If You Tell a Lie

by Lucinda Berry

It was the best story and even better because it was true. Mostly, anyway.

I nodded. “It was, but even though I’m young, I’ve been through a lot in my life. It’s made me so much more mature than other people my age.”

this girl is SUCH a pick me lmao

It’s not like Blakely actually physically killed Jared.

She got in the room before I did, though. It was only a few seconds—maybe a couple more—before I got there, but we didn’t tell anyone that part of the story. Not even the other girls. Blakely was with Mr. Crosby when Regina burst through the door.

And to this day, I still couldn’t tell you who made it.

I couldn’t say it to Blakely, though. I didn’t have the courage to stand up for myself or anyone else back then. Plus, I was too scared of my own secrets. Because that summer was also the summer I figured out I was gay, and I would’ve done anything to keep people from finding out. Absolutely anything. It was pure survival.

I was so afraid of my friends finding out and thinking I wanted them. Like somehow because I liked girls, that meant I liked all girls.

You should’ve seen Blakely’s face tonight when I told them I was married to a woman. Complete shock.

I had to know what happened to Regina.

Blakely shrugged. “I just figured she’d go to jail forever. People don’t take kindly to mothers that try to kill their babies.”

Had she grown any emotional maturity over the years?

probably not lmao

What would they think of how I looked? Even after all these years, that’s still what I cared about. And I hated that I did!

Do you know how freeing it was to live in a world where you didn’t give a fuck what people thought about you? Especially as a woman? There’s no better feeling on the planet.

What a surprise. All the child prodigies that everyone thought were destined for greatness were mostly mediocre.

But she wasn’t supposed to be average. None of us were. We were supposed to be spectacular.

How do you just go along with something you know is so wrong?

Nothing felt real. And when nothing’s real? Well, then, you can pretty much convince anyone of anything. And maybe that’s exactly what happened to me.

Yesterday, when she asked if I noticed the way he brushed against her shoulder when he walked by us at lunch and I told her that I hadn’t, she’d been pissed off at me for the rest of the day.

But yes, I knew. She was a minor, and he was an adult.

Truthfully, he seemed kind of annoyed with Blakely. That was the one thing I noticed when they were together. She was so obvious about trying to get his attention. This morning she even stopped to tie her shoe in front of him, making this big dramatic production of bending over to do it. I’d caught his face as he tried to quickly move around her, and he looked so uncomfortable. The same way he looked uncomfortable whenever she volunteered. And she volunteered to help him with everything. She was the first person raising her hand for things, no matter what.

Honestly, I was a little embarrassed for her, but I couldn’t say that to her.

“I’ve decided tomorrow is the night I’m finally telling Jared I know what’s going on between us. I’m making things official.” Grace wrinkled her forehead. “What do you mean?”

um yes grace my thoughts exactly

He was stunningly gorgeous. So was his wife. The one person Blakely kept forgetting about. But I couldn’t. Every time Blakely brought him up, that’s all I thought about. His wife and twin boys at home.

Something was weird with Grace this year. Like she was here with us, but not really.

“What’s the plan?” Meg asked, and I wanted to tell her to be quiet. To stop encouraging Blakely.

I hadn’t noticed the way he was with Blakely, but I’d noticed the way he was with Meg. Everyone had. If there was anyone he liked, it was her. She was the one he paid the most attention to.

Grace turned around and rolled her eyes at me. She climbed up on her bunk and pulled the book she was reading out from underneath her pillow. I stood there for a second longer, staring at Blakely, so animated and lively. Trying to figure her out, like I’d done so many times in the past.

But there’s something worse than being bullied, and that’s being invisible.

But I wasn’t sure we were all that much alike, even though we’d both lost our moms.

We both have holes in our hearts now, but hers is bigger. Much bigger. And, I don’t know, there’s just something different about her. She was missing something else, and as I stared at her again tonight, I couldn’t help but have that feeling I’d get sometimes.

She was messing with his life. He had a real life with a wife and children. Like maybe she was a little bit more broken than me. She might even be more broken than all of us. My only hope was that he’d reject her and this whole thing could be over. Except what would happen if you rejected Blakely? I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

She made it sound like she wasn’t all that interested in Mr. Crosby. Acted like it was the other way around and Mr. Crosby was the one throwing himself at her.

I just wanted this to be over with. Despite what I told Blakely, there was no way Mr. Crosby was hooking up with her, or any other girl here, for that matter. He was totally committed to his wife and his kids. They were all he talked about during our lessons, besides tennis. You couldn’t feel that way about somebody and cheat. No way. Hopefully, once she saw that, she’d move on to somebody else.

Grace gave me a dirty look. She’d been mad at me all day. Said I was ruining camp by being so caught up in all Blakely’s drama, but Blakely was a force and she knew it. Nobody wanted to make her mad. What would happen if we did? She was the boss around here.

She snapped her fingers. “I know exactly how I can!” She grabbed my arm again and pulled me closer to her. “Meg will take a picture.” “I’ll take a picture?” I whipped around to face her. So did Grace and Thera.

Neither of them looked thrilled to be there. Grace looked angry, and Thera looked like she was going to be sick.

Those little snots ruined my life.

That was the day my world changed forever.

I didn’t know there was anything to hide. I had no idea what was going on. All they said was that there’d been an incident down at the camp with one of the girls.

I’d spent the first ten years of my childhood having them treat me like trash because I grew up poor in a single-wide trailer on the southeast side of Austin.

But I’d never forgotten. Not how they’d treated me, or my roots.

The other thing I knew about rich people? They protected their own.

Blakely never cared about what anyone else thought. She only thought about herself.

Dad said resentment was like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die, but he could say that stuff because he was an adult.

He’d never had eyes for another. Still didn’t. “Your mama’s got my heart forever, bug,” he said unapologetically any time I tried to push him to date.

But those were the parts of me I shoved down. Nobody wanted to see or hear that. That’s the other thing you learned when you lost a parent so early. Even though everyone says they want you to tell them how you feel, they don’t really mean it. They’re lying. Everyone wants you to be okay, and they definitely don’t want to hear any sad or dark parts. They want to talk about my mom dying like God needed her as an angel. Really? Like I’m pretty sure I needed a mom more. But, of course, I didn’t say that. It’d make people mad. Hurt their feelings, and I hated that. But that’s why Dad and I were different.

I lived in a world without God, and sometimes that got scary. A world without God was just like you’d imagine it to be—dark. Real dark.

“Right? And I hate the way Meg just acts like everything Blakely says is so brilliant. Like really, Meg? We know you’re lying because Blakely is acting like the biggest idiot about all this.” For a second, I felt guilty for talking bad about them and worried she might tell Blakely, but she quickly agreed with me. “I’m so over Blakely always wanting attention too,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s the only reason she even brought the boys in on this, you know? So that as many people as possible could know what she was doing and be watching her. It’s totally working too. She has everyone eating out of the palm of her hand. Did you see the way Jacob was looking at her yesterday when she walked by after lunch? He was practically drooling. So was Sean. What if they tell someone about tonight? Sure, we might be able to trust Clint, but we never even talk to those guys. We have no idea if they’ll keep quiet about everything. Has she thought of that?” Of course she hadn’t. I quickly realized that I hadn’t thought about it either.

Grace and I giggled right along with them. We might not agree with what they’d done, but that race was exhilarating.

Of course Blakely was rich. I would’ve been shocked if she wasn’t. Looked like she went from a rich daddy to an even wealthier husband, if this ginormous house was any indication of things.