Lost In Lies

by Xavier Neal

  “Right,” she giggles as her boyfriend tugs her to keep moving.

  Once she’s out of sight, he sways his body closer to me, so his hips are touching mine as the beat from the stereo system knocks in our ears. Keeping eye contact, he opens his mouth to say something when someone shouts from across the crowd at him, “You’re gonna win that tournament!”

  Chuckling, he softly asks in a whisper, “Wanna know a secret?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you hear all of them congratulating me? Wishing me the best on this and that?”

  “It was hard not to.”

  “Fake people only wish you the best as long as the best benefits them,” he winks, causing me to raise an eyebrow. “An old quote I picked up.”

  How is it possible that I manage to find the only two guys on earth who seem to be able to quote random things like that off the top of their heads?

  Intrigued, I pull his hands off my hips and challenge him, “Give me another quote.”

  Nick’s smile spreads across his face, and I melt a little on the inside. “Don’t be overly self-confident with your first impressions of people.”

  Feeling as if that was some sort of jab at me, I’m not completely sure how I allow him to pull me on the deck, where he grabs a microphone. My heart jumps into my throat. I grip his hand tighter, stage fright kicking in like an old reflex I can’t do anything about.

  “Good morning, party people!” he announces as they cheer for him. “Is everyone having a good time?” They cheer again, and he smirks wildly, still clutching onto my hand.

  The amount of electricity that rushes across the crowd is intense and hypnotizing, similar to the way it was watching Justin work at the first party I ever attended with him, yet amplified by a thousand. My eyes scan over the sea of teens, cheering, swinging their hands up in the air for him, swooning like he is the president of the United States of America and this is inauguration day. It’s beautiful and intoxicating.

  With a chuckle, he nods, “Glad to hear that! I just wanted to take a moment and thank all you lovely ladies for joining me and all you dudes out there who can entertain those women I can’t.”

  The crowd laughs at him, eating him up, and for the first time, I see something that I didn’t see earlier. I see the point he was trying to make, the facade he was trying to expose to me, a perfect stranger, which is probably why he felt safe to let his guard down for just a slight moment. My attention stays fixed on him. His underlying expressions reveal this isn’t enjoyable for him—it’s a job. Being popular, entertaining his peers, basically having a press conference aren’t things he enjoys but tolerates. The loss of glimmer in his eyes and the painted smile, which was once charming and genuine, now betrays an inner arrogance and self-loathing.

  “Everyone raise your cups.” Once the crowd has done it, he says, “Live for the day. Drink till tomorrow. Get the girl tonight!” They giggle and cheer before chugging back, while Nick wraps his arm around my lower back and tips me backward, his lips coming close to mine. Fear rises in my heart and excitement in my eyes as he tips his hat so it covers our faces to give the illusion we’re kissing.

  While I sigh in relief, he mouths at me, “I’m more of a gentlemen than that.”

  “Good,” I mouth back.

  After a few more cheers, he moves the hat back to his head, slides me back up, and smiles widely as if he really had kissed me in front of the crowd of people.

  Nick turns to me and says, “Anything to add, beautiful?” After a beat, possibly being able to read the terrified look deep in my eyes, he attempts to save me with, “You know, aside from that being the best kiss of your life?”

  As cute and cocky as that last comment was it’s not enough to distract from the mic tilting my direction. Panic set in the moment I stepped on this stage, but I have to remember this will all be over in a few minutes. None of them will remember me, none of them will care, so I place a smile on my face and scream into the mic like his first lady, “Let’s give a ‘Hell yeah’ for another one of Nick’s great parties!”

  The crowd chants it, cheers, and the DJ begins to spin again. While laughing with Nick, I glance into the crowd, enjoying the feeling of what it would be like to be that famous amongst my peers, to be an overlord of a sort, worshiped like Athena, when I notice a set of eyes focused on me that I didn’t see before.

  Nick declares, “I have to show you something.”

