Penn
Lies.
Everyone lies.
Not everyone lies well.
I’m one of those people. A bad liar. My truths are like little flashes of light. Stars blinking in the inky black sky. They beacon to the sea of people beneath me, revealing I’m nothing more than a plastic smile melting away in the harsh burn of reality.
And my reality hurts like hell.
Beneath my weak attempts at pretend happiness, I’m a void. Emptying emptiness. Dripping nothing into an endless pool of nothingness.
My pain is the truth I know best.
Aching, soul-shattering, longing.
The loneliness pulling my every cell into its dark depths is almost too much to bear. Some days, I can barely breathe. The suffering is a sadist, cutting me little by little, day by day, until one day I’ll be completely drained. Dried up and hollow. One last kick to the heart before I’m scattered into the wind, forgotten.
I’m in love with my best friend.
Lie.
I’m in love with my enemy.
Truth.
But they’re the same. They. Are. The. Same. Lines in my world are blurry between fantasy and reality. Truth and lies. Love and hate.
Copeland Justice is my enemy. My once best friend. The sadist in my heart plucking and pulling at every thread of who I am until I’m unraveled at his feet.
His mouth says he hates me. His eyes burn with animosity for me. His heart beats for someone else.
But Copeland Justice is the best liar of us all.
Penn
The paper slaps down on my desk and I cringe. A blood-red “F” is written at the top and circled several times. I can almost envision Coach Sullivan’s vein throbbing in his forehead when he graded my history essay. The angry circles around the scarlet letter are an indication of his rage in that moment.
I’m screwed.
Lifting my gaze, I meet Coach’s intense blue eyes. His jaw clenches. “After class, McAlister.”
“Yes, sir,” I grumble, tearing my eyes from his furious ones so he’ll go scowl at someone else. He remains for a beat longer, hovering above me like an angry hornet ready to sting, and then he’s on the move. I hear groans behind me. A smirk tugs at my lips knowing I’m not the only kid in here who flaked on their paper.
But, unlike Will Foster or Talia Stevens at the table behind me, I worry I’ll be benched at tonight’s game. If I’m benched, Dad will lose his mind.
I rub at the tension that’s forming a knot at the base of my skull and try to figure out how I’ll explain this to Dad. Excuses aren’t acceptable. The McAlisters are accountable for their actions. It makes us respectable, trusted people in our community. Dad’s lectures are better suited for the boardroom. Yet he runs our house like Mom and I are his employees. We’re always up for review. One false move away from getting canned. Although, I’m not sure what exactly happens when Mom and I get to that point. Does he divorce her? Kick me out? Worse yet, does he take our credit cards away? Dad, like any authoritarian, rules our roost by controlling the cash flow. Injecting when we make him proud. Draining when we’ve insulted the McAlister name. We’re always under inspection. And when that doesn’t work, his backhand makes for a pretty convincing argument. The line we walk is narrow and straight.
I’m anything but straight.
The pain I keep pushed under a lid threatens to boil over. I used to hate the pain, but now I’m growing addicted to it. Because my pain is him. Just thinking about him has my eyes dragging across the room.
Don’t do it.
Don’t look at him.
But I do. I always do. Because seeing what I see is worth what’s eventually shot back at me. One moment of bliss. To stare at his perfection before he catches me. He always catches me, each time more punishing than the last.
And yet…
He sits slouched in his chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him, his dark hair flopped down over his brows as he looks at his phone. Black hair. Black shirt. Black jeans. Black-painted nails. Black soul. His lips twitch slightly as he stares at his device. Heat creeps up my spine. The attraction I have for him is a punishing inferno that blazes inside of me. Always. Ever since we were preteens. I tried to keep it in check at first. Tried to hide what I felt for my best friend while he talked about girls he liked and often made out with. It was a certain kind of agony to sit and endure those smiles meant for other people.
I did it, though.
I did it for him.
Until one night I did something for me.
Stolen alcohol from my parents’ liquor cabinet. A sleepover between friends. Late night swim in the pool. And a kiss. One passion-driven, alcohol induced kiss by a sixteen-year-old boy in love with his best friend. A killer kiss. The kiss of death. The kiss that murdered our friendship and gave birth to a hate monster.