Sins Chaos

Chapter Seventeen

Aerin

A few days later, Perla found me with my head stuck in my locker like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. She shook her head, slammed her locker shut, and tapped me on the shoulder.

"You can't hide forever, you know. You have to face him sooner or later."

I mumbled incoherently.

"What was that? I speak English, not Gibberish."

I reluctantly pulled my head out of my locker, pulling my white button down shirt down. Smoothing out my ankle length skirt, my red, bloodshot eyes met Perla's. "I said, just because the truth is now out in the open for all to know, that doesn't mean I'm at all ready to deal with him."

"Chicken."

"Balk, balk." I shut my locker. "I hate skirts."

"Then why are you wearing one? Looks good on you. Didn't know you owned one. Nice change of subject, by the way."

"What change of subject?" I asked innocently. "And it's mandatory attire for a report in History."

"So, what happened?" Perla asked, leaning against her locker.

I sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "After Roz and I had our little heart-to-heart, we sat down and had another one with Karmichael."

And the whole conversation had gone exactly as Karmichael and I had planned.

"Karmichael came clean about his own indiscretions while overseas this summer. We decided to stay friends and there were no hard feelings involved."

Perla nodded as the bell rang. "Well, you lucked out there," she said suspiciously as we headed towards class.

Luck had nothing to do with it.

The ability to lie convincingly, on the other hand, had everything to do with it.

***

A MONTH LATER

It was a beautiful fall afternoon. The sun was out, with a few scattered clouds in the sky. A light sweater or windbreaker was all that was needed for a walk through the park.

This was what life was about. The simple moments.

I walked through the park, hands in the pockets of my powder blue windbreaker, my dark hair blowing in the wind. I checked my watch as I walked along the paved path through the small copse of trees. I was supposed to meet Roz in front of the apartment in twenty minutes to go to the movies with Donny and his new fling.

I was still living with Roz and Wicked, which made things very interesting. Mom and Decker were still off world handling some secret mission personally and Roz and I had officially started dating about a month ago—with Decker and Clare's full permission. So far it had been a peaceful, uneventful month of blissful teenage dating.

Oddly enough, that bothered me.

That meant something was due to go wrong and it wasn't going to be something minor.

No, I wasn't much of an optimist. If anything, I was a realist. It was the curse that came with what I was.

Karmichael and I were still friends. How could we not be? After all, we hadn't really been dating, but no one else needed to know that. Our planned breakup had gone according to plan.