  He leads me off the stage via a side set of stairs and around some of what I would call his fans as opposed to friends. Within a matter of moments, our path is blocked by my newfound family with my boyfriend, er, guy friend ... love interest, whatever name you want to give to it, Justin.

  “Well, hello there,” Peter grins from ear to ear, a familiar red cup of confidence in his hand.

  “Hi,” my voice coos back.

  “Friends?” Nick sounds excited to meet them.

  I let go of his hand to fold my arms across my chest. “Nick, meet Peter—”

  “So excited to meet you,” Peter tries to hold back his snickers. “Thrilled. Really.”

  Gritting my teeth at him, I do my best to continue, “Aiden, Eiden, Belle—”

  “Who is remarkably beautiful,” Nick compliments her, which makes her grin appear. “Has anyone ever told you that you have the glow of a modern-day Marilyn?” The smile stretches even more, “If I were a Kennedy, I would definitely make sure to stay clear of you ...”

  “Stop it,” she blushes.

  Glad she likes him, I try to finish, “And this is—”

  “Justin,” he extends his hand for Nick to shake while staring him dead in the eye.

  I move to Belle, who is on the outside of the line. She leans over to whisper, “Of all the guys you could’ve found, you not only picked up the most charming one in the party but the one whose party we crashed?”

  I scrunch my face, “I’m not good at this.”

  “Nope.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Nick acknowledges him. “A friend of Peyton’s is a friend of mine.”

  Justin stifles his chuckle, “You’re Peyton’s friend?”

  “For now. More, I hope, later,” his eyes wander to me, “but for now, I’m privileged to be friend.”

  “A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.” Justin eyes me.

  “I couldn’t agree more. You know, Tennessee Williams said, ‘Life is partly what we make it and partly what is made by the friends we choose.’” Nick’s quote seems to one-up Justin’s.

  Tension shoots through Justin’s body in a very obvious way, at least to me.

  “Every choice we make moves us closer to or further apart from something in life,” he retorts.

  “‘We make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.’ Thomas Merton,” Nick slips a hand into his shorts pocket.

  I tilt my head to whisper in Belle’s ear once again, “Are they really having a quote off?”

  “Dear God, I think they are,” she mumbles back.

  “Ever seen this happen before?”

  “Occasionally,” she says slowly. “But I’ve never seen Justin lose.” Her eyes meet mine and then get an unfamiliar glow, “Winner gets the girl.”

  Justin fires back, “It was once said, ‘Self is the only prison that could ever bind the soul.’”

  “‘Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.’ Aristotle. However, I believe the same can be said about love.” Nick’s eyes roll back around to me. “If you’ll excuse us, I promised Peyton I’d show her something.”

  Defeated, Justin’s jaw clenches as Nick grabs my hand to escort me away. Peter excitedly waves moments before I see a very painful look in Justin’s eyes, a look I haven’t seen since he came clean about where he came from and why he was with me, at least at first. Looking at him, I mouth, “I’m sorry.”

  Nick leads me into his beach-front mansion, the outside flushing into a lu
sh living room with floor-to-ceiling windows. The living area has white marble floors, white leather couches, and white walls with touches of warm browns to spruce the place up. I admire the woodwork furniture that has seashell imprints carved in them, the framed artwork from some of my favorite artists, aside from my father of course, and the hints of soft yellow, like the fan blades above and pillows on the couches. As we head toward the stairs, a few feet away from the seating area, I glance over to admire the kitchen, where I imagine many tasty treats must be waiting. I can’t wait to get in there.

  What am I doing? I mean, I know it’s my job to entertain Nick to an extent, but I could just as easily find a way to excuse myself right now and relocate to Justin. After all, he must be missing me. Well, he does miss me, right? You know, now that I think about it, I’d been sitting with my ill-gotten snacks for a while. He didn’t seem to want to rush right over to find me. What if he really was interested in that girl?

