“Surely you noticed how miserable Yuna has been,“ Nat tells Elise.

It’s the last week of school and Elise sits with Nat against the wall during P.E. again. Since grades are pretty much set in stone, no one in class is trying all that hard. No one does except for Yuna. She’s exhausting herself trying to beat all the guys in a game of basketball.

“I don’t care.”

“Don’t you think she grew to genuinely like you? If she still hated you, I don’t think she would look like shit every day.”

“I don’t care.”

Nat groans. “I know you care.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t lie to yourself.”

“Nat. Stop.”

“You won’t even look at her,” Nat sighs. She watches Yuna run back and forth to the court and out playing everyone she’s up against. “Look at her go. She’s going even harder than usual.”

For the first time in a long while, Elise intentionally looks over at Yuna. The first thing she notices is how angry and exhausted Yuna looks. Then Elise notices her new haircut. Nat smirks when she sees the slight twitch in Elise’s mouth.

Yuna glances over which makes Elise turn her head away.

“Has she tried to talk to you?”

“I blocked her on everything.”

The times they would run into each other, Yuna would try but Elise always moves out of the way.

Now that the initial anger has settled, Elise can only feel betrayal. It’s now sadness that fills her heart and Elise doesn’t understand why. She isn’t mad anymore and that’s what makes her angry. After all, Yuna had been taking advantage of her the entire time. Elise has every right to be angry; to be livid. She was, or at least she thought.

Elise started to really like Yuna. At first, she always thought Yuna was this hard-headed obnoxious girl who she couldn’t get along with. Then Elise saw how vulnerable Yuna really is. It’s a side she never thought Yuna had. It was soft and warm. Elise really liked it. But it was an act.

Was it?

The day after we became friends, she started to avoid me. Even when she was pretending to be Yuele, she avoided me. She said she needed space to sort things out. Nat’s who messaged her and told her something to stop. Then Yuna apologized and teared up when she was explaining herself. That had to be real right? What was she trying to say?

“Hey, Nat. You messaged Yuna when she was avoiding me. What did you tell her?”

“Hmm? That? Oh, I just told her how sad Yuele was making you be.”

“I feel like you’ve been invested in this too much for my liking. What are you keeping from me?”

Nat giggles. Elise can be an airhead but she still has her brilliance. “You have your secrets and I have mine. Let’s keep it like that.”

Elise lowers her head towards her knees. Nat has always been much smarter than her. It’s never bothered her before but now Elise feels like she’s missing out on something. Natalie has been pestering Elise about Yuna ever since the truth came out. It’s obvious now that Nat’s been talking to Yuna and helping her out. That much is what Elise figures out.

If that’s true, then Yuna lied when she didn’t deny the note Elise found.

Yuna genuinely wanted to be my friend.

After all, Yuna wouldn’t look so depressed all the time. Nat’s right. Elise has noticed. She just never wanted to admit it. Elise doesn’t want to see the truth. It’s much easier to stay angry and let it all fade away. It’s easier to let go. The reason why Elise never looks at Yuna is because she’s afraid of what she’ll see.

“That was a fucking foul!” Yuna screams at a guy who pushed her to block her from shooting.

“It’s not my fault you ran into me,” he retorts.

The entire class gasps and it grabs Elise’s attention.

She sees Yuna holding her fist in pain and her classmate covering his mouth.

Most importantly, Elise doesn’t see the same Yuna anymore. She doesn’t even see Yuele.

It’s something else entirely.

-

Elise hears that the school suspended Yuna again with the talks of expelling her and stopping her from graduating. It bothers her all night because that’s all she could think about.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Her father notices and sits next to her in the living room while she watches a sitcom. “Is everything alright?”

“Not really, I just had a bad day is all.”

“You’ve been having those pretty frequently lately. Is it about your friend who lied to you?”

Elise did say she would talk about it with him. He’s the father, he’ll know what to do. “Yeah. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You can start with her name.”

“It’s Yuna.”

Her father recognizes the name from the two times Elise has been suspended. Both of them happened because they fought.

“Well, what did Yuna do that’s been making you so upset?”

“Ugh,” Elise groans. There isn’t a way to explain it that’ll make it any less weird. “This is going to sound super weird, but she sort of became my boyfriend. She dressed up like a guy just to trick me like the bitch she is.”

“And why would she do that?”

Elise shrugs, “She’s hated me since we met. I guess she wanted to fuck me over one more time before we graduated.”

Her father doesn’t know what to say. Elise is right, this is weird. “You must have really liked her if it’s making hurt this bad.”

“When she was pretending, yeah. She acted so cool and mysterious and was really funny. Then we became friends for reals and I thought we were getting really close. Turns out I was just being played from both ends. Now she got suspended again for fighting and I can’t stop feeling like it’s my fault. Yuna hasn’t been herself since I yelled at her.”

