Tell Me a Million Lies

Chapter Twenty-One

WARNING: A very, very bad chapter that I would have shoot myself for posting it! So BEWARE...

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Chapter Twenty-One

Present

Senior Year

            My head was burning—or at least that’s how it felt for me. I groaned as I forced myself to sit up. Glancing around the room, I was shocked that I didn’t know where I was. Glancing at the walls, I recognized the familiar posters of the Beatles when the door opened and Troy stepped in with two cups of steaming tea.

            “I feel like I have a hangover,” I said rubbing my temple as he handed me a cup of tea. “Thanks.”

            He sat on the end of the bed sipping his tea. We sat there in silence as we drink letting the burning sensation take over our ability to talk. “Do you want to talk about it,” he whispered not looking directly into my eyes.

            I set the cup on the nightstand. “Not quite.”

            He nodded understandingly. “Why don’t you tell me more about yourself,” I asked getting off the bed. “The only thing I know about you is that you’re a nerd, insanely in love with soccer, and utterly completely annoying… sometimes.”

            “Seems like enough to me,” he said smiling.

            I rolled my eyes as I went over to his shelf only to find a whole bunch of classics. “The Iliad,” I snickered holding up the book.

            He shrugged.  “My guilty pleasure,” he tried.

            “Yeah, no,” I said shaking my head. My hand trailed down the line of books until a photo album came into sight. I shifted my eyes away not wanting to be in his business if he didn’t want to tell me about himself when he grabbed the photo album and pulled me back into his bed.

            “A good start will be a photo album,” he said as he flipped open the cover. Creases formed on his forehead and I knew he was thinking pensively about whether or not it was a good idea to show me this album. But his lips formed a weak smile as he flipped the book open. The first page was filled with family pictures: him, his mom, his dad, and—someone I don’t recognize, but looked a lot like Troy. “That’s my brother.”

            I looked up at him stun. “You have a brother?”

            “You see all these Beatles poster,” he said eyeing the poster that hung off his walls. “Freddy was a big fan of them not me.” His always cheerful eyes now turned melancholy and seemed to be longing.

            “What happened to him,” I asked placing my hand over his as if it can help encourage him to go on.

            “My father was in the navy,” he whispered. No wonder he never smiles and was always harsh. “Freddy was always the Golden boy; the son that father loved the most, cared the most for. He was athletic and intelligent what was there not to love about him.  Everyone expected him to follow father’s step and he did. Four years ago after he graduated from high school, he joined the army. Father couldn’t be any happier and I guess you can call those days the ‘glorious days.’”

            He stopped and stared down at our intertwined hands as if it was the most intriguing thing ever. Slowly, his eyes trailed up my arm, to my neck, and finally my face. “And—and then he died. Last summer, Freddie died, died just two days away from his twenty second birthday.”

            “Troy,” I whispered and pulled him into a tight hug.

            He chuckled lightly as he buried his face into my neck. “I'm fine. Don’t you want to look at the rest of the pictures,” he whispered pulling away and I nodded. “Look at it while I get some snacks for us.”

            “You don’t—,” I wanted to argue, but he held his hand up stopping me.

            “I insist alright,” he said and I watched as he left the room again. Reaching for the album, I turned the page smiling as my eyes landed on the picture with Troy smiling truly. I haven’t seen him smiling like that before not even when he got into the team. My heart swelled at the thought of that. We both had lost someone that meant something to us, yet at the beginning I had assumed Troy was just a content nerd that had never went thought any adversaries.

            As I picked the album up, a loose photo slipped out landing on the bed in front of me. My eyes widened as I took in the picture of Lydia, who was blatantly unaware of someone taking a photo of her as she stared ahead, but that wasn’t what surprised me. Standing beside Lydia with her back hunched over the table as she focused on the painting was me.  My messy brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail almost flying at every direction.

            I looked up to see Troy standing at the doorway with his eyes focused on me. There was something in his eyes—admiration? When he caught me staring at him, he straightened up and held a bag of cheddar popcorn. “Got us some snack,” he said adding a nervous laugh.

            “I didn’t know you were in my art class,” I said placing the picture back into the album. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

            He ran his hand through his hair and smiling awkwardly. “It wasn’t really important,” he said handing the bowl of popcorn to me.

            “But you should have told me still,” I said feeling guilty. How could I not remember him when we’ve been in the same art class for an entire year? I stuffed my hand into the pockets of the hoodie and lifted myself off the bed. “So did we have any other classes together?”

            He shrugged casually stuffing his mouth with popcorn. “Art committee, I think.”

            Art committee? I lowered my head staring down at the photo album. So much of a friend. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t know all the people in my class either.”

            “But how can I not know,” I stressed. “There were only fifteen people in the art committee.”

            “I was a nobody,” he answered reaching for his cup. “Plus your eyes were always on Kieran.”

            He sounded… different at the mention of Kieran’s name. I placed a hand on his arm. “Sorry,” I whispered and he shoved the rest of the popcorn into his mouth.

            “Refill,” he asked holding up his empty cup. I shook my head as he stalked toward the door.

            “Hey Troy,” I called out and he turned around tilting his head slightly. “You’re not a nobody. People just don’t see how amazing you are, but that doesn’t mean you’re a nobody. You’re special; you’re singular. Just don’t forget that, Toy Story.”

            A small smile appeared on his lips. “Yeah special with a freak of a name,” he said humorously before heading back downstairs for the third time.

            Those words that I had just told him, I meant it. Each and every one of them. He was the one that had melted away my cold iron walls and became my first friend after these two years of sitting by myself in the chatty lunch room. He was the one that made me trust in friendship again after I had been betrayed. I smiled as I remembered the day I had met him. The way how I bitched at him for asking if I was okay, yet he was still determined to make him my friend.

            I lay down on the bed staring at the roof and for the first time in these two years, I realized I was happy.