  “This way,” Nick’s hand folds into mine as we take the set of stairs on the right. My attention settles on the parallel set of stairs leading to the same common balcony area upstairs. I’ve given up everything for Justin, but what has he given up for me? What if he’s still conning me just to make sure I deliver on my part of the Lost Boy deal? Justin and Peter go way back—they could be toying with me. Well, maybe it is time to look out for number one—just a little bit.

  My hand slides off the smooth railing. I’m doing my best not to appear starstruck by the amount of expensive architecture I’m surrounded by, but I’m having a bit of a hard time. We veer off to the right, passing several closed doors and stopping in front of the fifth one. Nick opens the door and reveals an oversized room with flat screens on both sides of the walls, playing live feed of his entire house.

  “Is this your security room?” I look at the various groups of people moving in front of the camera lenses.

  Nick strolls pass the two sets of desks that linger under each set of flat screens, where remotes and phones rest, past two black leather chairs that contrast the white room, and over to the bay windows that overlook the entire party.

  I walk over to him, taking a very queenlike stance, and fold my arms across my chest. His tongue grazes his lips, and he says quietly, seriously, “All the people, all the smiles, the fake hellos, the fake congrats, they all mean nothing to me.” I watch as a group of girls plays a game of volleyball against a group of guys on the other end of the party. “You see, it doesn’t matter if I’m there or not. They don’t really care. All they’re looking for are a few moments to forget about the misery they’ve come to live in—a few minutes away from the pressures of college applications, their parents’ drinking and coke addictions. It’s just a few moments to forget who they are, but the funny thing is ... how can you forget who you are if you have no idea who that is in the first place?” This profound thought is followed with, “You can’t. You just continue to spiral into an abyss until you decide to get off the hamster wheel and do something different.”

  That, I can relate to. I may not have had parties to run away to, but being lonely with no friends sure did feel like an abyss, and now that I have them, it feels great to be doing something different.

  “And that’s why I merely say a brief hello at these things and then return here to watch, to observe, to make sure I don’t fall into the abyss everyone else has.” His face turns to me, his eyes with a sepia color painted in them, “A beautiful monster.”

  “A beautiful monster,” I repeat the words, which touch me at heart, knowing that’s what my own life is going to become—fun, whimsical, enjoyable, but a monster that has to be fed with theft and who knows what else. Ugh, what was I thinking when I jumped ship—literally—to join the Lost Boys? Now that I think about it, I could be Justin’s beautiful monster. Am I just a distraction from Justin’s own desperate abyss? Nick is not a Lost Boy, but he’s the kind of lost boy that, right now, seems life a relief. “Am I the only one who knows about this place?”

  “And my best friend,” he shrugs, walking away from the window. “Drink?”

  “No, thank you,” I pass, “but I’ll take a tour.”

  Extending his hand, he smirks, “It’d be my pleasure.”

  After a breathtaking tour of his mansion, we end up back in the kitchen, posted up close to the mixers, joking about different foreign dining he’s experienced (how I would never eat things like shark fin) and laughing at the sight of the girl he was dodging pacing outside the glass wall like a puppy who just can’t get picked at the pound. Before I realize it, time has slipped away from me as well as Justin from my mind. Clearly, I’m not on his. After all, he hasn’t tried to steal me away since our first meet up. Maybe hanging with Nick isn’t a bad choice. So what if it is—I’ve made worse.

  Leaning against the countertop, with my elbow resting on it, I nibble on a hot, fresh-baked pretzel while watching Nick as he plays with a coaster. He’s going on and on about how ice cream will never possess the same flavor it did as when he was a kid when abruptly he stops, leans in closer to me, and asks, “So, Peyton, if you had to eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

  “Oh, that’s a tough one,” I put the last part of the pretzel in my mouth, licking the salt remains off my fingertips in a less-than-classy way.

  “Let’s narrow it down, then. The fruit you would want to eat for the rest of your life?”

  Without hesitation, I sigh and turn my body so we’re facing the same direction, “Strawberries.”

  “Do you like them dipped in chocolate?”

