Seduced by Lies (10 page)

              His face-splitting grin of success and triumph still firmly in place, Sam gazed longingly out towards the small slice of star speckled sky that he could see through the gap in his bedroom curtains, whispering to himself as he did so -

“And so it begins...”

CHAPTER 8 - ONE MONTH LATER

              Sam's life had quickly been entirely absorbed into this plan of his. From that fateful night that Sienna had sent ‘Lewis Stowell’ that friend request, it had overwhelmed everything else and occupied every thought that went through his head. His vow to be kinder to his mother and to take better care of her had quickly been forgotten, cast aside in the light of more pressing matters, and his College life and friends had been quick to follow suit. It hadn’t been a difficult decision - everything else in his life could wait, Sienna could not, and so very quickly his computer had become his solitary companion and only source of company.

             
After three days, Sam had stopped checking his phone every time it bleeped, indicating yet another text or missed call from one of his friends, hollering and wondering where he was. After a week, the texts began to slow, and after two weeks they stopped completely. He’d even figured out a way to dupe his mother into believing that he was still attending College and was out of the house every day - as long as he kept his bedroom door locked and stayed quiet enough whenever he heard her approaching, she never even guessed that he was there (though Sam was sure he partly had the alcohol to thank for that, for a more sober parent wouldn’t have fallen for such an obvious and, quite frankly, unbelievable lie). After a while, her drunken shouts, stumbles and bouts of uncontrollable weeping simply became background noise, as if it were the muffled soundtrack to Sam’s life, and he quickly learned to block it out and stop being distracted by it.

             
Sienna hadn’t been wrong that day she’d angrily and brazenly stated that she was more mature and advanced intellectually than ‘the rest of them’. Sam was by no means your average College student - he was highly educated thanks to his father, and his circumstances over the past year or so had certainly forced him to mature much more quickly than the rest of his peers, and yet he still sometimes struggled to keep up with Sienna. She’d actually taken his (or rather, Lewis Stowell's) advice, and had almost immediately taken Rainer Maria Rilke's ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ out of the library and had devoured its pages eagerly, messaging Lewis as she went and initiating various, in depth online conversations about various aspects of the novel. Sam, who was barely aware of Rilke’s works, let alone his obscure books, had simply initially suggested the read in order to appear cultured and educated, and to get a foot in the door with his enigma girl. As a result, he had been forced to frantically search Google for answers and witty anecdotes to her questions and observations, praying that she wouldn’t notice that his replies were simply slightly doctored versions of reviews and articles that other notable professors or high brow intellectuals had kindly posted to the internet. Thankfully, she’d been completely taken with Lewis’s words, lapping them up like a cat at a bowl full of cream, and their relationship had soon deepened and had begun to turn slightly away from the educated dissection of various cultured and urbane literary works, and towards a more personal and private relationship. Finally, Sam seemed to be getting somewhere.

             
Sienna had quickly forgotten her devious plan, her anger at her mother overshadowed by her growing interest and increasing communication with the intriguing and enigmatic Lewis Stowell. Her art tutor and fellow classmates had seen hide nor hair of her since the day she had received that first, tantalizing message from him, and weren’t likely to see her again anytime soon. The library on the other hand had become Sienna’s sanctuary, and her laptop screen filled the role of ‘best friend’ better than any meager human could. She’d begun to loathe the journey to and from College, the presence of people around her irritating her far more than usual due to her impatience to get to the library and get back online - to get back to Lewis. She wasn’t quite ready to admit it to herself, but in the back of her mind she knew she was hooked and had no intention of resisting Lewis as he reeled her in slowly. After all, he seemed just as eager as Sienna.

             
She had at first thought that she might have ruined it all on that first night, that she had been too impulsive and forward and had gotten ahead of herself by sending him a friend request. The moment her finger had touched the button she had been certain she’d made a terrible mistake - that Lewis Stowell would see her as an over eager, foolish child, and would instantly withdraw from their interaction. And so, during those few painfully long moments before he had accepted her request, Sienna’s stomach had been a writhing, knotted mass of self hatred, embarrassment and worry.

             
The relief when the message ‘Lewis Stowell has accepted your friend request’ popped up on her facebook page was like an injection of euphoria coursing through her veins and spreading out through her body, tingling pleasantly as it reached the tips of her fingers and toes. She’d read the seven simple words on her screen over and over, licking her lips in triumph and enjoying the slightly increased, rushing beat of her heart. Her buzz of elation was increased and intensified when yet another notification popped up, indicating that Lewis had replied to the impulsive, hastily written message she had sent along with the friend request. His words, so eloquent and well written, were like music to Sienna’s ears as she read them - as if there were a miniature string quartet in her head and each of Lewis’s words were a carefully chosen chord, all of which combined into a masterful symphony, composed just for her. She’d restrained herself from cheering and dancing loudly around her room in the clumpy Doc Martens that were almost permanently attached to her feet - she could hear her mother pottering around downstairs having just returned from her night shift, and had no desire to alert her to the fact that Sienna was still awake, preferring not to ruin her good mood with the conflict that would inevitably ensue.

             
She hadn’t wasted any time, and had decided to enquire about Rilke’s ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ in the College library the very next day. Not that the old, confused librarian had been much help other than to provide some comic relief - Sienna had had to slowly spell out Rainer Maria Rilke’s name for her, syllable by syllable, to which the librarian had replied -

“Is that a Welsh name?”

              This usually would have provoked an exasperated, infuriated response from Sienna, but her good mood had carried on while she had slept and had still been in full force when she had woken up that morning. And so, with her newly found patience, Sienna had simply smiled at the librarian and had politely thanked her for her help, before leaving the front desk (the librarian standing behind it looking, as usual, like a confused and perplexed owl), and searching for the novel on her own.

