The Lies We Share ✔

Chapter 2

Laura knew that her Aunt Rachel had been drinking by her speech. 

This would happen every once in a while, Aunt Rachel would call her sister, or Laura's mother when she was drunk. It was a bit annoying, but through the years Laura could see that not much would change. 

Rachel would often just need to call her sister for support, since her sister was the only family who would actually listen.

"Hi Cheryl, this is Rach—I was wondering if I could talk to you about Jeremy?" Jeremy was her husband. Laura wondered what it could be about, but decided it was personal. By the tone of her aunt's voice, she sounded upset.

"Sorry, this isn't Cheryl, it's Laura her daughter, my mom is at the grocery store," Laura said trying to sound upbeat.

The strange thing was Laura had never actually met her aunt in person, and no one in the family wanted to associate with Aunt Rachel. Though Laura was sure her relatives were just as confused as she was about her aunt's life choices.

It was in these short and to the point moments that Laura had any sort of interaction with her aunt. 

"Oh? I'll call back again in a few hours. Bye!" Aunt Rachel said abruptly, tension radiated from the phone. She sounded angry with someone. Laura tried to not think about it anymore but was still curious as to what was going on.

"Okay, bye!" Laura said hanging up the phone.

Laura lugged her backpack up to her room to finish some assignments. Somehow even the thought of homework made her even less inclined to do it.

Instead, Laura had to get her aunt out of her head, to do this she would need a distraction, perhaps a research project.

Todd seemed like an interesting character to examine, considering his demeanor that morning. 

Mostly, Laura just wanted to see some pictures of him and Elise, perhaps the relationship didn't look as perfect as the people in it.

As soon as she got upstairs Laura laid down on her bed with her laptop, she opened Facebook. What was his last name? Jones! She typed in 'Todd Jones' and no surprise there was a plethora of results; from baseball players, to politicians, to photographers, and musicians. Popular name, unfortunately.

After she scrolled for a bit, on the second page of Todd Joneses, there he was. His face literally popped out of the page at Laura. Unsurprisingly, his conventionally attractive features caught her attention right away. 

It was a picture of him and his friends, mostly girls who were just as pretty as Elise, maybe he cheated on Elise? This was the most likely explanation, how many people got into a relationship in high school and still managed to spend the rest of their lives together? Not many.

She clicked onto his page, but to no avail, the only pictures he had shared were memes or pictures of him and his family. He had seemed like a private person; he probably was that hostile with anyone that knew his secrets. Though she wasn't sure why he cared that much about what people thought of his and Elise's relationship.

Some boys would love to have the news around that they were players, perhaps he was worried about it getting around to other girls so he couldn't gain their trust and seduce them.

Todd seemed like the kind of guy to be manipulative with girls, even though he looked like your standard Hollywood actor, you can never really tell a person's personality by their face. 

Everyone likes to see the best in pretty people. Wouldn't it be lovely if you could read people's minds just by looking at their face? Most people would look at her and walk away if she didn't have a personality. Her red curly hair always looked frizzy, and her face was laden with zits. She thought she looked like a sad dog most of the time. When others looked at someone like Todd, they saw accomplishments and a prize-winning smile. When people saw her, they only saw her flaws.