Lie to Me | Four
I stood on the porch for a moment, wondering if I should go in now or not. My hand drifted to the cold doorknob on its own accord. With a heavy breath, I tugged my necklace loose from under my shirt and gripped the key that dangled there in my free hand. I bent forwards- which had been actually very awkward to do the first couple of times- and slipped the key into the keyhole. With a twist, the heavy doorframe opened to reveal an empty house. The key fell down against my chest. It was just as I had predicted it this morning when I saw my dad sneaking off to ‘work’.
My mother, on the other hand, had probably left during the day. Lately, she has been sleeping in later and staying out later as well. I walked to the kitchen, ready to confirm my suspicions. And, again, like I had predicted, there on the counter was a small sticky note in a bright pink. I walked over to it, hoping beyond hope that it didn’t say what I knew it said.
-Halz, out for the next three days. I left a $100 for food-
I dropped my hand with the note to my waist and looked under where the note had been to see a fifty, a twenty, and a bunch of fives. It was a hundred dollars. All for me because my parents would rather be somewhere else. They left me to my own accord once again. I wondered if this meant that my father would be gone too or was my mother just expecting him to be out.
When I was a kid, I would cry at these moments. But, there were only so many tears that could fall before you realized that this would happen again and again. You could only be shocked so many times before this abandoning would become ingrained.
And, I had reached that point last year. I remember the day that I broke for the last time. It was a day like this one. One of my parents saying that they would come back and the other just telling me right out that they would leave. It was hard and I had cried for hours. I walked out of the house and down the street. I just went.
I had actually made it all the way to an abandoned marry-go-round, the horses long broken and discarded. The seats old and falling apart. The metal rusted over and unusable. I had climbed into the old contraption and cried in the access hatch alone for a while. All the knobs and levers were long since broken.
But, then I was found. I was found by a small abandoned cat. Its main scruffy and overbearingly knotted. The tip of its tail crooked and it’s coat in an all black. It sat at the top of the hatch and watched me. And, like all crazy people would do, I talked to it. I told it every lie that I had heard that day. I had told it every lie that I could remember being told, or heard by proximity. And it listened to me moaning about my life with a cock of its head and a swish of it’s tail.
And, you know what it did next, it followed me home. I still have that cat. My little guardian angel. And, now, I needed his comfort. I went to the back door and opened the screen to a waiting black form on the back steps. He walking in leisurely, like he owned the place. Both of my parent said that I couldn’t keep him but, it’s not like they really enforced that rule. Guardian Angel followed me up the stairs and all the way to me room where he strutted towards my bed. He hopped up easily.
I sat on the bed too and pulled out the cat brush from my night stand. He curled contently onto my lap and I began to brush him.
And for the first time in a long time, I told Angel a good story. I told him about Ian.
. . .
Now, I sat in the small coffee shop with my headphones in once again. My iPod was fully charged and I had some ‘Attack! Attack!’ playing loudly. When I was alone, I actually preferred soft beats but when I was around other people, I needed coursing songs. And don’t get me wrong, I love this band; it’s just that I like them at a much lower volume.
And, the reason I was even forced into this was because I was thirsty. I mean, couldn’t they have a person drive through with no interactions. All I wanted was a smoothie. I could hear a couple behind me arguing on who the cheater was. I was guessing that I busted another pair of headphones. At least they still worked well enough to hide most conversations in here. I could hear the couple more clearly because they were the closest to me; a few feet behind me.
Unable to take it, I stood and whirled on them, placing my hands firmly and angrily onto the table top. “He’s cheating on you, okay?” I shouted at the girl who stared back in a shocked silence. I turned to the guy, his confused face slowly growing angrier as he processed what I said. I could see that he was angry at my accusation, but fuming because it was actually true.
“Now, can you take you argument elsewhere? It’s grading!” I turned around with an angry huff as I walked away from them. I hadn’t taken my headphones out so I didn’t hear the guy call out to me. But, I did feel him grip onto my shoulder and whirl me around to face him.
“Who do you think you are?” his tone light and sarcastic screamed at me.
“Um, I don’t know.” I said with a wave of my hands, uninitiated. “An innocent bystander to your fight you butt muncher.”
“What are you,” he said with his hands still gripping my shoulder. “Like, ten?”
“What are you,” I mocked. “A wife beater?” I sneered down at his hands. “Because this hurts.” I wiggled my shoulder a fraction, trying to maneuver away from him.
He twitched and I felt like I struck a chord with him. “What the F***! No!” and then I gritted my teeth as the wave of a lie washed over me in a slow crawling electrical current. Suddenly, I was intimidated. Suddenly, I was scared at what this man might be capable of. But, this was a public place. He wouldn’t do anything, Right?
I looked back up into his eyes as the wave passed over me. I tried to keep my steady, hard and unintimidated gaze on him. But, I felt like it was slipping fast. What if he was a psycho and wouldn’t care that people were here as witnesses? “Let go.” I said through gritted teeth because it was actually becoming more painful- his grip on my shoulders.
And, that was when I felt a hand on my shoulder wrenching this guys hand off. I looked down as the gold hand pulled his fingers back. As this steroided guy’s arm followed the motion to try and relieve some pain. As his mouth dropped open into a gasp of surprise. And then, another fist was flying through the air, past my shoulder and straight towards the guys face. It connected sickeningly and I winced at the violent actions.
