By admin Fake Dating My Ex’s Favourite Hockey Player Novel CH 111
I whip around.
She’s wrapped in a towel, another twisted around her hair, and her eyes—
God, her eyes look nothing like the girl I know.
They’re tired. Guarded.
“I” I start, but no words come.
She steps further into the room, not bothering to mask the anger on her face. “Seriously, Em? Going through my stuff now?”
I lower the pamphlets slowly. “I wasn’t… I didn’t mean to-
“You did mean to.” Her voice cuts, razor sharp. “You just didn’t mean to get caught.”
“Tess, I was just worried-”
She scoffs. “Spare me. You were nosy. There’s a difference.”
I flinch.
But I don’t back down. Not this time.
20
“You’ve been locking yourself in here for days. You’re not talking to me. You’re barely eating. You didn’t even touch your breakfast.” I gesture toward her desk. “And now I find this?” I hold up the box, barely able to breathe. “You don’t get to shut me out and act like I’m the problem for caring.”
For a beat, she says nothing. Just stares at me with that unreadable face.
Then she shakes her head.
“You don’t know anything.”
She moves to brush past me, like I’m not even standing there.
But I don’t let her go that easily.
I grab her arm. “Tessa-”
She jerks free. Her skin is cold. Her movements, colder.
And still, I try.
“Why won’t you just talk to me?” My voice cracks, raw and too full. “Explain it to me. Let me in. I’m your best friend, dammit. I’m always in your corner – you know that. If something’s wrong, if anything is going on with you-”
I trail off. My eyes flick, involuntarily, toward the desk. Her laptop. The pamphlets. The box.
Her gaze follows mine. And then she laughs. A sharp, bitter sound that slices straight through me.
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
“Tessa-”
“You only remember we’re best friends when it’s convenient for you.” Her voice is ice now, the kind that burns. “When it fits your narrative. When you want to be the hero. But let’s rewind, shall we?”
She steps closer. Her expression is thunder.
“When were you going to tell me you were still looking into Diana?” My stomach drops. “After you lied to my face and told me Adrian – we needed to let it go?”
“I was going to-”
– and
1/3
3:36 PM
+20
Chapter 111
“No. Don’t interrupt.” Her voice is shaking now, but it’s not from weakness. “Do you have any idea what I woke up to this morning? I got a message. From her. A message that scared the hell out of me and when I started putting pieces together, guess what I found out?”
She exhales, sharp and trembling.
—
―
a girl I’ve never even met
—
“I had to hear it from your little sister shaking. “At first, I thought maybe she just fell for your act. But no wild?”
that
you
and Liam are dating,” Tessa says, voice clipped and turns out she already knew it was fake from the start. Isn’t that
My throat tightens.
“What’s even wilder is that you’ve been in the middle of something messy and dangerous, and you didn’t think to say a damn thing.” She laughs, bitter. “What were you waiting for, Emilia? For something to explode?”
“It wasn’t like that-”
“Yes, it was.” Her eyes gleam now, but she refuses to blink. “You always pick and choose what parts of yourself to share, and that used to be okay. But not when it affects me. Not when it puts you in danger. Because that’s the thing you don’t care, do you?”
My mouth opens, then closes.
You don’t even consider how I’d feel if something ever happened to you.”
The silence that follows is deafening. My ears are buzzing with it.
I want to defend myself – of omission.
–
want to say I meant to tell her, that I was just waiting for the right time
but there is no right time for a lie
It all sounds like what it is: weak. Selfish. Excuses.
And for the first time in a long time, I don’t have anything to say.
—
She sees it. Of course she does. Her expression shifts brittle and flat. Then she yanks the pamphlets and the pregnancy test box from my hands and turns her back.
“Get out.”
My breath catches. “Tess, I’m sorry-”
“You can take your stuff. Leave it here. I don’t care.” She gestures to the mess on the desk like it’s meaningless. “Do whatever you want. Just… go. I don’t want to see you right now.”
Her words hit harder than they should. I blink. “You’re… you’re kicking me out?”
She turns, and for the first time tonight, she actually looks like herself No, this is the real one. Cracked open. Raw.
but not the strong, distant version she’s been holding together.
“Let me ask you something,” she says. “You’ve already been snooping around enough to know everything, so let’s just stop pretending. I don’t have the energy to spell it all out.”
I freeze.
“But I’ll give you the dignity of turning it into a scenario. Just so it stings less.” She swallows. “Let’s say I’m pregnant. And all I want is to get rid of it. No explanations. Would you support me then?”
“Yes,” I say.
But I say it a second too late.
The pause hangs like a slap in the air.
She nods – just once. “Exactly what I thought.”
She looks away, but her voice doesn’t soften. “Do you know the first thing I thought after buying that test? I thought, Emilia would never understand. Not really. She’d say the right words because she’s good at that
anything wrong.”
–
She presses a hand to her face, like she’s too tired to hold the rest in.
–
but deep down, she’d be thinking, ‘the baby didn’t do
2/3
3:36 PM P P
Chapter 111
0
“She’d think I’m a monster. A murderer. She just wouldn’t say it out loud.”
My chest aches.
I want to deny it. I want to say, That’s not true, I don’t think that at all.
But I don’t.
Because I know she wouldn’t believe me.
Not right now. Not when everything I’ve done Maybe I haven’t said those words.
—
every half–truth and omission – has led us to this exact moment. And honestly?
But I didn’t make her feel safe enough not to fear them.
So I just stand there. Quiet. Ashamed.
She turns away. The silence between us swells, full of things we never said and probably won’t.
I nod, even though she can’t see it. My voice is small. “I’ll come back later. When you’ve… cooled down. We can talk then, okay?”
What I want to do is walk up to her. Touch her shoulder. Pull her into a hug and whisper that I love her, that I’ll stand beside her no matter what. That I’ll burn the damn world down before I judge her.
But she looks so fragile — like one wrong word would shatter her completely – so I don’t.
She just shakes her head, waving me off like it takes too much effort to even argue. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tess-”
“You can come back whenever you like,” she cuts in softly. “But chances are… I won’t be here.”
My stomach sinks. “What do you mean?”
She still doesn’t turn around.
“I’m putting in my resignation,” she says, voice flat. “I’ll stay just long enough for them to find a replacement. Then…” A long pause. “I’m going back to Russia.”