Seven Ways We Lie(47)

Heavy iron shame pushes down on my chest, depressing my rib cage inch by inch, and I want to shrivel up and hide from my panic, but instead I yank out my phone and text Burke. Dude I messed up I messed up

He’s a fast texter, as always: Orly?

Yeah I think I sort of accidentally outed someone, like from the closet.

????? Why would you do that though…………

It was an accident!

He takes a while to reply. Well say it was you, they deserve to know it’s your fault! Seriously, Matt, what in the hell I leave you alone for like 5 minutes

I told you. Accident. Plus I’m so high

Dude that is a hilariously bad excuse, I was high during my last calc test and I nailed that shit so you got no license to pin it on that

Sorry

Bro don’t apologize to me! You think it’s my place to say it’s fine?

I tuck my phone away and head back down toward the trailers.

Valentine’s already gone when I reach the bottom of the hill, and Lucas is folding his lunch bag into the overflowing trash can. When he sees me approaching, he brightens. “Hey, Matt,” he says, and as he meets my eyes, nervousness tremors through me. “Lucas, hey,” I say, and every instinct I have screams at me not to admit this, but I fold my arms and think, You’re a coward, Matt, and with a deep breath, I say, “Look, dude, I’ve got to tell you something,” and he says, “Sure, what’s up?”

“Look, I, uh, I f*cked up. I just, I was talking to someone and I—it sort of fell out that you . . . that you’re not straight.”

For a second he looks confused, and his confusion makes the lump of guilt in my chest ache. Then the perpetual smile leaks off his face, sliding away like water downhill, and without it, he looks like a different person, no curved lines in his cheeks, his brown eyes blank and serious. He says quietly, “But why would you do that?” and suddenly I don’t want to ever smoke again or give myself any opportunity to screw up someone else’s life with my own carelessness, and any excuse I had evaporates from my mind, and I can’t think of anything to say except, “I don’t know, dude. I saw you and Valentine, and it was on the top of my mind, and I—”

Lucas frowns. “Saw me and Valentine? What do you mean?”

“Weren’t you two—weren’t you just—?”

“But it’s not like that,” he says. “Crap. Did you say anything about Valentine?” and I say, “No,” and he says, “Thank goodness. He’d hate that, I think.”

He’s quiet for a long minute, and I can see the smile trying to hoist itself back onto his face, his lips twitching bravely, but it doesn’t make it. “What am I going to do?” he says, and thoughts churn in my head, sluggish with guilt. “If anyone says anything to you,” I say, “I’ll beat the hell out of them,” and he says, “I appreciate the thought, but, um, I’m more than capable of punching anyone who’s being a douche canoe.”

“Okay,” I say. “Um, I—I told Olivia not to tell anyone else,” and he says, “Olivia Scott?” and I nod, and his remaining composure fractures, his eyes widening and his lips slackening, and he says, “She’s going to tell Claire.”

I search for words, but he says, “Later, man,” and he strides up the path, gripping the straps of his backpack so tightly that all the color drains from his knuckles. I stand there looking after him with the feeling that—just like that, in one careless moment—I might’ve ruined somebody’s life.





BETWEEN SIXTH AND SEVENTH PERIOD—SO CLOSE TO the freedom of Friday afternoon, I can taste it—Olivia finds me in the hall. She pulls me into a corner, breaking the news so carefully, you’d think she was telling me somebody died.

For a moment, I’m not sure what to do. My first instinct is to scream it out, because if Lucas would keep that secret from me for thirteen months of a relationship and half a year of aftermath, he doesn’t deserve for it to stay quiet.

Panic surges in my throat like bile. “I have to go,” I choke, making a beeline for the bathroom.

“Claire,” Olivia calls after me, but I don’t turn back.


I NEVER SKIP CLASS. SKIPPING IS FOR SMOKERS AND underachievers. But halfway through seventh period, I’m still standing in the bathroom, forehead to the mirror.

I gnaw on my cuticles. My third finger beads up with blood. Who’s the boy? Has he ever looked himself in the mirror with the sole intent of finding everything that’s wrong with him? Has he agonized for months over how to transform himself into something worthy of Lucas’s attention?

The door opens. I prepare to glare whoever it is into leaving, but Juniper’s and Olivia’s heads poke in. They approach me. Olivia stands stiff and upright, skeleton rigid. Juniper’s eyes glisten with sympathy.

I look back at the mirror. They stand beside me, Juniper with her blow-dried white-gold hair, Olivia with slim, dark jeans on her long legs. And me . . . Look at me, splotchy-faced and stumpy and never quite assembled correctly.

“You’ve got to talk to him,” Olivia says.

I grit my teeth. I have nothing to talk about with Lucas. Not our relationship, apparently based on misplaced trust, or the breakup, apparently the equivalent of a mercy killing. I have nothing to discuss with the boy who said I couldn’t compare—apparently comparing me to people I’d never imagined were competition.