Falling Into Sunday

12- I Am Confronted

“You’re a dirty liar,” I inform Emmett with a laugh the next morning as we’re driving to school. I’m driving today and I don’t know why he isn’t driving too, but he’s riding with me for some reason. I think he’s trying to save gas which is weird because we don’t even pay for our own gas, our parents pay for it.

“What do you mean?” He decides to play dumb with me, texting somebody with his phone on his lap as I stop at a red light.

“You said that you were working yesterday but I went to the store yesterday and Benson was working,” I explain excitedly because I’m excited to hear what his excuse is for telling me that he had work yesterday when he actually didn’t. “So I gave him pizza instead but yeah- dirty liar.”

“You hung out with Benson? I still don’t like it that you two are friends,” Emmett tries to change the subject on me, but I don’t fall for it at all. I used to be that gullible and to just let him change the subject, but not this time because I want to get to the bottom of this.

“Were you with Natalie?” I sing, pulling into the parking lot of the school. I never realized how much fun it is to tease my brother, but this is pretty fun. “It’s totally cool if you were- I won’t tease you or anything.”

“You won’t?” He scoffs in disbelief.

“Of course not,” I assure him. “Just like you didn’t tease me at all when I was still in the just friends stage with Nate.”

“I thought we weren’t allowed to talk about him,” He reminds me with raised eyebrows.

“We’re not- this isn’t about him,” I say quickly, waving off his accusation of me bringing up Nate for the sake of making my point.

“Wait, but didn’t we tease the hell out of you when you were talking to Nate?” Emmett recalls after a moment, obviously confused.

I grin at him innocently as I step out of the car and push the button on my key thing that locks the doors for me. “My point exactly. So were you with Natalie then?”

He sighs and then nods, apparently giving up on hiding the truth from me because he realizes that it’s useless and that he actually can’t hide the truth from me because I will find out. “I would tell you that we’re just friends but you won’t believe that, right?”

“Of course not, Em,” I laugh. “You didn’t have to lie though, I would have found out either way.”

“Obviously,” Emmett mumbles as we walk side by side into the school. “We really are just friends though, Venice. Back to Benson though, you guys aren’t like, really good friends, are you?”

“We’re pretty close,” I shrug. It’s obvious that I can’t just tell him that I’ve hooked up with Ben and I plan on doing it again and again, because if I told him that, Benson would be worse than dead before we had the chance to hook up again and I don’t want that at all. “Don’t worry about me though, Em, okay? I can take care of myself just fine.”

“Since when?”

“Since seven months ago,” I say quietly. “I’ve changed, Em. I’m not as defenseless and stupidly gullible as I used to be. Benson is a nice guy and although he may do questionable things, that doesn’t make him any less nice.”

“It’s still my job to protect you,” He insists stubbornly. “No matter how grown up you think that you are.”

“Okay,” I sigh, knowing that it’s useless to try and convince him because he’s so ridiculously stubborn. “Whatever you say.”

Once we get into the school, I sit with Lexi and Brent while we wait for the first bell to ring that lets us go to our locker, which I do every morning. Emmett sits with his friends- the ones that I sit with at lunch- and although they’re nice, I’d just rather sit with my own friends.