None the Worse ✓

6) 'He's Fine' And Other Lies You Need To Hear To Maintain Your Sanity...

Deciding the latter was the best option, he started talking—very slowly—to buy his brain some time to make the lie believable. It was possibly one of the hardest things Ben ever had to do.

"We ran into each other, the other day. It was in the..." Where, Ben? Think! "In the—No, behind the building. Where the bikes are."

"You've never used a bike in your entire life."

Oh, for crying out loud!

Benjamin's eyes widened. He was, uh... going to steal a bike? There's no way in hell they'd believe that. He was looking for someone? Like Benjamin has any other friends. And he couldn't say that he got lost, the entire gang knew the area by heart. That he was looking for some thug that would offer him a cigarette? Ha.

"Okay, okay..." Benjamin spewed out to save time.

Then...

"Oh! I... The truth is, I didn't run into him. I was... following him. Yes, following him."

All of the guys were suddenly extremely interested.

Pi's eyebrows elevated.

"Why on earth, Ben, would you follow the new guy?" he said.

Pure curiosity? No.

Everyone was intrigued. Except for Pi. He was getting tired. Of course. A time limit. A 3.14 second time limit. Because that makes coming up with lies so much easier. No, a challenge was exactly what Benjamin needed. Of course.

"I thought— I thought I saw him walking away with..." With what? A rubber duck? A Pokémon card? A baby dragon? "....a weapon."

Benjamin realized just how brilliant he actually was at digging his own grave.

"A weapon?" asked Pi.

Benjamin nodded slightly.

The four guys in front of him were very alert and quick to deliver their own lines. They were very eloquent.

"A weapon?" asked Heston.

"What weapon?" asked Martin.

"Weapons? Here?" asked Messiah.

They were good at using their words.

Benjamin bit his own lip, cursing himself to the darkest pit in hell. And still, he kept nodding. "Yes. I was so sure I saw him holding one... I wanted to check, to make sure he wasn't planning on anything."

His friends all nodded in unison.

Again, Martin asked, "what weapon?"

"A gun?" guessed Messiah.

"Drugs?" guessed Heston, as if that was a legit murder weapon. As if Benjamin wouldn't say 'drugs' if that was the case.

Pi was the last one to venture a guess. "A knife?"

Martin gasped. "Oh, yes! Does he have a knife? Does he?"

"Well," mumbled Benjamin. "Uh... yes?"

"Thijmen has a knife?"

Benjamin took a deep breath, considering his answer for a while. And then, there was no going back.

"Thijmen has a knife."

There was also the issue that Benjamin had now brought a rumor into life that was (hopefully) not true and probably very harmful to Thijmen's reputation.

Not his reputation of a really bad-ass criminal, who walked around with weapons a lot more dangerous than a knife. Like... an AK-74? Was that what it was called? Or AK-47? Some kind of hardcore gun people probably used all the time when they were professional criminals.