  Feeling my heart melt, I place both of my elbows back on the countertop and rock on my toes, filled with nervousness. “Love them that way.”

  “Ever had it with champagne?” Seeing the shake of my head, he scoots over and leans in closer, “By candlelight, with soft music playing, staring into the eyes of someone you just want to press your lips against?”

  My lips quiver for a response. Then someone clears his throat, breaking up the tension between us. We turn to see Justin, Aiden, and Belle coming into the house. Immediately, I scoot over and stand up straight.

  “Interrupting?” Belle purrs curiously.

  “More or less,” Nick smirks, licking his lips.

  “Bathroom?” Justin asks, the color in his face draining.

  “To your right,” Nick points to a small hallway past the wall of windows.

  “Thanks,” he says, slowly backing in that direction.

  Nick turns and places his back against the counter as Belle and Aiden join us. “So, which one of you brought Peyton?”

  “That’d be me,” Belle raises a finger and attempts to smirk.

  “Then, I have you to thank,” he takes her hand and plants a kiss on the back of it. “For I shall treat her like an angel and hope she’ll show me heaven.”

  Belle awes as Justin rounds the corner in time to hear the quote, which informs me that he didn’t really have to use the restroom. He rolls his eyes, and stealthily strolls around in the living room.

  The conversation fades as my attention focuses on Justin, who has a very devious look on his face, like he is indeed up to no good. Occasionally, I turn my face to appear as if I’m part of the conversation, but I watch as he taps various spots on the couches and love seats, lifts up corners of the rug, and feels the insides of the lamps on the side tables. Confused, I continue to watch, giggling when Belle does, like a cue to pay attention for that moment, before returning to babysit Justin from afar. Nick places his hand on top of mine, which instills a bit of anxiety inside of Justin, who glares before opening a drawer at the side table. Pulling out a black leather Bible, he taps it gently several times before opening it past the first few pages and to a hollowed-out opening. Proudly, Justin pulls out an envelope marked “For Emergencies Only—This Means You, Dubs.” He quietly slides out a wad of cash, flashes it at me, along with his smile, folds it, and slides it into his pocket. Quietly, he places the Bible back as if had never been removed.
My eyes widen as I shake my head back and forth, which attracts Nick’s attention.

  He glances over his shoulder to see Justin heading our way. “Nice restroom. A city theme in a beach home? Clever.”

  “Thanks,” Nick nods and turns back around.

  Justin makes a head motion that they’re ready to leave, so Belle speaks up, “Hate to say this, but I have to steal her away.”

  “Oh,” Nick strokes the back of my hand. Staring into my eyes for a moment, he asks, “Do you mind if I have a minute alone first?”

  “One minute,” Justin speaks up, following Belle and Aiden down a small hall out the front door.

  He tilts his head, putting Justin’s attitude out of his mind, “So Peyton, thank you again for saving me from Barbie—”

  “Her name’s really Barbie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “No, I’m serious. Barbie Mertelle.”

  “Barbie Mattel?”

  “Mer-telle.” His overpronunciation causes me to laugh. Chuckling with me, he says, “And thanks for making what was going to be another boring party into anything but.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So, can I get your number?”

  While prior to my newly adopted lifestyle, I would’ve flipped and tripped all over myself that someone like him, someone so popular and so sweet, was interested in me, I know that these are different times—not to mention I don’t actually have a phone. I bite my bottom lip, “No.”

  Taken back for a second, he trips over the word, “Re-re-really?”

  “Am I the first girl whose ever told you no?”

  “Honestly, yeah.”

  I toss my head back in a bit of a laughter, “How about this? You can give me yours.”

  Nick uncomfortably adjusts his black tank top, debates with himself for a moment, and eventually sighs, “All right, I’ll put my number in your cell phone.”

  “I don’t have it on me.”

  “Really?”

  “Sorry, but this thing didn’t come with pockets,” I point to my top. “The ones on the shorts are for looks.”