Growing Pains

Chapter 20 - A liar just like me

K Y L I E

My phone vibrated on the floor of the toilet stall I had locked myself in. I hadn't given Jacob my number, but he had found my socials, and messaged me on them with an inconvenient question. Where are you?

I was on my knees, but I wasn't about to tell him, was I? So I answered: why?

He wrote back, almost immediately: you didn't answer my question. I told him I was at school. Truth be told, everyone was. The homecoming game would start soon and whoever wasn't playing or performing wanted good seats on the bleachers.

Jacob asked where I was at school. I put my phone down, the screen turned to the floor, so I didn't have to look at the notification of his message. Where at school? It was none of his business, was it?

I held my hair back, leaned over the toilet, and shoved my fingers down my throat. The vomit came right away. It usually did. I waited for it to be over and then cleaned my mouth with toilet paper. Then I flushed, grabbed my phone, got up, and left the stall.

There was no one in the bathroom. I had made sure of that. In any case, if there had been, I would just tell them it was the nerves. It wasn't a lie. I was supposed to do a triple jump today. Just thinking about it made me want to go back to the stall. I didn't. I walked up to the mirrors and washed my hands on the sink instead. I had left my bag next to it.

Then someone called my name. Not just someone. Jacob. He was standing by the door.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. I even managed a smile. I hadn't been ready to be looked at just yet, but I would have to manage.

He returned the smile, except his were always smirks.

"Someone joked that you were throwing up in a toilet somewhere, so I took my chances," he said. When I didn't laugh, he asked, "Were you?"

"What?"

"Throwing up?"

"No," I said. So what if it was a lie? He probably couldn't go a day in his life without lying either.

"Why does it sound like you're lying?" He had a curious frown on his face and even that looked good on him.

I looked in the mirror, only half-smiling, "I'm not."

I retouched my makeup. He stood behind me, watching as I re-applied foundation, then the highlighter on my cheekbones, under the end of my eyebrows, on the tip of my nose. I did the contour too. Then the lip-gloss. I made a case of being extremely slow so as to have him leave. Most guys couldn't miss a chance to perform a very exaggerated and very juvenile aversion for makeup. Allora called it just another sad attempt at reaffirming their masculinity. Somehow femininity was always the cost of these attempts.

But Jacob did no such thing. He just waited with his built-in smirk on his face.

When I was done, he said, "Wow."

I put everything away and turned to him, the lower of my back against the edge of the sink. Jacob stepped closer in his football jersey. He leaned in, hands on each side of me, eyes trying to pry. I knew what he was going to ask before he even opened his mouth.

"What were you doing in there?" He was looking at the reflection of the toilet stall I had been in just minutes ago in the mirror in front of him.

I laughed, a real wholehearted laugh. He didn't move. He was amused.

"What's so funny?"

I put my hands on his shoulders and tilted my head to the side, "What are you trying to do exactly? Convince me that you care? Is that what this is? Is this your go-to move? You come along cause we look so much like those calendar girls from the posters in your bedroom, and then what, you pretend you care about what goes on backstage? Like you didn't actually know already? I mean, you have to be pretty up your own ass not to know. Tell me, do girls usually fall for this?"

"That's not –"

"I just think it's funny, that's all." I shrugged. I didn't want to start a fight. That wasn't the kind of girl I wanted to be. So I tried to be as clear as possible. I said, "This innocence act? You can stop it. Things between us are very simple. You wanna get with me –"

"And you don't?" he stopped me.

"Well, I don't know. Are you gonna keep asking stupid questions?"

He shook his head very slowly, eyes on the ground. He had pulled away from me a while ago. They always did.

I smiled. "Good."

He scratched the back of his neck, "Can we start again?"

I thought about it.

"Sure."

He asked, "Are you nervous about the game?"

"No," I lied. "Are you?"

"Never," he said, a liar just like me.