When I Lied
Page 16
Shit.
He remembered. I ignored his question and so did Gretchen. I swallowed the guilt of being somewhat rude to Oliver but I needed to stave off any more drama for the night.
They stood with me at the door to my room.
“Kate, I think you owe me a favor, don’t you?” Gretchen’s brow furrowed and she glared at me. “I said we’re tired! I need to lie down!”
“No need to get loud, Lexi. Please let me call the driver. We shouldn’t expect Kate to go out of her way to accommodate us.” Oliver pulled his phone from his pocket.
“It’s fine. Put your phone away. You both are welcome to crash here.” I’d been faced with a decision to let them out of my sight and risk Gretchen seducing him or doing the grin-and-bear-it thing so I could keep an eye on her.
But, I needed to figure out how I could make sure he didn’t see the punk-rock polar bear comforter I’d described in such detail.
“Guys, can you just give me a second? My room is a mess.” I put my key in and turned, scooting in through the smallest space I could and letting the door shut and lock behind me.
Gretchen huffed then threw herself against the wall like a five-year-old.
“Love, we shouldn’t inconvenience Kate. Oh, wait! Oh, Lord. Do you think she has someone in there? Oh, Lexi. Let me call—” Oliver was doing the I think I’m whispering but I’m too drunk to realize my volume hasn’t actually changed thing.
Gretchen filled the airspace of my hallway with her drunken, sarcastic laughter. Her boisterous arrogant display echoed up and down my hall and more swearing came from behind closed doors.
“Sorry, that was just a really funny assumption. Kate’s a loner. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her with a guy. She’s alone in there, trust me.”
I flipped on the light, put my drinks in the fridge, grabbed the comforter off the futon and threw it into my closet and slid the doors closed tightly. I breathed through my sadistic thoughts of what I’d like to do to Gretchen at that moment. Causing her severe, barbaric pain would be just the beginning.
I was literally going to have to fall asleep immediately or I’d plot her painful death all night long. I opened my door and motioned for them to come in.
“You guys can have the futon. There’s a blanket and extra pillows underneath. The latch is on the side to fold it down into a bed.” I couldn’t stand that I’d not only coaxed Gretchen to pretend to be Lexi, but now I’d given them a bed to sleep in, together. IN THE SAME ROOM I WAS IN. My skin crawled with jealousy. But it was better than them sharing a bed in Gretchen’s room.
“Thank you, Kate.” Oliver walked over and kissed me on the forehead then took off his shoes.
I made it obvious that I had no interest in a slumber party of any kind by walking past them to my vanity, grabbing my extra iPod and stuffing the ear buds into my ears. I smiled at Oliver as I passed him again. He unbuttoned his shirt.
God help me.
I turned off the overhead light. The soft lighting at my vanity stayed on indefinitely because of my profound fear of the dark, so I wasn’t inconveniencing them at all; I knew they’d have enough light to get situated. I climbed under my covers, snuggled down into my stack of feather pillows and prayed sleep would come immediately.
I’d forgotten to grab a bottle of water so I didn’t turn on my iPod immediately to be able to hear when they were settled. But that meant I could hear their whispers. I heard them fluff their pillows and shake out the extra comforter. I had no intention of having any more contact with them, so I waited until they were silent. Hopefully asleep.
When all was quiet and I poked my head out from under my covers, for a moment I thought I was blind. I blinked hard. Stretched my eyes open as far as they would go. Blinked again. I flipped over onto my back and the only light in the room was the hint of moonlight that came through the cracks in my almost-closed blinds. I got goose bumps out of sheer panic that the room was so dark. But rather than risk waking them, I didn’t walk over to turn on my vanity lights. I crawled to the end of my bed, opened my fridge and grabbed a water bottle.
Just before the fridge door shut, I noticed a pile on the floor, next to the futon. From where I sat at the end of my bed and with only the light of my fridge, I was almost certain it was their clothes. I wondered how much of their clothes were thrown to the floor. I clenched my jaw so tight I felt it click and a sharp pain shot up the side of my face.
I took a long drink of ice-cold water then climbed back under the covers and smoldered. My chest ached, my breathing was rapid, I started to sweat and I wanted to scream. I tried to calm my nerves by taking my mind back to Oliver walking me to my door.