             
It had taken her about twenty minutes to find the humble, unassuming book amongst all the other titles in the ‘R’ section. It was smaller and narrower than she had expected, it’s spine so faded from the sunlight and so covered in dust that her gaze passed over it several times before she even noticed it was there. It was a hardback copy, and the spine had creaked, cracked and popped from years of neglect as she had slowly opened the tome.

             
She’s decided not to reply to Lewis Stowell’s last message until she’d read at least a small portion of the book he had recommended, just to make sure that she had something interesting to say - something he could relate to and that would spark an in depth conversation. It didn’t take her too long at all - as expected, Rilke’s letters and accompanying examples of his poems were a gripping, entertaining, educational and emotional read, and Sienna had been hooked from the very first sentence. Rilke often repeated and reinforced his statement that solitude was a key aspect of life - a necessary pursuit in order to understand, connect with and expand upon your individual ‘creative soul’, and in doing so understand and expand upon your own existence. Sienna reveled in this fact - proof that her shunning of most of the people in the outside world was the right thing to be doing, no matter what her mother or any of the other imbeciles out there tried to tell her.

             
It had been difficult to tear herself away from Rainer’s mesmerizing and enthralling words, but the pull - the yearning to message Lewis, to let him know she had taken his advice and to share her many thoughts on the novel he had recommended - that desire was too strong. And so, fingers trembling with excitement, she quickly slipped her new best friend from her backpack and flipped it open, tapping her fingers impatiently on the table as she waited for her laptop to load. As soon as her facebook page was up and running, her fingers tapped and slid along her keyboard, pouring all of her pent up thoughts into the message. After clicking send she waited patiently for his reply, hoping his message would pop up as quickly as it had done the night before. But the seconds ticked by, turning into minutes which then turned into half an hour before Sienna gave up hope of an instant reply. Sighing with defeat, she realized that he must be teaching, he was after all an academic lecturer - he wouldn’t have the liberty of time during the day. She closed her facebook window dejectedly and re-opened the book at the page she had folded, trying to push Lewis Stowell to the back of her mind as she continued to read.

             
She continued reading for the rest of the day, stopping only for toilet breaks and to get back on the bus to take her home. She thoroughly checked the kitchen and her bedroom for another scathing note from her mother, but her search yielded nothing - apparently her mother had said all she wanted to say and had now reverted back to silence. Sienna was glad of this - while she usually reveled in confrontations with her mother, she had far too much on her mind - too much to concentrate on to be distracted by petty arguments. She clomped up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her purely out of habit, and flopped to her bed eager to re immerse herself in Rilke’s magical words once more.

             
She’d finished the entire book by 11 pm that night and, feeling somewhat more educated and enlightened than she had done that morning, returned to facebook. She’d refrained from checking it again that day, preferring to wait and build her anticipation over Lewis’s reply rather than check it every half hour just to suffer disappointment after disappointment. And sure enough, her patience was rewarded with a little red icon in her inbox. She eagerly devoured Lewis’s words, relishing his insights and opinions on the novel she had just thoroughly enjoyed, reading the message three or four times over, her smile growing wider each time.

             
Their correspondence carried on in a similar vein for the next couple of weeks, moving on from Rainer Maria Rilke to discuss other high brow authors and individuals of notable intellect. But after those first few weeks their conversations began to morph slightly, taking on a more personal and intimate tone. Sienna saw her plan beginning to fall into place, but it was no longer revenge or anger at her mother that now drove her. Though she wouldn’t admit it out loud, Sienna was falling for Lewis. At first she had tried to convince herself that it was simply his remarkable similarities to Jack that drew her to him, but as time wore on, Jack began to drift further and further to the back of her mind, and Lewis began taking precedence in most of her waking (and many of her sleeping) thoughts. Without realizing it, Sienna began opening up to a virtual stranger, and found she didn’t mind one bit.

             
It was four weeks later, nearly a month to the day of that first message Lewis had sent her, that Sienna really began to let her barriers down. Their conversations were no longer about books or other pieces of literary art, but rather about their personal lives and feelings, and Sienna had been explaining to Lewis just how much she loathed her College, and how difficult it was to be surrounded by moronic, lesser educated, immature cretins. For the first time ever, she spoke about how alienated and alone she felt being the only person in a building of hundreds that was actually mature enough to understand the harsh realities of life. She ended her message with a flirtatious and heartfelt -

“That’s why I’m so glad I’ve got you Lewis - you’re the only ray of sunshine in my otherwise dark and miserable world, and I will be eternally thankful to you for that.

Sienna xxx”

She hadn’t made a conscious thought to start adding kisses at the end of her message, she simply realized somewhere in the middle of their third week of messaging each other that she’d subconsciously started doing it. And she had no intention of stopping - Lewis had also begun adding kisses at the end of his messages, three little x’s at the end of his name that made Sienna’s stomach flutter and her cheeks redden whenever she looked at them.
She waited nervously for his reply, afraid that she’d said too much and that, for some reason, Lewis would now look down on her like everyone else in her life seemed to. But her fears were short lived, quelled by Lewis’s prompt and caring response -

“Tell me about it - I have to teach their sort every day of my life, so we’re definitely in the same boat there! It amazes me too how oblivious most of them are - young and foolish and blind to the real world, but I suppose they’ll learn the hard way one day or another - we all have to in the end. You, Sienna, are most certainly set apart from the crowd - you’re so young yet so full of knowledge and wisdom. Tell me - why is that? What happened to make you rise up and ahead of your peers? If you don’t mind me asking that is - please don’t feel like I am being pushy, that is the very last thing I want. You are also my only ‘ray of sunshine’, and I have no desire to lose you.