I opened my eyes and looked behind me to see a broad expanse of a chest lightly covered by a nondescript blue tee. But, I wasn’t able to look up at the saviors face as he was pushing me away from the guy and out the front door. I stumbled out from the quick and forceful thrust my savior gave me before turning around. And my breath hitched in my throat. He was handsome, very much so.
He looked about nineteen or twenty with his strong and defined jaw, the well concentrated gaze of his eyes, which were a beautiful stormy green, all dark and dangerous. He had a lithe body, finely compacted and sinuous with a surprisingly broad chest and shoulders. And he had light almond hair with copper glints streaked through it.
“Are you okay?” the stranger asked.
Instead, I was fixated on his self. He saved me and he was extremely good looking. All I could think of was “why?”
“What?” his eyes slitted even more as the exterior angles of his jaws pulsed slightly in annoyance.
I snapped myself away from his face and blinked once, thinking back to what I had even said. “Oh, yeah.” I commented before looking back up to him, ignoring his features completely. “Why did you intervene back there?”
“Because the guy looked like he was actually going to hit you.” He said simply. I pulled back at his answer. So black and white. No hesitation at all. “What,” he said lightly. “Never had anyone save you before?” he said it jokingly but I didn’t comment.
No, I wanted to say. No one ever has. I’m usually not important enough.
But, I didn’t tell him that; a complete stranger. I don’t want to come off as more of a loner freak than possible. The door to the smoothie shop opened up and out walked the guy that was punched. His shoulders were hunkered down and his face showed complete anger. “You a** hole!” he snarled, blood and spittle flying onto the pavement at the man’s feet.
From behind him, his meek girlfriend emerged, trying to sooth the beast. “Babe, it’s okay. It’s not worth it.” she said and patted his shoulder softly. I could see the fear in her eyes towards her boyfriend. And, I felt the same as her once again. This guy was actually really scary.
“Shut up, Kirsty!” and she did.
“Hey,” the guy who saved me called out. “What’s your problem?”
Instead of answering, the guy whipped away a slight trickle of blood from his mouth and looked back up with fiery eyes. “That was a cheap shot, Brah.” He commented with a chuckle. “It really was.”
“Dude, back off.” the guy who saved me said lightly, trying to show him that it was all done. That he needed to calm down before he was hurt once more.
The guy just snorted a laugh. Maybe he took some steroids, I thought randomly. He was massive in frame but short in stature. He seemed to only be my height, a measly 5’5”. But, he sure had gonads. He swung a quick punch to the guy who saved me. Luckily, my savoir dodged it easily. And then, the short guy seemed to become enraged by this slight defense. I had to give it to the guy that saved me. If I was him with all of his obvious brawling abilities, I would have hit the short guy by now. He was sure getting annoying… like a spoiled kid who was beaten in a, supposedly, fun game.
Finally, the guy who saved me went up behind the short guy and had him in a head lock. “Calm down,” he huffed out. But, the short guy didn’t. Instead, he acted like a freak’n animal. All snarls and red faced. He was absolutely crazy.
I heard the short guy call him a bastard once before passing out from lack of air. He slumped to the ground and the guy who saved me straightened. The short guy’s girlfriend or whatever she is, was by the smoothies glass window, crying. The guy looked to her before turning to me. “Your too much damn work, you know that?” he told me and scratched the back of his head while rolling his shoulders.
“I’ve maybe heard it once or twice…” he snorted once with a shake of his head before he turned away from me. “Wait,” he turned around to me. “Thanks, someday I’ll make it up to you for this.” I said and motioned to the heap of crying girlfriend and passed out short guy. It was a tad pitiful.
He turned back to me as someone else finally came out from a different store down the row. I guess now they decide to intervene, after the mess had finished playing out. “No, I’m quite sure that you don’t.” Then he turned to the person that came from out of the store and cursed slightly. I turned to see a girl that actually looked like my savior. Same almond hair and green eyes, except more feminine because she was a girl.
“Jonathan Emery Tate!” the girl called out sternly, even thought she was probably a lot younger than him. “What have you done?” she placed her hands on her hips and cocked one out and to the side as a punctuation.
My savior, Jonathan, looked about him with a faux confused expression. “What?” he said, “Me?” he placed a hand to his chest. “I don’t know anyone by Joe- nate- han?” he said the name like it was in another language, overly sounding it out. I gritted my teeth, prepared for the wave of a lie.
“John,” the girl shouted out to him but a smile was breaking across her features. “Stop playing around with me.” she ran up to him and hit his arm. He chuckled lightly. “You remember why we’re here? So, stop messing around, this is serious.” She chastised.
He rearranged his features once more. “But I am.” And then she raised her hand once more in the action of hitting him and he turned tail. “Abuse!” he shouted once as he turned to go. But, before he turned the corner of the smoothie shop, he turned back to me and waved slightly in a half salute.
But, I didn’t respond.
I was frozen in place. I had never experienced anything like this. This was foreign and new… and I had no idea what to do with this information. Because when John pleaded that he wasn’t ‘john’, it made no sound of being false. So, either he really wasn’t john and I let him get attacked, or, I lost the curse in the last few seconds.
I didn’t know whether to be happy or worried. Either way, today was going to be a day that I wouldn’t forget…
. . .
Resurrection of ‘Lie to Me’
you might be wondering why I haven’t posted this is forever… well, I was actually really confused on what I would even put into it. I have an ending but I had never had a middle… and, I guess that you could tell that I now have a middle. New character… what do we think? And what do you think happened with John and her lie detector? John is played by Jensen Ackled… <3 he’s too hot for words… so is Joseph Gordon- Levitt… <3 Pic on side is of them
Sage <3