“When you said it was all to deceive you, how do you know?”

“I started to notice how similar she acted and looked to how she is to Yuele. So I went through her phone and found her plan to break my heart. Yuna didn’t deny it either.”

Her father sighs. He doesn’t know what to say or do in this situation. All he knows is how happy Elise was whenever he caught her texting on her phone. It reminded him of how he felt when he began dating her mother. The shine of Elise’s eyes was the same as his; of being in love.

“Elise. How do you feel about Yuna now?”

“I don’t know. I’m just sad.”

“Sad that she lied to you or sad that you lost her?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you really liked this girl. Anyone would be mad at what she did, but that’s not what you feel, is it? Elise, I’ll support you no matter what even if you’re-”

“No I’m not-” Elise cuts her father off but stops herself from saying what she wants next. She bolts up from the couch and says, “I gotta go,” before leaving the apartment.

I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want this to be true.

Elise texts Nat telling her she’s coming over. When the elevator’s door opens when it reaches ground level, Elise is too busy glued to the message she’s sending to look where she’s going.

At the same time, Yuna is too busy tieing her shoe to notice. Elise trips over Yuna but catches herself with her arms over the last person she wanted to see. Yuna is pushed back and holds herself up with her elbows and her face pressed up against Elise’s breasts.

“Um, can we tal-”

Elise’s heart jumps out of her chest and she gets out of the building as fast as can; cheeks burning hotter than she ever felt before. It’s too soon. Elise wants to gather her thoughts before she’s able to face Yuna.

Yuna sits on the floor until her lips start to bleed from biting them too hard.

Elise has to stop and hold her chest for a minute because it’s pounding so hard. She only caught a glimpse of Yuna just then but it was enough to make her feel this way. Elise only thinks about the heavy bags under Yuna’s eyes. She’s been miserable.

I want to know the truth, Yuna. Why did you write that note? Why did you confirm it? And why do I think you were lying? I heard you screaming in the hallway. Why did you have to lie? I'm sorry I don't have the courage to talk to you right now.

-

It’s been a long time, but Elise finds herself at her favorite spot in all of Seattle. The pier is just outside the aquarium. She comes here whenever she has to take time and breathe. Watching the water wave around calms her. The sound is a form of ASMR for her. Elise stares over the sea’s horizon long enough that midnight comes.

Elise and Yuna never talked about it, but this is also Yuna’s favorite spot. This is where Yuna finds Elise when she arrives a little past midnight. She’s dressed again as a cross of Yuna and Yuele and doesn’t know what to call herself. Again, it doesn’t matter anymore. Yuna stands across the street and watches Elise. There’s nothing more she hates than not having the confidence to do something. Right now, Yuna wants to cross the street and talk to Elise. Yuna hates how nervous it’s making her. She hates that Elise is the only person in the world that makes her feel this way. Elise is her weakness. She strips Yuna of all the bravado she built up over the years. Yuna despises that Elise makes her feel like she’s a girl.

There was a time when Elise wrote a poem after reading a manga series. It was the first time she read that type of genre. It was a fleeting thought, but Elise did think about it. She thought about how it’ll be to be that way. She wrote about an imaginary scenario where she was and with her. At the time, there was only one person who she was able to think about.

Elise thinks about this poem now.

That was the very first and last time she ever read a Yuri manga. A manga about two girls falling in love.

Her heart begins to twist. It squeezed hard enough for Elise to fall to her knees. She doesn’t know when or why, but she can’t run away from what she feels anymore. All it’s done is hurt her. All she wants is to feel how felt when Yuele was a real person. Elise wants to feel the comfort and ease of being around Yuna. She wants to see the smile she saw when they woke up the night they slept together.

It was then that I knew. It was your hand and your smile when I started to piece it all together. I can’t forgive you for lying to me, but I want to. Even now, you’re lying.

Elise remembers what Yuna said in the library. Yuna wears a mask because her true self is someone no one would ever understand. Yuna was talking about Yuele. She wanted to tell Elise. That’s what she was talking about that night too.

I get why you hated me for so long.

I told you I would accept you when you did tell me.

And I rejected you.

All because I was scared of what I felt. I wanted to believe your lie. I wanted it that way because it meant I didn’t have to admit it. I was scared because I don’t know what it’ll mean to me. I was never mad because you were lying about Yuele.

“I’m happy that it was you,” she says out loud.

I’m just mad that you didn’t tell me from the start.

Elise takes a deep breath and finds a new resolve. She turns around knowing what to do and opens her eyes. For whatever reason, she hoped that Yuna would somehow be behind her. After all, they have a knack for bumping into each other. Across the street, she finds no one.