, still looking up, "but don't worry about it, I don't even want to hear it, it's not my business."

He stayed silent for a long moment and then he laughed. "I wasn't going to explain anything anyway, whatever you want to think, you can think of it, I don't owe you an explanation."

I frowned and hit his arm. "That was so rude, first of all, and please tell me you didn't moan out our secret that we're actually fake dating."

He laughed harder. "Relax, I didn't even sleep with her. She was weird, honestly kind of scary..."

"Scary how?" I asked.

He stood up and started acting it out, flipping an invisible ponytail, hand on his hip, doing his best impression of a woman with far too much confidence. "She looked at me and said, I just got myself wet, now it's your turn to make me wet."

I rolled onto the grass laughing so hard I could barely breathe.

Corbin kept the whole thing going, dragging it out longer than necessary, and I finally sat up wiping my eyes.

"I was terrified," he said, dropping back down beside me, "it felt like walking into some kind of obligation, and I genuinely did not know if I was walking out the same person."

We laughed again until it faded into something quieter.

This was the thing about Corbin, the thing I never said out loud but always felt, that whenever I was at my lowest he somehow showed up with some ridiculous, disgusting story that made me laugh anyway, and I did not know a single other person who could do that for me.

I stared at him for a while and he caught me looking and looked back.

"So tell me about you and Marcus," he said, "did he come out of nowhere asking you to make his cock hard?"

I laughed and shoved him. "No, actually," and then my face changed because I remembered, "it was complicated. Can I ask you something?"

He looked at me for a long moment. "Yeah, sure, what's up."

"Imagine you've never had sex before, and a girl you've liked for a long time comes to you and says you both need to sleep together before she'll even consider being with you, what would you do?" I asked him.

He smiled slowly, rubbed the back of his head, and laughed. "Of course I'd do it, anything for my Barbie."

We both burst out laughing because that was so exactly Corbin, so unserious, so allergic to anything that required him to actually think, and I was not even surprised by the stupidity of the answer.

"Wait," he said, still laughing, "are you being serious with that question or are you just messing with me?"

"Well actually," I started to say, and that was when Marcus appeared in front of us.

"Oh, you're here," he said, "I kind of figured you'd run off like a coward."

He looked at me for a long time and I swallowed hard, not fully understanding why some part of me still loved this man after everything he had done.

"Actually, I didn't," I said.

He nodded past me toward Corbin like he was not even there. "So about our deal, I already booked the room, are you doing it or not?"

I saw Corbin's face change beside me and he turned to look at me. "I don't understand. What's going on here?"

I forced a smile and stood up quickly. "I'm coming, Corbin....Don't worry about it, I've got this, I'm an adult, I can handle it."

Corbin stood up too. "No, Sydney, what is going on, what do you mean you've got it?!"

Marcus stepped closer and pushed him. "Hey, brother, stay out of this."

Corbin pushed him back. "You don't get to tell me what to do! What do you mean you booked a room for her?!"

Then he paused, and I watched the realization hit him as he turned to me slowly. "Sydney....that question you asked me earlier, was that actually about you and him?"

I did not answer, and he did not need me to.

"Corbin, you have to listen to me," I said, "I've got this. I'm not a child, this is not grade six where you get to control me, just stay out of it, I'll handle him myself."

He looked at me for a long time. "No, Sydney. He is not doing anything with you tonight. You don't get to give yourself away for one night to some asshole. You're not this cheap, stop it!"

I rolled my eyes at him. "Says the guy who was ready to throw himself into his imaginary Barbie the second I asked the reverse question."

"I didn't know you were being serious," he said, "I thought you were joking. No, Sydney, you are not doing this!"

Marcus stepped closer, his voice flat and impatient. "Sydney, you keep putting me in this position over and over. Are you coming with me or not?"

I opened my mouth, and then I closed it again, because here I was, for the second time tonight, standing between these two men, and I honestly did not know what else was left for me to say.