Faking it Till They Make It

Ava's Aunt Mildred's annual Christmas Eve bash was, to be honest, quite the trial by fire. The air hung thick with the smell of pine needles, simmering eggnog, and simmering resentment. Ava, arm-in-arm with Ethan, felt familiar waves of nausea wash over her. This wasn't some ordinary family function. It was an exquisitely choreographed exercise in family pressure, camouflaged as convivial festivities.

Each aunt, uncle, or cousin seemed equipped with an arsenal of probing questions and unsolicited advice, expertly aimed at Ava's long-standing single status. Ethan, bless his ever-presently crisp shirt, had taken the stage like an old pro. He squeezed Ava's hand to reassure her as they passed through the dimly lit room, filled with well-intentioned yet intrusive relatives.

"So, Ava, dear," Aunt Mildred began with a voice a sugary weapons of mass interrogation, "Any exciting news on the romantic front? Brought along an interesting fellow tonight?"

Ava managed to smile; it felt strained. "Actually, Aunt Mildred," Ethan interjected with bland smoothness, "Ava and I had been spending some time together recently." With this, he winked conspiringly at Ava, an unvoiced message of support that warmed her more than the mulled wine that was on a nearby tray. "Oh? My, is that so?" Aunt Mildred's eyebrows shot up, betraying a bit of authentic surprise in her usually scrutinizing gaze. "Well, isn't that wonderful? You two seem to get along splendidly."

Their talk went onto safer topics, fortunately: Aunt Mildred's prize-winning fruitcake and the latest happenings in Cousin Beatrice's perennially dramatized love life. But the respite was brief. Uncle George, a man whose conversation skills were decreasingly proportional to his eggnog consumption, ambled over. "Ethan, my boy," he boomed, his alcohol-laden breath bearing the unmistakable fragrance of spiced rum. "So, tell me, how's the, um, domestic situation coming along? Any thoughts of, uh, settling down?"

He ended with a loud belch that somehow seemed to make the whole situation even more uncomfortable than before. Ethan, quick on his feet, wooed Uncle George with some romantic story of their most recent trip to a vineyard nearby. It was an image of sweeping hills and chuckling joys worthy of being framed in a travel magazine. Ava buoyed along on the tale, filling in his real-time fantasy with her own embellishments, so that together they finalized a perfectly canned and entirely fictitious account.

The evening moved in a groove of equal exchanges of carefully coordinated answers and more cunningly dodged questions. They became adept in gliding over the deep waters of family inquiry all through, keeping their masquerade intact, leaving not one crack in their facade. But it was exhausting. Every forced smile, all the little white lies, drained Ava's energy. Much later, during a momentary respite in the kitchen, Ava whispered to Ethan, admitting she was tired. "I think I might pull a smile muscle," she sighed against the cool countertop.

Ethan snickered, brushing a stray hair from her face with an impeccable gentleness. "I know it... this is a marathon, babe; it's not a sprint."

But then he stopped, as if requiring these words to be heard, "But we're good right? We're getting through." Simple words, but they brought unexpected reassurance. Amidst the chaos and pretensions of it all, a moment of shared humanity began to unfold between them.

They were teaming up and getting through this dangerous social terrain. The next coming was Thanksgiving with Ethan's family. His family was, if anything, even fiercer than Ava's. They were a tight-knit bunch of painfully competitive overachievers, each vying for the spotlight and hoping for some love. His mother is a stern woman with iron will and quicker tongue, never failing to ask suspicious questions.

His father, a retired general, was a tyrant as far as tradition and being on time were concerned. And his younger sister, Chloe, had an absolute gift to smell a lie; one she polished through years of disentangling her older brother's elaborate excuses. It was a Thanksgiving dinner fit for Broadway—cooking extravagance tempered with a twist of family drama. Ethan squeezed Ava in between his wild uncle, a retired pro-wrestler, who was regaling them of his glories with shocking passion, and his superskeptical grandmother, whose icy glare could spoil milk in seconds.

Predictably, the topic turned to them. With a most gracious smile, Ethan's mother asked them what the future held for them. "Are you two thinking of... settling down soon?" The words came with subtle pressure. This time Ava was determined to take a more courageous approach, vowing to ban fabricate altogether, opting this time for bare honesty.

She answered a little too carefully to avoid coming out with anything hammered down in terms of expectations: "We are going to be getting to know one another, Mrs. Thompson," she replied, with soothing coolness in her tone. "Both of us are really focused on our careers right now; however, we are not against seeing what happens." The remark was received most unexpectedly well. Mrs. Thompson still clearly expected something more concrete, but she was, nevertheless, satisfied with Ava's answer. That somehow seemed to speak of respect for Ava's implied autonomy and decision-making. Ethan nodded with a relief, approvingly yet discreetly. Dinner continued with far less tension than he had imagined.

The family was far too engrossed in their dramatic narratives to give much thought to Ava and Ethan. Thus, they ended a surprisingly cheerful evening, feeling they had managed yet another tricky family gathering with great finesse. But their peace of mind was only momentary. The following week marked the festive time with Marcus, the rival Ethan had spoken of. Marcus was a wolfling in the guise of a sheep, smooth-tongued on the outside but cutthroat underneath.

Ava and Ethan had a good idea that their attendance would incite what was bound to be an inevitable test of their freshly minted relationship. The party was a plush happening in a swanky penthouse apartment, so high it overlooked the city skyline. As the lithe host, Marcus easily made his way around the gushers. Meanwhile, Ava and Ethan were coated with a veneer of stiff shell under the predatorial scrutiny Ka-shahn-a-chesh-ah-nd dueled them with exhilaration.

After all, the eyes of Marcus rested on them with a blend of surprise and suspicion.

In a lull during the conversation, Marcus, a smile on his lips, sauntered up to them. "Ethan, my friend," he said jovially but with an edge. "Rumor has it you've found yourself a girlfriend. Is there more than meets the eye?" Ava and Ethan exchanged an uncertain glance – this was the biggest test yet for their tightly woven plans.

The stakes were high, not just for the charade, but for their growing feelings for each other. This would demand perfection of their performance and, more importantly, believability. Would their performance really lead their fictitious romance into something real?