Elise sits up right after only sleeping for three hours. She hugs her knees, unsure of what to do. She still doesn’t want to believe it but the thought has been on her mind for a while now, not just yesterday. It just became more obvious as time passed and as she paid more attention. She looks down at Yuna, who’s still asleep. Elise moves down to smell her hair. Even that is the same. Elise then sends a message to Yuele. Yuna’s phone beeps. Her heart tightens as the evidence can’t be more clear. Still, after all this, Elise denies it. After all, it can all just be a coincidence.

She gets up and walks over and picks up Yuna’s phone. She uses Yuna’s fingerprint to unlock it and sure enough, it’s logged in to Yuele’s Instagram. Elise nearly drops it as all the air leaves her body.

Why?

Elise’s mind races to find a coherent thought. Every single one comes crashing in at the same time, leaving it all nonunderstandable as if there is none at all. She wants to get mad, but just can’t. She’s just confused. There isn’t another emotion that she can pinpoint either. It’s like all of them are coming in at once. Anger, horror, and disgust. But at the same time, there’s relief, joy, and excitement. She scurries to the bathroom and sits on the toilet to gather her thoughts. But one thing is clear.

Yuna has been Yuele this entire time.

Why would she do this? How did I not notice sooner? Is she messing with me? Is she being for real? Who else knows? She’s been lying to me this entire time. I’ve been catfished. She’s a liar. She’s been using me. No, she loves me. This is what she was afraid of. This is what Yuna was talking about. Yuele is what she’s been hiding. She’s been trying to get close to me so she can tell me. Does she really like me that? Is that why she never had a boyfriend? She’s gay. A weirdo. She dresses like a guy. For what? To catfish dumb girls like me? She’s messing with me. Yeah. She never forgave me. It’s one big prank because she hates me that much. No, that isn’t the real Yuna. Yuna is actually really nice and fun. Then last night when she-she wanted to kiss me then. No. I don’t like girls. It’s gross. Oh, god. I’ve been dating a girl this whole time. Fuck. I hate puking. What the hell am I doing? I should have figured it out sooner. I’m so fucking stupid.

What if she really likes me? I don’t want to break her heart. No, that's not what I…

Elise sits back on her toilet and stares at Yuna’s phone. It’s all there. Every message sent, every picture received, and even the Spotify playlist. Yuna hasn’t talked to anyone else about Elise, just Grace. Grace is even on it. Even then, Elise is hardly mentioned. There’s not enough to find Yuna’s intentions. She wants them to be genuine.

Then she opens Yuna’s notes. They’re all gibberish except for one.

The ‘Make Elise fall in love then break her heart plan’

It hasn’t been touched since March, but it’s enough. Elise feels like she can crush the phone with how hard she’s gripping it.

Yuna wakes up happy to have spent another night with Elise. She’s never had a sleepover before but hoped to spend it talking to Elise until 3 in the morning. Her wish didn’t come true as Elise wanted to go to bed shortly after Yuna asked. But that’s okay, she can spend the whole day with Elise until her mom calms down and lets her back home.

Her hands search for her phone as she struggles to open her eyes. She’s sure she left it on the countertop. “Elise, are you awake?” Yuna tries to poke Elise with her toes but doesn’t find anyone. She clears her eyes as she sits upright and smiles when she finds Elise standing in front of her. “Morning, sleep well?”

Elise doesn't say anything and then Yuna notices her phone in her hands. Then she notices how hard Elise is gritting her teeth. Yuna panics, afraid that her first thought of why Elise is scowling at her is true. Yuna feels the back of her head, remembering that she never untied Yuele's hair. She didn’t even remove her make-up that sharpens her jaw and eyes. Then Elise violently throws the phone at Yuna.

“Do you hate me so much that you would lie to me like that?” Elise says as calmly as she can but her voice vibrates midway.

“What do you mean?” Yuna asks, afraid that she was right and now everything is going to crash down. Just how Elise is acting confirms it.

“Am I just a plaything for you? Do you take me as a joke? Am I here just to make you laugh?!”

