Page 81 of The Lies We Steal

Slinging my stuff into my passenger seat as I jump into the driver’s side, starting my vehicle and flinging gravel behind me as I tear out of the driveway. Hoping I smash a window or two in the process.

I don’t breathe until I’m off the estate and speeding down the road adjacent to my house. When I’m sure they can no longer hear or see me.

I stopped feeling sorry for myself after I met the boys. When I was showed that family isn’t who you’re born with. It’s who you’d kill for. That even though my parents and brother are like living with actual demons, I still had the guys.

We were six and at a country club summer bash with our families. That’s the first time I met them. When I found Rook and Silas trying to set off a small firework, while Thatcher distracted anyone who walked by.

Three boys who all came from wealth but were still searching for the chaos in life. Needing the anarchy to cope with the horrors at home, in their minds. Even at that age. These people who wouldn’t view me differently or try to change who I was, three people who took me how I was and made me embrace who I am.

We never made each other hide. We saw the good, the bad, and the worst.

Underneath all the trouble, the torment, the evil, we were just boys who’d been broken. Innocent children who were thrown into this world with no protection. They gave us no choice, not really.

So now, the monsters protect each other.

And only each other.

Briar

The month of October had begun to fade away as quickly as it arrived. The halls were decorated for the occasion, everything sporting something spooky or orange. Carved pumpkins in the commons, puny lines written on the chalkboards.

Fall had fully wrapped its arms around seaside Oregon, making it impossible to walk outside without a jacket and as Halloween approached, the less excited I became.

Finals were already posted for all of my classes, all of them somewhere in the first week of December which meant I was already studying for them. November would be nothing but flash cards and highlighters.

I used to love Halloween.

Not the dressing up, but because of the Syfy’s Thirty-One Days of Halloween. Curling up on the couch after school with my parents with a bag of candy corn and popcorn to watch old horror films. All of us laughing at the shitty graphics or the cheesy plots. There wasn’t much that could beat that.

This year I’d barely watched any of them.

My life felt enough like a thriller movie as it was.

Then there was this ball that was coming up next week. I’d always wanted to try dressing up in a fancy dress, because it wasn’t something I’d been able to do before. But knowing I was only going to just disappear seconds after it started just to help four people I couldn’t care less about, well it took away the fun.

Even when Thomas gave me money to go shopping for a dress. Even after Lyra and I had picked them out, I still couldn’t make myself excited for this. Vindictively, I hoped I couldn’t get into the safe or there was an alarm so they would get caught.

On the other hand if they got busted, so would I. They would get a slap on the wrist and I’d be expelled. Lyra had been right from the start, they were untouchable here. Years and years of reputation built off their last names made punishing them impossible.

“True or false, a recursive function must have some way to control the number of times it repeats.” Lyra asks from across the library table, a Twizzlers hanging from the side of her mouth as she leans back in her chair, the legs lifting off the ground a bit.

I rest my head on my hands as I look down at the table, “True.”

“Correct! Another one right for the math whiz.” She announces, tossing the flash card onto the pile in front of us. We sat across from each other, both of us with open laptops and at least three books apiece open, notes, pens, highlighters. We’d thought mingling finals studies into our time made sense, until we were trying to focus on three things at once while trying to write four-page papers.

How is it that I’m a math major and I’mstillwriting fucking papers?

I pick up one of the blue index cards, “Tell me the lipids structure.”

Lyra was majoring in entomology, of course, with a minor in biology. When she graduates she wanted to do clinical research on how certain insects may have potential medical significance.

When she told me I thought she was a little crazy, but then I thought about how snake venom is used in some heart medications, so why couldn’t we use insects?

“Monomer, glycerol and three fatty acids. Elements include carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.” She chews a piece of the red twisty candy, swallowing, before I nod.

“Do you even need to study?” I arch my eyebrow, smiling.

“Probably not,” She shrugs, throwing her candy at me. It hits me in the chest causing us both to laugh.

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