Perfect Lie(9)

“Good. It’ll be nice to know someone when I start.”

For the first time since I could remember, I was looking forward to going to school, and I beamed at the thought.

“So why don’t you like school?” Brock asked me.

“Does anyone actually like school?” I retorted, but I knew he wasn’t going to drop it. He had opened up to me, and now it was my turn.

“Nah, I guess you’re right.” He laughed and shook his head. “I always skipped.”

“I wish I could, but it’s nice to have a meal in the middle of the day.”

“You call that food? I should cook for you sometime. I make a mean spaghetti.”

“You’re kidding? You cook?” I made all my food for myself, but we never had anything that wasn’t microwavable.

Brock shrugged. “Not really, but I can teach you how to make spaghetti.” We both laughed, and my shoulder bumped against him. “Everyone in here is pissed off at the world. It’s nice to see you smile. Gives me hope.”

“It’s nice to be happy for once.” I ran my teeth over my lower lip, and he used his thumb to pull it free.

“Careful. I’ll tell one of the guys in charge that you’re trying to hurt yourself. Now tell me why you hate school.”

I sighed as I looked at all the throwaway kids who surrounded us. We’d all been tossed aside for one reason or another. We all struggled to find a place. But it wasn’t so bad here, especially with Brock by my side. “People kind of hate me there.”

“You?” he said with genuine shock in his voice.

“Yes. Me. I’ve never cared about being one of the cool kids, and I’ve always been miserable at home, so of course I’m a ball of sunshine at school. When I we hit middle school, all the girls were curling their hair and starting to use makeup.”

“Makeup?” He shook his head. “I’ll never understand why girls like to spread that dirt on their faces.” I glared at him, and he held his hands in the air in mock surrender. “Continue,” he said with a laugh.

“As I was saying, all the girls were starting to wear makeup, and my mom never really cared about that kind of stuff when it came to me. She didn’t teach me how to use it and all that fun stuff.”

“So what did you do?”

I glanced at Brock, who looked genuinely interested in my story. “I stole her makeup bag one morning before school and flipped through a magazine to try to figure out how to use it. I thought I did pretty well.” I laughed at how stupid I’d been. “I went to school with my head held high. I thought for sure the other girls would look at me like I was one of them. But instead…” I cleared my throat as I picked at my shoe. “Instead they laughed at me. Said I was practicing to be a whore like my mother.”

“Why did they think that about your mom?” he asked, as I tried to wipe away my tears discreetly.

“Because my mom was raped at fifteen by a family friend. She didn’t want to have me, but my grandparents shamed her into keeping me. She used to try to come to school events and parent conferences, but the other parents made her feel like she didn’t belong because she was so much younger than them. So she eventually stopped trying.”

“Jesus…”

“It was better that she stopped coming, but the damage was done. The parents talked, and it didn’t take long for the kids to start talking too. Even though my mom never really cared, I tried to stand up for her, but that made everyone hate me more.” The tears flowed freely now, and I didn’t bother to wipe them away. “So…the makeup was a disaster, and by the end of the day, I looked like a raccoon from crying off my mascara and eyeliner. That was the last day I tried, and everything got much worse.”

“Those days are over, Bird. Now we have each other, and I won’t let them make you cry anymore.”

“You promise?” I asked, as Brock used the palm of his hand to brush the sadness from my cheeks.

“I promise.”




“Fucking tourists!” Trish ran her hand through her hair angrily.

“We can’t all be born and raised in sunny Florida.” I reached out and turned up the radio as the car inched toward our exit.

The party would have long been swinging, and I was thankful. I wasn’t a people person, but the new Lie liked to go out and have fun. The new Lie loved to dance and party and give the world hell.

We pulled up in front of an older house I was sure would have passed for a mansion back when it was built. It had since become run‐down, separated into apartments then converted back to a single‐ family home. I gave Trish an unsure look, but she grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward the door as she pushed the alarm button on her key chain.