The Hanahaki Club: Episode 29
Episode 29: Dates, Mates & Fakes, Part 3
So far…
Merryn receives an unexpected text from Taran, asking to meet on the roof at lunchtime.
Episode 29: Dates, Mates & Fakes, Part 3
Merryn
Clouds the colour of an aging bruise hung low over the rooftops and Merryn eyed them warily as she leant on the guard rail. She hoped it wouldn’t rain before she got home. There was nothing she hated more than having to wait in the downpour for her bus to arrive, and then sitting on a bus crammed with other soggy people whilst the windows fogged up and cold air blasted from the airducts. When was it going to stop being January? Was it possible to just skip to April, please?
Or maybe not. April would see Merryn in her seventh month of hanahaki; she’d be choking on whole flowers by then.
Merryn took out her phone and checked her messages again.
Taran: Today, 11:20—Can you meet this lunchtime? Usual place.
She hadn’t expected to hear from Taran again so soon. His message sounded urgent, so she’d blown off her friends and come up to the gym roof as soon as her fashion history lesson had finished. If Taran was asking to meet at such short notice, something must have happened—something bad, most likely.
It was only five minutes later that Merryn heard the door to the roof open and she turned to see Taran striding towards her, hands in the pockets of his coat and face washed of all colour.
“What happened?” Merryn asked as he slumped next to her against the guardrail and buried his head in his arms.
“I’m an idiot,” came the muffled reply.
“Okay,” Merryn said, addressing the top of his head. “What did you do?”
Taran groaned long and low into his arms before lifting his head so he could shrug his backpack off and onto the concrete. From his slumped position, he squinted up at Merryn with a wry expression.
“I panicked and told a stupid lie to Kai.”
“Okay. What lie?”
“That I have a girlfriend.”
“That was pretty dumb of you. Why would you do that?”
Taran frowned at the blunt response. “I told you: I panicked. I was getting grilled over not dating this girl, Bea—the one I went on the double date with—and I freaked out that Kai was going to realise it’s because I already have feelings for someone else…”—he cringed at his own confession—“So, I said I already had a girlfriend.” He buried his head in his arms again and swore between his teeth.
“What did Kai say?”
“Nothing. I didn’t give him a chance to say anything. I ran away.”
Merryn leant back against the guardrail with a thoughtful hum. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You really are an idiot.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Merryn stared at the mop of Taran’s dark curls, and the way the breeze ruffled them playfully. His hair wasn’t as dark as Sye’s, but there was the same soft bounce in the waves of locks that made her itch with the impulse to reach out and feel the feathery touch beneath her finger tips for herself. If they had been friends, she would have patted his head reassuringly, but they weren’t, so she didn’t. Instead she shifted on her feet and shrugged resignedly to the grey expanse of the rooftop.
“I’ll pretend, if you want.”
“Hmm?”
“I’ll pretend to be your girlfriend.”
There was no reply for several heartbeats and then Taran lifted his head and gave her a quizzical look. “Come again?”
Merryn shrugged for a second time. “I’ll pretend to be your girlfriend—if you want.” When Taran just stared at her like she’d grown a second head, she shrugged again. “What?”
“I can’t believe you’re suggesting that so casually.”
“Well, unless you’re going to admit you lied, and then explain why you lied, it seems like the most logical solution.”
She watched Taran’s nose wrinkle as he thought it over, his gaze fixed on her face, as if his answer depended on what he saw in the shape of her eyes, nose or mouth. “They wouldn’t buy it,” he concluded, eventually.
Merryn furrowed her brow, suspecting that she should feel insulted by this conclusion. “What does that mean?”
“They wouldn’t believe we’re dating. You’re not my type.”
Merryn folded her arms and snorted, weirdly unoffended, and a little relieved, by the observation. “Do you have a better idea?”
Taran’s mouth twisted unhappily at that. “No,” he admitted, pushing himself fully upright so that he could turn and face her properly. “What are you proposing exactly?”
“We pretend we’re dating for a couple of weeks,” Merryn said matter-of-factly. “Then we ‘break up’ and you can act all heartbroken and mopey for a while—which shouldn’t be hard—”
“Oi!”
“—And your friends will get off your back about dating. You can tell them you’re not ready to commit to anyone again yet… or some other crap like that… and they’ll back off. It would even give you a good cover for your hanahaki, if you ever wanted to tell them about it, or if they somehow found out for themselves.”
There was another pause whilst Taran looked at Merryn, clearly considering her offer, but also clearly reconsidering her too. After a few seconds, his mouth twisted into a sly smile. “Is that what you’d get out of this too? A cover for your hanahaki?”
Merryn smiled back with equal guile. “It wouldn’t be too bad to be the one gushing about a relationship for a change.”
“You’d be lying to your friends—are you sure you’re up for this?”
“It’s only for a couple of weeks. How hard can it be?”
“Kai and Cherie will want to meet you.”
“That’s fine. We can let them ‘catch’ us leaving college together on Thursday.”
Taran started nodding and then frowned. ““Why Thursday?”
“Thursday is when the hanahaki support group meets.”
It took Taran a few seconds to catch her drift. “I’m not going to that.”
Merryn tilted her head and met his frown with her most innocent look. “That’s a shame, since it’s my one condition.”
Taran crossed his arms with a scoff. “Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“No,” Merryn said, making sure to both sound and look affronted. “I’m just letting you know my fee. Every week that we pretend to date, you come with me to the hanahaki club.”