“Elise, I can exp-”

“No, you can’t. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. Then I read your disgusting note. HOW COULD ANYONE BE SO CRUEL?! WHAT THE FUCK DID I EVER DO TO FOR YOU TO HATE ME THIS MUCH?!”

Yuna looks down at her hands. It was the note she wrote when she came up with the idea. The dumb little step-by-step plan to get Elise to fall for Yuele that she didn’t even follow. She didn’t even need it because it came naturally, just as how natural Yuna fell for Elise. If it wasn’t for that note, Elise would listen to reason.

“You’re disgusting.”

It’s just like she thought. Elise is just like everyone else. Elise said she would accept Yuna when the time came when she was ready to tell her the truth. That was just a lie. Yuna will never find someone who accepts her just as much as Yuele. She’s just a freak who can’t pick a gender. A freak who is even shunned from the LGBT community for not conforming to their ideas of what a non-binary gender-fluid person should be.

Yuna will never find the love she so desperately has been seeking for her entire life.

All she has left is to play the part of the villain Elise is making her to be.

“I thought we were friends. I truly thought we could become close because you are one of many few who actually understand me. But you just wanted to break my heart. I fell in love with a lie.”

Don’t say that. It wasn’t a lie. Don’t break me like that.

“I fucking hate you, Yuna.”

Yuna only has one choice. “So what? It was hilarious. Watching you gush over me and making you think a guy would ever give you the time was funny. It was so fucking funny that it took you this long to figure it out. Making you accidentally gay is the best prank to pull. How did my lips feel? If I remember correctly, you couldn't get enough of them. Want the real thing now?!”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“You’re disgusting!”

“I’m not the gay one here. I was merely playing a part. You’re the one who’s the faggot for kissing me all those times like the world was ending. I was gonna wait until you told me that you loved me, but oh well, this works too. Surprise, Elise. I’m Yuele. The one and only, your boyfriend.”

Elise can’t bear it anymore. She even hears her parents moving around, probably to investigate the commotion. Elise looks at Yuna one final time. Yuna leans her upper body down and looks up to Yuna just to give her the nastiest smirk. “GET THE FUCK OUT!!!” Elise screams one that can be heard throughout all the apartments nearby.

Yuna doesn’t waste a second as she storms out of the apartment. In truth, she didn’t want Elise to see her break down and let all the tears she has been holding back. Yuna can’t even make it to the elevator as she collapses and screams out her tears. Her knuckles start to bleed as the repeating blows to the floor start to add up. Yuna clutches her chest once it starts to feel like it’s being crushed and ripped apart. The pressure becomes so much that she becomes unable to breathe as she gasps for air.

There isn’t a heart to feel anymore.

-

“Who was that?” Elise's father asks when he finds his daughter suffocating herself with a pillow. “You alright?”

“Some girl from school who I thought was my friend. I kicked her out because I found out she was lying to me,” Elise answers once she takes a breath of air.

“What about?”

“The terms of the friendship. She just wanted to backstab me.”

Her father sits on the edge of the bed. “Do you want to talk about it? I can ask your mother if you’re not comfortable sharing.”

Elise is unsure what to do. Yuna’s betrayal isn’t exactly an easy thing to explain. “Let me gather my thoughts first, then we’ll talk.”

“Alright, I’ll be ready whenever,” he pats her leg before standing. “Just know I’ll always be here to support you, just as much as your mom.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

-

Elise becomes impatient with Nat because her best friend is trying to play devil’s advocate. In truth, Nat is just trying to mitigate the damage as much as possible. She knows Yuna’s true motive but she isn’t in a position where she can tell Elise and have her believe it.

“Nat, you need to stop. You’re saying all of this like you’re on her side. She was fucking lying to me. I saw all the proof.”

The girl on the other end of the line sighs. She thinks that this will take a long while to fix. Elise doesn’t have a clear head to listen. “I’m not. You’re RIGHT, she is a bitch for lying to you.”

“Then why are you defending her?!”

“I’m not? All I asked is if you let her explain herself.”

“And I’m telling you there was no need. She had a note on her phone that told me everything. She just wanted to break my heart because she’s that type of bitch who gets off to my misery.”

“Then why would she bother becoming our friend? Yuna had no need.”

“Are you dumb?! It was so she could hurt me more.”

