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It took years of fake smiles, useless events, and a plastic tongue to make myself a part of the said circle. Every second with them made nausea rise in my throat, yet I bit through it because going home and pretending tohimmade me feel worse than that.

Not pretending the love I had for him, but the lies and secrets I kept inside.

Adding and adding and adding over the years—I felt it seeping out of me and surrounding me in an ominous cloud.

“Here, let me take them.” Lan tugged my suitcases away from me and took hold of my Dior Mini Lady in deep red.

I forced a smile, trailing his steps as he made his way to our living room. My eyes traced along the slopes of his hard, shirtless, muscular back, rolling with beads and beads of sweat. Every inch of it was inked like a gothic flower garden, and the only flowers in the garden were roses.

Because roses were my favorite flower, that was true. I didn’t lie when he asked me that, unlike the other lies I’d told him.

The bright sun filtered through the glass walls that overlooked the hills covering our living room, hurting my eyes. Another peculiar feature I hated in this house were all the glass windows. It felt like I was a Barbie inside a transparent dollhouse while the world picked, prodded, and judged how plastic I was.

But the cruel truth was—I was the one who picked this house, oohing and aahing over every feature like it was my dream home. Lan loathed it; he even wanted to move to New York to be with the rest of our bandmates and family, but I insisted we stay here and build our future when all I wanted to do was go to New York.

The thing is, I had gotten so used to pretending, amid my fake friends and lousy events and the superficial life I led here, that in a weird sense, LA became my comfort zone, and I was scared to move.

But sincethat night, LA made my skin crawl, and New York made me feel like an alien, so here I was, a wandering ghost with no home. Ever since then and all that’s been happening after that had left me so, so tired.

So much so that I was at a point where I had no more juice in me for anything.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back? Did you take the red-eye again?” Lan asked, his bedroom brown eyes sweeping over me with an upward tilt of his pouty lips like he did whenever he was confused.

“Thought I’d surprise you,” I said, lowering myself onto the couch and slowly freeing my feet from the death traps I wore. I wiggled my toes, already feeling the numbness spread across my pinkie and the abrasions stinging my heel.

Choosing to wear six-inch heels for a seven-hour flight from New York to LA was for the brave, and I was a coward who cared more about her public image than comfort.

Lan’s confusion only deepened. One thing about Lan was that he could read me like a screenplay to his favorite movie. “Why didn’t you take the jet? It’s simply standing there in New York.”

I lifted a shoulder but didn’t say a thing.

Why didn’t I take it?I don’t know. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. I just couldn’t take my brother’s worried eyes and his frustrated questions anymore. Matt Evans, my twin, the drummer of the Four Foxes, was as real and honest as a person could get. And I, the liar, was the complete opposite of him. I sometimes felt embarrassed in his presence. But now more so than ever. I just couldn’t stand myself lying to him.

Lan heaved out a sigh and dropped down to the seat beside me, careful to keep some distance between us. He knew how much I didn’t like his workout sweat on me, but in reality, I actually didn’t mind. I would have him anyway I could get.

“Is everything okay? I heard what happened with Cece. I don’t understand why you left me without saying anything.”

“I, umm, I didn’t want to ruin your ride,” I mumbled. “Yeah, and everything with Cece was a complete mess. She has gotten herself between Emmie and Evy again. She’s in the hospital now. I must say Evy’s got quite a mean right hook and that bitch deserved it.” I tried to muster a solid tone, but it only came out broken and weak.

Cece was someone I called my best friend, or at least used to. I thought she was my only genuine friend in LA. But now it turned out she was a bigger pretender than I, only evil.

So evil that her jealous obsession with Emmie, our lead singer, led him to break things off with his high school sweetheart Evy six years ago. And we only found the truth now.

The guilt only added up knowing I treated Evy like shit because I thought she was the one at fault. I thought she was trying to break apart our family. And in a weird sense, I thought that responsibility fell on me. The responsibility to keep our band together because if they break, then my entire facade would break too. And then my hiding spot would be revealed, marking the death of me.

“I heard, and I was actually going to fly down this afternoon to be with you, but I guess that’s beyond the point now. I know you were close to her.” Lan frowned. “How are you taking all this?”

“I feel guilty,” I whispered truthfully. “For the way I was with Evy.”

“But didn’t you already apologize? And she was okay with everything, right?” Lan said gently, attempting a smile that made his brown eyes soft and my heart ache.

“It still doesn’t make it right. It will never make it right,” I muttered, averting my gaze. Too sick to look at the love in his eyes for me, for afake.

“K, you can’t keep hurting your head about this. At the end of the day, Evy loves you.” I could feel his eyes burning on the side of my cheek as I stared ahead. “But there’s something else, isn’t there? You’ve been acting weird lately, and when I kept asking you, you just ran off to New York.”

I inhaled sharply. There he was, decoding all my lies in mere seconds. “Nothing at all, Lan.” I sprang to my feet and plastered a wide smile. “Why would I be weird about anything else?”

I could feel his narrowed gaze follow me as I made my way to the open kitchen.Why?Because I needed a distraction. Because I just didn’t have it in me to be the fake Katy Evans lately.