The week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve was torture for Cara. She was constantly thinking about kissing Kai ever since Misty mentioned it, and it was definitely not something she wanted to do in order to pass time.

In fact, she would prefer if the idea of it would just disappear from her brain, but unfortunately, that was not how memories worked. 

If it wasn’t a fake relationship, she would’ve been excited to kiss her boyfriend on New Year’s Eve. It was a stupid tradition, but she would lying if she said that the inner romantic in her wasn’t excited at the prospect of it. 

It was like a bad joke when he appeared in front of her, almost like magic, when she was walking down the steps of her apartment building two days after Christmas. Cara momentarily paused at the doorway, watching the way he rocked back and forth on his heels, phone in one hand and a half-eaten bagel in the other hand. The sun was shining, and his hair reflected the bright sunlight, almost creating a halo effect around his head. The door slammed shut behind her, and that prompted him to look up, away from the phone. 

They stood apart from each other, wind blowing in her eyes and the sun brightly shining, and yet, there wasn’t anything more blinding than his smile. 

Swallowing, she walked down the few steps and stopped on the last step while Kai remained on the ground. Thanks to the extra height, she was looking directly at him instead of tilting her head up like she always had to do, and the dumb butterflies had returned.

“Hey,” she greeted, pushing her back further up her shoulder. His eyes watched the movement before returning back to her face. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought we could go on a coffee date today. Are you free?”

Cara glanced up at the bright blue sky for a second, mentally visualizing her planner — and taking a moment to breathe to calm herself — before she looked back at Kai’s face and nodded. “Yup, I’m free. But why do you want a coffee if you’re already eating the bagel?”

“Oh, I was craving a bagel, so I went to the dining hall to get one. I realized I forgot to grab coffee too on my way here, so we can just go to the cafe together.”

“You were already on your way here?” she asked, stepping down and moving to walk next to Kai. He reached for her hand and took a hold of it naturally, and the idea of what if it wasn’t fake was starting to get really, really annoying. She didn’t even know where it was coming from, and she wanted that voice gone.

He shrugged as he took a bite of the bagel. “I was free, and I just wanted to see you.”

Kai said it so nonchalantly, but the way Cara’s heart was about two seconds from beating out of her chest had her fighting the urge to flee. 

She attempted to cover up her feelings by trying to distance themselves, but it would’ve been strange to be suddenly walking four feet away from him. “Why didn’t you just text me instead?”

Kai took a bite of his bagel as he shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. I was out, and I wanted to see you.”

Cara chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, trying to come up with a valid response, because his words weren’t something that just a friend would say, but there was never a moment that Cara felt that he liked her — more than just a friend.

The seconds were ticking by, and even though it hadn’t been that long, it felt like an eternity had passed by the time Cara got around to responding, falling back to her usual sassy and sarcastic self so the inner conflict wouldn’t show. “Never thought the day would come that the all-mighty Kai would actually miss me.”

“Trust me,” Kai scoffed, “I didn’t think that day would’ve come either.”

“Why did you hate me so much anyway? I had more of a reason to hate the annoying, overachieving son of an executive member than he had a reason to hate me,” she innocently asked. Kai let go of her hand to nudge her with his elbow, and she let out a small laugh.

“I never hated that girl,” he countered, almost petulantly that Cara couldn’t help but laugh once again. “I disliked the idea of you that I had in my mind back then because she was everything that I needed to be, and it seemed almost effortless for her.” 

Cara opened to counter because nothing about her life had ever been effortless, but he had continued speaking without letting her interject. 

“Obviously I knew her circumstances were different than mine, but I didn’t really think much of it back then — especially because my father would often hold your ranking in our graduating class against me. I had the money and the resources, according to him, so why was it that you were doing just as well as I was in our classes? I didn’t really have an answer, so I ended up taking it out on you. I’m sorry.”

Cara couldn’t help but blankly look up at him, realizing several things at once. She had already learned early on that he had a kind heart under the layers and layers of sarcasm and biting words, but to learn that he was willing to learn and reflect on his mistakes was a completely new revelation. He had the guts and the willingness to apologize for being hard on her and making her life miserable when she didn’t bother to. She was just as guilty in their frenemies relationship as he was, and there he was apologizing. 

It also hit Cara that his father was right. Kai had the money and the resources. He would be going places after graduation, and she still wasn’t even sure what she wanted to do with her degree. Did she want to work for a big tech company or go into a smaller start up? Did she want to go get her graduate degree? Did she want to teach? She had absolutely no idea, but Kai’s life was all figured out. 

“Cara? Are you okay?” Kai’s voice broke her out of her spiraling, and it was then that she realized they had stopped walking. He was looking at her with a concerned expression, and she immediately smiled in reflex. This wasn’t the time nor the place for a freak out session, and she couldn’t let Kai know that anything was off. 