Taran continued to look at her sceptically for a few seconds and then huffed as he uncrossed his arms and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “Fine,” he said dismissively. “If that’s what you really want. In the meantime, what am I going to tell Kai and Cherie about ‘us’?”
Merryn pushed away from the guardrail and extended a hand. “Shake on it first.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup.”
Taran rolled his eyes, but a smile lurked at the corner of his mouth as he took her hand in his, his grip a little harder and meaner, Merryn suspected, than usual. “Happy now?”
Merryn didn’t bother to hide her triumph as she squeezed his hand back with as much force as she could. “Yes.”
Taran smirked before dropping her hand and shifting to lean against the guardrail. “So… about ‘us’? What am I going to tell Kai and Cherie?”
Merryn pressed her hands into her pockets and leant against the concrete next to him, hunching a little against the sudden feeling of a soft tickle under her breastbone. “For now, just tell them we’ve not been dating long, and we wanted to see how things went before we made it public.”
“All right, but we should come up with a proper story soon. Cherie will want all the details.”
“And what Cherie wants, Cherie gets, right?”
“You really sounded like the bitter girlfriend there… you’re not going to get jealous over me having female friends, are you?”
Merryn cast him an unimpressed look. “I don’t think you should be lecturing anyone about jealousy.”
“Ouch.”
Merryn laughed freely at his chagrin, ignoring how the tickle in her chest became an itch. “You asked for that.”
Taran grimaced at the sky. “You have a mean streak, huh?” A fat drop of rain splashed on his forehead and he wiped at it with his sleeve. “Damn. It’s really going to do this now?”
Several more drops fell on the concrete at their feet and one hit Merryn’s coat sleeve and slid down her arm to the cuff. “Oh, great.”
They both grabbed their bags at the same time and legged it to the exit, just as the raindrops began to fall in earnest, drumming the concrete rooftop from a faded grey to a slick black. Merryn’s chest squeezed tightly as she hurried into the stairwell behind Taran and she couldn’t keep back a small cough, which she covered with her hand. The rush of the rain on the roof echoed around the inside of the stairway and Merryn turned to watch the downpour through the open door with a shiver. The bus home was going to be miserable.
“I’ll text you after college to sort out a proper cover story,” Taran said.
Merryn pushed the roof door shut, tried to clear her throat, and then turned to face him. “And the rules,” she added. Her lungs spasmed and she put a gloved fist to her mouth.
“What rules?” Taran asked
“If we’re going to pretend to date,” Merryn explained—she coughed softly—”We need some ground rules for—” She paused as her breath suddenly hitched and tried to subtly swallow against the itch that had now reached her throat. Shoot. Hurriedly she ducked her head and half-turned away from Taran. This was rough timing.
She felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
Merryn nodded, fearing disturbing her airways further by attempting to talk. But her efforts to maintaining any sort of control were utterly pointless, because her chest suddenly spasmed again and she coughed hard enough that the velvety itch in her throat dislodged and slid up and into her mouth. She let out an embarrassing squeak in alarm into her fist and reached for the pocket of her coat with her other hand. As her fingers reached the opening, they were gently brushed aside and she felt Taran’s hand slip into her coat pocket and take out the packet of tissues she kept there.
“Here,” he said, unfolding a tissue from the packet and placing it in her hand. He slipped the packet back into her pocket and pressed a firm palm to her back. “Take your time.”
Merryn spit the petals out into the tissue, coughed again to clear the excess phlegm, and then crumpled the used tissue into a ball and shoved it into the other pocket of her coat.
“Are you okay?”
Merryn turned back to him with a weak smile. “Yes. I’m fine. Sorry.”
“Are you sure?”
Merryn nodded. Taran didn’t look entirely convinced but he moved his hand from her back and adjusted his bag on his shoulder. “Still white petals?” he asked.
“Yes. Still white. You?”
“Slightly pink at the edges now.” He glanced at the stairs and hesitated. “Should we leave together this time?”
“No, you go first. We don’t want to start something before we’re ready.”
Taran gave her a wry smile as he paused on the top step. “I think it might be too late for that.”
Next time: Episode 30—Dates, Mates & Fakes, Part 4
“You are so lying!”
Dan raised his hands defensively. “I don’t know why you won’t believe me, but I swear, on my love for you, I am not lying.”
Leila gave him an intense narrow-eyed stare. “If I find out that you’re lying to me, I’m seriously going to break up with you.”
“Babe, I’m not lying…”
Remi felt a nudge on her arm and glanced at Sam who leaning his chin on one hand whilst his other hand tapped his cards on the tabletop. “I told you,” he said, “This game ruins relationships.”
The Hanahaki Club Index
Welcome to the index page of The Hanahaki Club. Please scroll down to find links to each published episode. If you need any help, let me know via the message button at the bottom of the page.
Author’s Notes:
Finally, Taran and Merryn’s main storyline has kicked off!
Let me know if you have a favourite hanahaki plot or a favourite member of the Hanahaki Club!
Next time: Episode 30—Dates, Mates & Fakes, Part 4
PJ
All the fiction I publish here is free, but if you like what you’re reading and feel like helping to keep me hydrated whilst I write, you can always Buy Me a Cuppa on Ko-fi.
Brilliant first line and as usual great writing🥰