The girl who just wants Elise and Yuna to end up together sighs again. She can’t believe Yuna was dumb enough to leave evidence of her initial intention behind. Then again, who would expect Elise to snoop through her phone? If Yuna didn’t have a fingerprint as an option to unlock, all of this could have been avoided. Nat knows Elise better than anyone. She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. She believes in the good in people until proven otherwise.

“You’re right, I didn’t think about that. Hey, what about Yuele? You fell for that part of Yuna, what do you feel about it now?”

“Hate. Disgust. I mean, it’s gross. He was a girl the entire time.”

“Shit,” Nat giggles. “It was pretty convincing though. I didn’t notice either,” she lies. Of course, I noticed. I noticed the second I saw his face. You just didn’t want to notice.

“I’m pissed about that too. Now that I know, it’s so obvious. She didn’t even change her makeup before coming over. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“Are you still in love with him knowing it’s Yuna?”

“Ew, no. I’m going to burn those memories.”

Elise gets a text from Grace in response to the one Elise sent demanding why Grace participated in the joke. “I think it’s better if you talk to Yuna about it. Please just listen to her.”

Nat giggles. “How does it feel kissing a girl?”

“What’s with the 20 questions?”

“Well I never kissed a girl, I want to know.”

“Lips like any other. Gender doesn’t change that, but now that I know,” Elise pauses to feel her lips. Finding out it was Yuna made her vomit, but the memories of the kisses aren’t bad. She means when she said they felt like any other. It’s the emotion behind them that changed. “Icky.”

“Icky?” Nat laughs. “You gotta give me better than that.”

“It’s just gross, okay? Not that I suddenly hate it now, I just,” she pauses again. A thought creeps in that she blocks out. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to do it again.”

“Fair enough,” Nat smiles at hearing the pauses. It gives her hope that Nat’s suspicions for all these years are true. Elise just a bit more pushing. “Are you okay though? We can go shopping or some dumb shit to take your mind off it.”

“I think I just need to think with just myself for a while. Sorry.”

“Let me know if you need anything. I’m always here for you.”

“I know. You’ve always been.”

-

Yuna’s mother rips off the covers that she was using to hide inside her bed. Her mother sees the lifeless eyes of her daughter but doesn’t care. “Get up, you’ve been in bed all day. You can’t lie down and cry the entire time. You have to study for your Finals.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Yuna! I let you indulge in your weird little fetish as long as you kept it private. Do you know what people are saying about you now? They are talking. They’re calling you a homo. That isn’t right. You have to be a proper lady. You have to finish your school year strong. You have to get a degree and then find a nice boy to take care of you. I can’t let you run around and do what you want anymore. It’s time to grow up.”

Yuna has heard all of this. It’s always the same speech with slight variations and every time she drowns it out. It was the last night too. The only difference then was she had to courage to speak back. Now Yuna can only sink into her bed.

“If I get up to study, will that shut you up?”

“Yes.”

Ever since Yuna decided to change her name to Yuele, she hasn’t been on good terms with her mom. Just like everyone else, her mom doesn’t support it and even ignores Yuna whenever she’s Yuele. That's how it was back then and that’s how it still is.

Yuna thinks her father means well for trying to understand her, but she knows it’s a farce. She knows he secretly hates it. It’s why he doesn’t intervene when her mother scolds her like this. He doesn’t even try to console her as he only tries to make Yuna see her mom’s point of view. Everyone is the same.

The only one who isn’t is Grace, but that platonic love isn’t the one Yuna has been looking for. She wants acceptance from her parents. She wants acceptance of people who don’t matter. She wants the acceptance of her lover. So for all this time, she has worn a mask, pretending to be someone she’s starting to hate again just to please everyone.

Then Yuna found what she was looking for in Elise.

She thought Elise was the type of person who let Yuna cry in her arms, finally releasing all the suffering that she’s accumulated throughout her short life.

Maybe if Elise would have let Yuna talk. Maybe then things would have turned out different, or at least less painful. Maybe then Elise would have seen just how madly in love Yuna is for her.

But those are just dumb dreams and poems.

Yuna has been alone her entire life and always will be.