Exploiting Realities

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT - TRUTH OR TRUTH

ARIA'S POV

I sat on my bed, staring at the ceiling with a grin on my face that simply wouldn't dissolve. Who could blame it, though? Yesterday Alec and I had gone on a date. It may have been crashed by Dean, but it was a date nonetheless. I stuck my hands in the pockets of his soccer jacket that he had given me to wear. My fingers settled on something in the right pocket. I pulled it out an examined it.

I shook my head in disbelief. "That sneaky little bastard," I muttered, putting the two dollars that I had given him for my ice cream back in the pocket.

"So I was wondering," Mia started as she walked into my room. She stopped and eyed the soccer jacket. "What is this? What's going on here? What's happening?" she said quickly, waving her pointer finger at the jacket, imitating Karen Walker from Will & Grace.

I laughed at her impression. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Is your name Alec now? Because that's what your jacket is telling me."

I lightly touched the front of the jacket where his first named was embroidered. "I was cold," I told her. "Ice cream in April in New Jersey wasn't the brightest idea."

She rolled her eyes and sat down next to me. "Let's play Truth or Truth, Aria." I smiled in remembrance of the game that we would play all of the time as kids when we wanted to squeeze secrets out of each other. "Here, I'll start. Aria, truth or truth?"

"Um, I'm going to have to go with truth."

"Aw, really? I was sure you'd pick truth!"

I grinned. "Truth me up, biotch."

"Okay. Swear you won't lie?"

"I swear."

"Good. So....do you like Alec?"

"Yes," I said flatly.

"Since when?" she continued.

"No, no, no," I stopped her. "That's not how it works. Now I get to ask a question."

She sighed, irritated. "Fine."

"Is it hard with you and Justin now that you aren't both in Alaska?"

"Yes," she said, just as flatly as I had.

"Care to elaborate?" I pestered.

She laughed. "Well, you didn't! My turn. Since when do you like Alec?"

I bit my lip for a minute, pondering. "That's a loaded question," I said.

"Well then, I expect a loaded answer."

I sighed. "Well, I've only been open about liking him for a few months but now that I've admitted it to myself I think I've liked him a lot longer."

"Care to elaborate?" she badgered me.

"Nope, now it's my turn."

"Oh, can't we just finish you first?" she whined. "Then I'll let you badger me about Justin all that you want, I promise!"

"Fine," I agreed. "I don't know, you know that I had a little crush on him in sixth grade when we first came here, right?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Well, that ended a month or two after we moved in. But, I think it came back in eighth grade, towards the end. At the cast party after the play I was chasing him, trying to get him to sign my t-shirt and we ran to the top of that really big hill and I pinned him to the ground and made him sign it and...I don't know."