The Secret to Lying (10 page)
Read The Secret to Lying Online
Authors: Todd Mitchell
“Remind me to never let you drive.”
“I’m a good driver. Most people don’t know how to crash. But I like crashing.”
“Me, too.” Jess smiled mischievously. “I’m all about crashing.” She tossed me a ball and pointed to her dorm. “Your turn.”
I hit a beautiful shot. The ball arced, becoming a tiny white speck as it floated toward a second-floor window.
“Uh-oh . . .” I muttered.
The sound of breaking glass echoed across campus like a starter’s pistol. We sprinted to the pond, and I tossed the club into the water. Then we ducked behind some bushes near the cleavage. Lights flicked on as security guards and RCs streamed out of the dorms like angry ants.
“Crap! Crap! Crap!” I said.
Jess giggled and kissed me. “So we blend in,” she whispered, glancing at another couple that was walking the pond.
We kept kissing. My heart beat so crazily I could feel the blood thumping through my veins.
“I like this game,” she said.
ghost44:
Knock knock.
johnnyrotten:
Nice try, but I’m not going to ask you who you are anymore.
ghost44:
Really? Have you finally moved beyond such superficial things?
johnnyrotten:
Nope. I figured it out.
ghost44:
You did?
johnnyrotten:
Yup. I know who you are. Only I’ve decided to keep it a secret.
ghost44:
If you wanted to keep it a secret, then why tell me that you know?
johnnyrotten:
Because — I like this game.
ghost44:
All right, Mr. Know-It-All, let’s play another game. Questions. I’ll answer one of your questions if you’ll answer one of mine. But no *who* questions.
johnnyrotten:
Do I go first?
ghost44:
Yes. My turn.
johnnyrotten:
Hold up. That doesn’t count.
ghost44:
It was a question. Rules are rules.
johnnyrotten:
Bring it on.
ghost44:
Do you like Jessica Keen?
johnnyrotten:
I can’t imagine why you’d ask that.
ghost44:
So what’s your answer?
johnnyrotten:
Depends what you mean by “like.”
ghost44:
Put it this way. Do you (a) lust after her hot body, (b) enjoy messing around with her, (c) like the idea of being with her, or (d) love her?
johnnyrotten:
That’s totally unfair.
ghost44:
Quit stalling.
johnnyrotten:
OK. I think she’s cool.
ghost44:
That wasn’t one of the choices.
johnnyrotten:
I’m rebellious like that. My turn. Tell me something about you that no one else knows.
ghost44:
Nice question.
johnnyrotten:
So?
ghost44:
How about this — My mom hates me.
johnnyrotten:
For real?
ghost44:
Yup. She won’t say it directly, and no one ever talks about it, but she does.
johnnyrotten:
Why?
ghost44:
You’d have to meet my mom to get that.
johnnyrotten:
Describe her.
ghost44:
Hmmm . . . Basically, she’s wealthy, successful, and perfect in every way. She even had the perfect divorce. In fact, the only thing that’s not perfect in her life is me. I’m the one piece that won’t fit her puzzle, so I ruin the whole thing.
johnnyrotten:
Sounds familiar.
ghost44:
Are your parents divorced?
johnnyrotten:
No. But I used to wish they were.
ghost44:
Why?
johnnyrotten:
Is that your question?
ghost44:
Yes.
johnnyrotten:
I guess I thought that if one of them moved away, my life would be more interesting.
ghost44:
Trust me: having two toothbrushes isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
johnnyrotten:
That’s not what I mean.
ghost44:
Then what do you mean?
johnnyrotten:
It’s hard to explain. Do you ever wish you could be someone else?
ghost44:
Sometimes. Mostly, though, I wish I could be myself.
johnnyrotten:
Why can’t you?
ghost44:
Because I’m not good enough.
johnnyrotten:
Why not?
ghost44:
I’m just not. Anyhow, it’s my turn.
ghost44:
What’s your favorite childhood memory?
johnnyrotten:
Running away. Yours?
ghost44:
Sunday mornings eating donuts with my dad.
johnnyrotten:
Mmm . . . donuts.
ghost44:
He’d let me order anything I wanted. Cinnamon twists. Chocolate éclairs. The ones with the colored sprinkles on top. Sometimes I’d take a bite of each and leave the rest, and he didn’t care if I made a mess. It was the only day of the week that he didn’t work.
johnnyrotten:
I like that.
ghost44:
So tell me about running away.
johnnyrotten:
Hold on.
johnnyrotten:
I need to go. My RC is calling me over for a wing meeting.
ghost44:
Wait!
johnnyrotten:
?
ghost44:
Be careful, okay?
johnnyrotten:
Be careful of what?
ghost44:
Stay a ghost for too long and you might disappear.
