Page 31 of Surviving Lies

I leaned down, close to her ear, in an attempt to calm her down. “Bec, let’s head somewhere to talk for a minute, OK? I don’t like seeing you like this, and I don’t want to leave with you crying.”

She nodded as she moved against me in a move to leave with me, somewhere.

I looked around the cafeteria in a panic, realizing there wasn’t anywhere to talk privately. But then Lanie came to my rescue.

“There’s a bench out that door. It’s not that secluded, but I don’t think many people will pay attention to you outside.” I nodded as she pointed to a door on the other side of the cafeteria. Becca started walking first, and I followed closely behind. We found it exactly where Lanie said it would be, and it even had the shade of a tree over it. Becca sat on one end, me on the other.

And then there was silence.

I leaned forward against my thighs, my hands between my knees, and looked her way. She was watching the people walk by, her gaze lofty as it focused in the distance.

Then I realized I needed to be the one to start this. “Bec, what you saw when you walked in was nothing. Kayla means nothing. She’s already moved on to talking to Jake, if you haven’t noticed,” I said, motioning with my hands back toward the cafeteria. “She didn’t even realize we left the table.”

She turned her head a little toward me, though her eyes were on the ground. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. As she rested her chin atop her knees, she let out a small sigh, almost like a small swoosh of air, from her mouth. Eventually, she turned her head to look at me, her cheek now resting on her knees. I could see the remnants of tears in her eyes as they sparkled from the wetness in the sunshine.

She was beautiful even when she was sad.

“Ty,” she started, “I have no right to be mad at you for what I saw.”

And even though I knew that, for some reason hearing those words, again, made them harder to swallow. Maybe it was because of the new development in her life. The new “person” in her life. I rubbed my hands up and down along my face and then through my hair to force myself not to respond to her words. Nothing I would say would make any of this any better. She looked over at me, full on, expecting me to talk, though.

“Can I ask you something?”

She nodded.

“Is there still anus, Becca? I need to know if there’s anything worth me fighting for.” I slid down the bench, closer to her, but not knowing if she was ready for me to touch her. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes. I’ll give you the space you need, anything. I’m not ready to give up fighting for you, but I need to know how you feel. Do I still have a chance? Withhimin the picture?”

Then she looked away.

She wouldn’t look at me or answer me for a few very long minutes. Eventually, her head turned in my direction. “Ty, until I walked into the cafeteria today, I think I would’ve said no, you don’t have a chance.” And then her eyes filled with tears again. “When I saw you sitting at that table with Kayla, fuck. I saw red.” She looked away from me, wiping her cheeks as the tears fell. “And I have no right, not with what I’m doing. And you and me, we’re not together. You can be with anyone you wanna be with.”

“But I wouldn’t, Bec ...” But she interrupted me.

“Yeah,I know,” she said. She was hiccupping through her tears. It took everything in me to not take her in my arms, but it felt like she needed to keep talking. “And that makes me feel even shittier that I’ve already moved on.”

Those words.

She said she moved on.

Fuck. I couldn’t breathe.

I needed to do something, say something. I abruptly stood up to move closer to her, and her head snapped toward me when I did.

“Becca,” I started.

But then I froze. The truthful words were on the tip of my tongue – and yet I still couldn’t say them. Instead, more lies came out.

“When I was in high school, I had a long-term girlfriend for, like, a long time.”

Becca’s eyes went big at my declaration, and she thought that I was finally giving her what she wanted. I felt like a complete asshole.

But I kept going.

“We were together for four years. Her name is Kelly.” Not a lie, but I knew I wasn’t setting myself up to tell her what I needed to. “My parents liked her at first, but, um, then our relationship became complicated. And it interfered with my grades.” Becca’s gaze hadn’t left mine as I spoke. Her attention clung to every syllable, like she was hoping she would get all the answers she was looking for. “I started failing some classes, and I needed tutors, a lot of tutors. It cost my parents a ton of money. If they didn’t do that, I probably wouldn’t be in college.”

I stopped talking. I couldn’t believe how easily the lies were coming from my mouth. But the saddest part, as I looked at Becca, was she was believing every word I said.

“They told me I had to end things with her. I told them I did” – I paused – “but we were still seeing each other. And then they found out. She and I ended it before we left for college, but by then their trust in me was gone. My relationship with my parents was not in a good place.” Becca was with me, her eyes still on mine. “They told me that if I was heading off to college and wanted them to pay for it, I couldn’t be in a relationship.”

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