Page 18 of Lying Hearts

“Don’t call me that! You had to know I was lying!” I feel like I’m twelve talking to an older sister who will never understand that she’s the pretty one and I’ll never go to the prom.

“I’m sorry… Annie… I…” Corinne trails off and she pulls the covers higher around her nakedness. She’s standing in the hallway looking at me helplessly. Her red lipstick is gone. Her sexy platinum hair is all fucked-up. Literally. Just looking at her makes it impossible not to imagine them together, and no longer able to hold it back, I vomit. All over the floor comes my bile of disgust. Disgusting bile. An oxymoron. And the moron is me.

I shake, gasping, and exhausted. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell it to someone who cares.” Wiping my mouth, I trudge into the kitchen for a towel and some cleaning products. Tears jump to my eyes. She stands there biting her inner cheek in worry as I bring the floor back to its formal glory, throwing the diseased towel into a plastic bag to be tossed in the hallway until morning.

“Annie…” she whispers.

“Please don’t. There’s nothing you can say that will make this okay.” A sob catches in my throat and I go inside my room and lock the door.

Tapping fingernails try their sweetest to interrupt my crying, and the soft sound is painful as she speaks through the door. “Can I come in?”

Someone gregarious and well liked like Corinne can’t possibly understand the double whammy she dealt me tonight. Not only did she sleep with him, she made me lose my faith in her, too. I’ve never felt more alone.

I could just forgive her and get on with my life, but I’m not made like that. I’m overly sensitive and my morals are high. I believe in integrity. It may not be easy for me to open up to a person, but when I do, I’m loyal to them to the end. I’ll do whatever they need. With this loss comes a loneliness I don’t want to think about, but can do nothing to avoid. I won’t lower my standards. I can’t.

“Please just leave me alone. Please.”

She waits a second and then whispers through the wood, “Okay.” Some time passes and I think she’s gone, but then I hear her say, “If it helps, he wasn’t very good.”

Through tears, I laugh sarcastically. “It doesn’t help. It doesn’t help at all.”

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