Chapter 5: Couples Icebreaker

Ivy

The next morning started with cinnamon tea, a plate of organic muffins, and my complete inability to look Ivy in the eye. The sun slanted lazily through the cabin windows, warming the kitchen in that golden-hour way that made everything look like it belonged in a movie. Birds flitted outside, chirping as if oblivious to the awkward tension inside.

We hadn’t talked about the kiss. Correction: the makeout session that left us both panting like teenagers, caught somewhere between curiosity and impulse. I could still feel her lips, warm and insistently soft, against mine. She’d woken up, shoved her glasses on, and mumbled something about a morning walk. I didn’t stop her. I didn’t stop her because maybe, deep down, I was still trying to figure out what had happened last night—or maybe I was scared of what would happen if I said something.

I sipped my tea and pretended to read the brochure Willow had handed us yesterday, detailing “Couples Connection Circle” exercises. The words blurred into a jumble of motivational fluff: vulnerability is the soil where love grows. I rolled my eyes at the cliché, but even in my skepticism, a tiny part of me hated that it sounded like something I needed.

By mid-morning, we were corralled into the “Couples Connection Circle,” a cozy setup of oversized pillows arranged in a perfect circle on the cabin floor. Willow, wearing her trademark sparkly scarf and an expression that could only be described as painfully bright, clapped her hands to signal the start.

“Today,” she said, her voice bubbly and a little too loud for my current mood, “we’re going to open up by sharing a secret. One you’ve never told your partner.”

Ivy tensed beside me. I could practically feel her calculating the lowest-impact confession possible. She’d always been careful—meticulous, controlled, precise. She glanced down at her hands folded neatly in her lap, fingers twisting around one another like a human lie detector.

“And remember,” Willow continued, “vulnerability is the soil where love grows.”

I wanted to roll my eyes again. Instead, I muttered a low, sarcastic, “Uh-huh.” The others shot me sympathetic smiles. Maybe they’d been through this enough times to know my kind of cynicism.

The circle began. Couples took turns sharing secrets, some sweet, some awkward, and some laugh-out-loud ridiculous. One man admitted he cried at a commercial about baby goats. Another confessed that he secretly hated his wife’s gluten-free muffins. There were whispered giggles, nods of understanding, and the occasional audible groan.

Then it was our turn. Ivy’s turn.

She straightened her spine, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I talk to my plants,” she said, voice calm and deliberate. “I name them and talk to them. Out loud. Like, conversations.”

The group aww’d, cooing at her sincerity. I smirked, more amused than anything else. “Do the plants talk back?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Only when I’ve had wine,” she said with a small, teasing grin. Laughter rippled around the circle, a few people snorting like they weren’t supposed to. She looked radiant for a moment, and I had to admit, the sight made my chest tighten in an unfamiliar way.

Then all eyes turned to me.

I should’ve played it safe. Something mundane, something shallow, something unthreatening. “I liked candy bars when I was eight,” or “I’m terrified of clowns.” Anything that wouldn’t expose the scar tissue I usually kept hidden under a layer of charm.

But Ivy was laughing beside me, relaxed and radiant in a way I hadn’t seen before. And something in me wanted her to know… me. The real me. Not the cocky smile, not the teasing banter, not the easy charm that worked on cameras and strangers alike. Me.

So I said it.

“I don’t believe in love.”

The laughter stopped. The room tilted ever so slightly, or maybe it was just me noticing the sudden, stunned silence.

“I used to,” I added, keeping my eyes on the floor. “But someone I loved once… she left. Crushed me. Haven’t really believed in forever since.”

Iris of sunlight fell on my hands folded together, but it didn’t make them feel warmer. Silence stretched across the room, soft but heavy, pressing against my chest like a weight I couldn’t shrug off.

I risked a glance at Ivy. She wasn’t smiling anymore. She wasn’t teasing. She was watching me like she was seeing something new. Something raw. Something unpolished. And it terrified me.

“Thank you for sharing, Lake,” Willow said gently, placing a hand over hers. “Sometimes the deepest wounds are the ones that shape our walls.”

I wanted to punch a wall just for that sentence.

After the session, we didn’t speak. Not immediately. We walked through the woods behind the cabin, the sun high above us, casting long dappled shadows across the path. Birds chirped insistently, oblivious to the awkward, loaded quiet between us.

Ivy finally broke it. “You really don’t believe in love?”

“Not the kind that stays.” My voice was soft, but it carried.

She was quiet for a long moment, walking beside me with her hands shoved into the pockets of her jacket. “I did. Once,” she said finally.

“What happened?” I asked, forcing the curiosity out in a casual, neutral tone.

“He married someone else.”

The words hit me like a cold wave. We walked in silence again, two people who had been burned, scarred in different ways, yet somehow marching side by side.

“I guess we’re both pretending harder than we thought,” I said, letting my words trail off into the trees.

She looked at me, eyes softened now, tinged with a hint of something I couldn’t name—sympathy? Recognition? Or maybe she was measuring the walls around me, the ones I thought were invisible. “Maybe. Or maybe pretending is just peeling things back we didn’t expect.”

I didn’t answer. Because maybe she was right. Maybe the fake marriage, the research grant, the laughter, the teasing, the stolen glances—it wasn’t just a game. Maybe, somewhere in the middle of this chaos, something real was trying to surface.

That thought scared the hell out of me.

We stopped by a small stream, the water catching the sunlight in dancing patterns that made the surface look like liquid gold. Ivy crouched down, letting her fingers skim the water’s surface. I stayed standing, leaning against a tree, pretending to be casual, while my chest felt like it was being rearranged by emotions I didn’t trust.

“You’re quiet,” she said, tilting her head to the side.

“Just taking it all in,” I replied, trying not to sound like I was about to say something I’d regret.

“I didn’t know you were like this,” she said softly, almost to herself.

I looked at her, curious. “Like what?”

“Like… serious. Vulnerable. Honest. Not just a guy who smiles and jokes.”

I let a small, wry smile slip. “You mean you’re disappointed I’m not perfect?”

She rolled her eyes, but there was a softness there that almost undid me. “Not disappointed. Surprised. That you let me see it.”

I wanted to tell her everything—the ghosts I carried, the love I had lost, the nights I spent replaying memories I could never reclaim. But I didn’t. Words like that were dangerous, especially when they might change everything between us.

So instead, I said nothing.

We walked back to the cabin, side by side, the silence no longer oppressive but charged with unspoken possibilities. For the first time, I wondered if maybe pretending, for once, wasn’t about deception—it was about survival, about feeling safe enough to risk something real.

Later, in the quiet of our shared cabin, Ivy made tea again, and we sat near the window, shoulders brushing. I didn’t touch her, didn’t lean in, but just the proximity felt electric. Her laughter from a trivial comment about muffins made my chest ache in a way that was both unfamiliar and dangerous.

“Lake?” she asked, her voice low, hesitant.

“Yeah?”

“You really think love doesn’t stay?”

I turned to her, meeting her eyes for the first time without flinching. “Not always. But… maybe it can. For the right person. Maybe.”

She smiled then, a small, tentative thing, like a flower pushing through concrete. And I realized that the lie we had agreed to—fake marriage, fake smiles, fake connection—was starting to blur. Reality, messy and frightening, was creeping in.

And maybe, just maybe, we weren’t as fake as we thought.