All the Lies I've told

00 ; Prologue

Song of the chapter is Soap by Melanie Martinez

When I was fifteen, a girl in my class at school died in a car accident. I wasn't really friendly with her, but Pandora had insisted on me coming to the wake in the family home. Compliantly, I did as Pandora asked like I always did and entered the Levi's family home.

It was the first wake I had ever attended and I had always hoped it would be the last. When I went through the front door, I remember the eerie silence hitting me. The house itself was packed, but no one spoke. I wasn't sure whether it was supposed to be like this or whether the people in the room had accidently muted themselves instead of the television in the far corner.

I was able to immediately recognise her parents as they both sat on a cream leather couch holding onto each other for support. The man clutched his wife, but his face remained emotionless. His body was in the room, but it was like his entire being was somewhere else. I thought it was odd, the fact that this girl's father could seem so stoic and unmoved by his wife's sobs and frantic pleas for her daughter to be brought back to them.

For a while, we simply stood in the living room, unsure of what to do but too nervous to ask. I felt like an intruder. No-one knew that I hadn't known Anya Levi properly, but no-one asked either. They just assumed we were all here for her and it made me feel dirty. It was like I was here to get some sort of sadistic kick out of the mourning for a girl who was taken too early. Maybe that idea was slightly dramatic but I just felt like I didn't deserve to see these people at their weakest when I was almost totally unaffected by her death. Anya and I had shared polite conversation but I didn't really know her. I didn't have the right to be torn up over her death and in hindsight neither did Pandora.

I was just about to ask Pandora if we could leave when the blonde Susie from my business class stumbled out of a room down the hall, wailing as she clutched on to her older brother. He tried to soothe her as he led her through the kitchen and out the door, presumably to take her home. Susie and Anya had been best friends; they were as close as what I felt Pandora and I were so it was only understandable that she be so torn up over her friend's death. I knew in that moment that if I was Susie then I would have felt the same.

   "That must be Anya's bedroom," Pandora said in a low tone as she began to make her way in the direction Susie had just come from. A feeling of unease overtook me as I began to feel like I was crossing the line from intruding and delving into something a lot more sinister.

  "Pandora, stop," I pleaded as I trailed along behind her. I kept my voice low and shot nervous glances to the mourners around me.

Pandora in her typical fashion completely ignored what I had to say and instead ploughed on into what had been Anya's bedroom. I followed, afraid to be alone.

  "We shouldn't be in here," I mumbled as I closed the door quietly behind us. Her bedroom was that of a typical fifteen year old girl's. It had posters of boy-bands that I didn't recognise and the walls were painted a vibrant fuchsia.

  "We were her friends," Pandora said, her voice was so confident that I almost believed what she was telling me. She had a way of being able to do that. Pandora had always been able to make me assume that what she was saying was the truth.

  "I wasn't," I countered as I glared at her, "and neither were you."

Pandora's brunette hair flipped over her shoulder as she angled her head to look at me, "I was."

I sighed, not in the mood to argue with her. She smirked slightly at my sign of defeat and walked towards the bedside table. On the table were a jewellery stand and a book with a piece of paper sticking out as though to mark the page. I remember thinking how awful it was that she would never know the ending to the book, not now that she was dead. It served as a reminder that life was fragile and that every day we live is like fighting odds which are never truly in your favour. Just because you beat the odds of dying today doesn't mean you'll be so lucky tomorrow, or next month or even next year because some day we all will die.

Pandora's fingers gently sifted through the jewellery displayed on the elegant stand. It was one of those model stands. It wore a green dress with black lace and had eight curved pieces of metal which the jewellery was carefully draped over. I watched Pandora lift up a friendship bracelet and inspect it. It had the name ANYA on it, surrounded by tiny circular pink and blue beads. Pandora slipped it into her back pocket to her light coloured denim skinny jeans and I couldn't contain the gasp which emitted from my throat at watching Pandora take something with so much sentimental value.

   "Pandora put it back," I commanded, my voice stern as I strode toward her.

   "No," she replied with a hard look on her face, "It's customary for friends to take a memento, Viv," she continued as she sighed almost as though she was the one who was disappointed in my behaviour.

  "You weren't friends with her," I ground out as I reached around her waist to grab the bracelet out of the pocket.

  "I was. Just because you didn't see it like that doesn't mean it's not true," Pandora said as she grabbed my wrist in an attempt to stop me. Angrily I pulled my wrist from her grasp and strode towards the door.

   "You haven't picked something yet, Viv," Pandora said, halting my footsteps, "Don't you want to remember her?"

I slowly turned around incredulously, "I don't have a reason to."

Pandora looked at me and gently shook her head from left to right, "I hope you don't do this if I ever die." With that, she strolled out of the room and back into the living room. When I got to where she was, I saw her attempting to console Anya's mother as she sobbed into her hair. A sick feeling made its way through my body as I couldn't help but think of how comfortable Pandora seemed surrounded by other people's misery.

A/N

hey so this is my new story and im really excited to write it. Idk if im totally happy with this as a prologue mainly because it was supposed to be the start of chapter one but with it flipping to present time it was way too long to be enjoyable.

Hopefully you enjoyed this snippet and are just as excited to get to know Viv and Pandora as i am.

please do vote & comment your feedback !!

thanks,

rachel // longtimegone

x