“Yeah, of course. I just didn’t realize how much easier things would’ve been between us if we weren’t such s to one another. I’m sorry too,” she apologized, mentally brushing off everything that had gone down in her brain over the last minute. Kai smiled and nodded, silently accepting her apology before the two of them continued walking to the cafe. Knowing that no one was going to be running into them at the moment because there was no one walking in the opposite direction as them on the path,  Cara took out her phone and shot a quick text to Misty, telling her to expect a call later in the evening. 

All Misty had responded with was OK, and even though Cara wished that Misty would just ask her to spill everything so Cara wouldn’t have to sit on everything for a few more hours, Cara also knew that it was best to talk over the phone at the time. 

Kai held the cafe door open for Cara, and she stepped inside first, leading the two of them to the line where she fiddled with her phone case, popping it on and off from the edge of her phone.

“Can you stop fidgeting? What’s going on?” Kai chided, taking her phone out of her hands.

“Hey!” she protested, ignoring the second question. “Give me my phone back!”

“Not until you promise to stop that. You’re going to break the case.”

“My phone has fallen on the road without the case cracking. I’m glad you think I have so much arm strength to crack it by messing around with it.”

“Either way.”

“Ugh, fine. Just give it back,” she relented, and under Kai’s annoying watchful gaze, she slipped it into her jacket pocket. 

She could still feel Kai’s scrutinizing gaze on her, even while she ordered a hot chocolate and a bagel with cream cheese for herself and a mocha latte for him — and even managed to pay before he did since he’d been paying the last few times they had gone out for coffee — before they moved to stand by the pick up area. 

It wasn’t until they had been sitting quietly for a few minutes, simply eating their bagels, that Kai spoke up.

“Do you mind going shopping with me?” Kai asked out of the blue. The silence with Kai never really bothered her, so she had zoned out while looking at the wind rustling the tree leaves and the birds flying in the sky. For once, her mind had been blissfully blank of the raging, storming thoughts. 

Cara raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“This is stupid,” he started off with, and Cara stiled the laugh that bubbled up in . 

“That’s never a good sign,” she commented anyway because she couldn’t resist that urge.

“Shut up, Cara,” he sighed, but she could tell that he didn’t mean the words to bite. “You know the New Year’s Eve party that the university throws for the seniors and graduate students?”

“The one where all the sponsors for the university show up for the first hour and the students spend that hour kissing asses?”

“Yeah, that one. My dad gave me a tie to wear for the event, and uh, that was before we were, you know, dating.”

“This is giving me bad deja vu vibes from when you first asked me out, and I feel like I shouldn’t ask, but I’ll ask. What about the tie?”

“I need you to buy a dress that matches the tie.”

“Okay, and?” she asked, taking a sip of the hot chocolate.

“And I need you to go shopping with me so I can help you pick it out and pay for it.”

“Why would you pay for it?” she asked, furrowing her eyebrows. Sure, she’d paid a ton for the dress for the banquet, but she’d be able to wear that dress down the line, too. The same would apply for this dress as well, and she said as much.

“That’s fine, but I feel bad for making you spend that much money in the first place,” he insisted. His shoulders were drooping, and she wondered why he felt (and looked) so guilty over this. 

“Kai, I can pay for the dress. It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“I know! Just—pretend it’s an early graduation gift from me. I want to do this.”

“Kai,” she warned.

“I won’t take no for an answer,” he retaliated. “I’ll just buy it online and hope it fits,” Kai finished with a casual shrug and a loud slurp of his coffee. 

As Cara gritted her teeth, she knew that the worst part was that she totally knew that he would just go online and buy the closest thing without thinking about anything else accessories wise, shoes wise, or even if it fit her.

She let out a deep sigh, and Kai visibly perked up at that. He knew she had given up. “Fine.”

“Alright, I’ll come pick you up tomorrow!”

“Am I going to regret this?”

“Maybe.”

~~~

Misty picked up on the first ring, and for the first time ever, Cara was grateful that her best friend had such a skill.

“What’s up? What was the emergency?”

“I’m freaking out.”

“Uh-huh. Over what?” The woman sounded too casual for her to not know what Cara was freaking out over.

“Shut up, you know exactly what I’m freaking out over.”

“Well, I have been waiting, oh, I don’t know, about four months for it to get through your thick skull that you like Kai.”

Cara scoffed involuntarily. “I do not like Kai.”

“Cara.” Misty sounded incredibly judgmental. 

“Misty.”

“Woman, you are freaking over kissing the man, and you think you don’t like him?” Misty stressed, and Cara bit her lip to stop another protest from escaping her lips. She had spent so long arguing with him and refusing any form of attraction that it was a habit at this point.

“I’m not saying I’m not physically attracted to him. I’m just saying I don’t…like him.” Cara winced after she spoke, hearing the lie herself. 

Did she like Kai?

She heard Misty take a deep breath, as though she were bracing herself for this conversation. Cara flopped back first onto her bed in preparation as well. She didn’t want to be standing for this. 

“Look, Cara. I love you, but you are so i