I FOUGHT MORE DEMONS
in my dreams. It wasn’t every night — maybe once or twice a week. Some had claws, hair, and jagged teeth like animals, and some were almost human yet wrong. There were clowns with shark teeth. Hyena men. Fire-haired witches with snakeskin arms. A cat that changed into a corpse-pale girl whose eyes were bloodred pits. They terrified me, but I learned to control my fear and shape my dreams.
The only thing I couldn’t face were the Nomanchulators. Every time I bound a demon, Nomanchulators scuttled out of the cracks and shadows to feed off the body. I tried not to look at them, but the sound of their chittering as they dragged the demons away made my spine numb. It seemed like the more I fought, the more numerous the Nomanchulators became.
“You’re doing good,” Kiana said one night after I’d bound a particularly nasty alligator demon. She must have sensed my disgust over the Nomanchulators. “Keep this up, and it won’t be long until you win this war.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Then you can do whatever you like.” She grinned. “You’ll have total control, and you won’t need to struggle anymore.”
“So who’s left to fight?” I asked.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, hotshot,” Nick interrupted. “These are the easy ones.” He sniffed the air, as if he could smell the demons out there waiting to attack. “The hardest part is yet to come.”
DICKIE WANTED ME TO SLIP OUT
after curfew with him and spend the night in the girls’ dorm. He talked about the mission for almost a week, trying to get me on board. Every time he brought it up, I’d nod and say something like “I wish,” but sneaking over to the girls’ dorm after curfew was no easy feat. For starters, all the doors in the dorms had security cards that recorded whenever anyone went in or out. Leaving your dorm after curfew earned you an automatic suspension. On top of that, every dorm had an RC on duty throughout the night and there were security guards who patrolled the campus, so even if we made it out, we’d still have to cross the open, well-lit space between dorms without being seen. Every year, some desperate guy got busted trying to sneak into his girlfriend’s room.
The way Dickie pitched it, the risk only made things better, as if running across a strip of minimally landscaped ground in the middle of the night would make us heroes. “Trust me,” he said. “If we go, it’ll be well worth it.”
It wasn’t only the chance of getting suspended that bothered me. The prospect of spending the night in Jess’s room made me anxious for reasons I couldn’t name. Granted, she was completely hot and I wanted to be with her. Yet part of me felt a little weird about it, too, like maybe I was doing it for the wrong reasons — which is totally not the way guys are supposed to think. At any rate, I couldn’t let Dickie see my apprehensions. Rebels have to be raring to go, regardless of the consequences.
“I talked with Sunny and she’s game,” Dickie said during lunch one day. “So what do you say, amigo? You up for some black ops this Friday?”
“Hell, yeah,” I said, struggling to swallow my Tater Tots. “Except, I’m not sure if Jess is. We’ve only been together a few weeks and I don’t want to seem too eager, you know?”
Dickie nodded. “Give her time. Pretend that sex is the last thing on your mind and she’ll beg you to come over.”
“Right-o. Like maybe I’m questioning my sexuality and she needs to convert me.”
“Don’t laugh,” he replied. “It works.”
We kept joking about new ways to get girls to proposition us, like pretending to be ultrareligious and beyond temptation, or brokenhearted poets, or sheltered virgins who needed to be taught the ways of love. I’d never told Dickie that I actually was a virgin. He seemed to assume that I’d done it before, so I bluffed my way through most conversations. It was like we shared this secret understanding of girls that Heinous and the other sophs in our wing weren’t privy to. When social hour rolled around, we headed out together — the studs of Dingo wing, off to meet Jess and Sunny and mess around by the pond while Heinous stayed inside with Cheese and played video games.
Dickie mentioned sneaking out again the next day, but I distracted him by bringing up the Steves and how they kept gloating over slaughtering us with water balloons. I convinced him that our honor needed to be avenged, so we set to work on a plan to get the Steves back. We didn’t deliberately exclude Heinous, but since the Steves were roommates, it seemed fitting to keep participation limited to just us — that way it could be roommates versus roommates.