“Can I walk you to the door, Miss Green?”
“Kate? Are you having inappropriate thoughts about me again?”
“I’m kidding, Kate. It was a lovely night.”
“Darlin’, don’t you worry your little heart about me. I can take care of myself.”
“Sweet dreams, sweet Kate.”
I felt myself falling into the state of calm just before you leave the present and enter into sleep. It’s the moment that best defines the word “peace” for me.
And then there was a sound. A sound that made me cringe before I could even register what it was. I’d forgotten to turn on my music, and now I was realizing what a tragedy that one seemingly insignificant lapse would be.
A soft moan.
A kiss.
A quiet gasp.
The rhythmic sound of the joints of the futon being stressed.
Another quiet gasp paired with a deep moan.
Another kiss.
A hastened rhythm.
“Oh, Oliver.”
I hit shuffle on my iPod and cried myself to sleep for the second time in one night.
****
When I woke Saturday morning, my head pounded and I wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the sadness. I didn’t want to see them. I knew what they’d done. Nausea rolled around my belly and I knew it wasn’t the alcohol.
I fell in and out of sleep, my music still filling my head with melodies and lyrics that tried to take me to other places in my mind but failed miserably. I loved my dorm. It had been my haven. I had imagined I would live on campus for all four years. I wanted 26 Webster Hall to be my home in College Park. But now it was stained. Used. No longer my haven but just a reminder what one little white lie could do.
When my bladder told me I couldn’t stay in bed one minute longer, I slowly rolled over to see if they were awake.
But they were gone. Not a shred of evidence that they’d even been there. Everything put back the way they found it.
Gone. Like it never happened. But I knew it had.
Fourteen
I woke up to a text from Gretchen that made me want to rip her limb from limb.
Gretchen: So sorry about last night, Kate. I guess Oliver prefers alcohol to fruit punch.
The reference to the comment she’d made when we first started planning our project was enough to send me over the edge. I didn’t respond.
I spent most of Saturday studying for Monday’s Calc exam. I ate and moped around. The girls texted a couple times and came by to see if I wanted to go downtown for a little while but I told them to go along without me.
There was no doubt they sensed that something bad went down either during or after my date. They also knew it was too early to ask me to rehash it all. I knew it was only a matter of time before they came back to check on me. This was the only time that I longed for my zero-social-life days; if I wanted to be alone, I was alone. When the knock finally came from the other side of my door, maybe it was intuition but I knew it was them. My heart warmed, my eyes teared up a little and I silently thanked God for my girls.
“Kate, we’re having an intervention.” MacKenna smiled and kissed me on the cheek. The five of them walked in in single file and each held something in their hands. MacKenna had a fifth of vodka, Ally had shot glasses and napkins, Emily had two pizza boxes, Ha
yden carried bags of Doritos and queso dip, and Jules brought up the rear with a case of Corona.
I said nothing as tears streamed down my face but grabbed the polar bear comforter from the closet and spread it out on the area rug that hadn’t been vacuumed since I moved in in August. No one said a word and we all sat in a big circle, food and drinks in the middle. Everyone started passing what they’d carried in around the circle. Pretty soon we’d all done two back-to-back shots of vodka and I fished out my bottle opener from my top desk drawer so we each opened a Corona.
Emily raised her beer to the center of our circle and made a toast.
“Here’s to friendship. It’s like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth.”
We all cracked up. Emily had the best sense of humor and she didn’t have much of a filter. Typically what went through her head at any given moment would come out of her mouth the next. But she was as sweet as pie so her lack of filter was never crass or hurtful…just damn funny.
“All right, Kate. Spill it.” MacKenna grabbed a slice of pizza and motioned with her hand for me to start talking. I wasn’t sure what to do. A part of me wanted to tell them everything but that would just create a firestorm of “You have to tell him the truth!” Holding everything inside, keeping this relationship and the Gretchen twist to myself, almost made it feel like, at times, I could tuck it away and live in the moment. But, at the same time, I knew letting it all out would feel good. So, I decided to try giving them half of the story and see how that went over. My next dilemma…would I tell them about Lexi or Oliver? Those two halves colliding is what made my little white lie so big and heavy.
“Okay. I don’t even know where to start.” I took a deep breath and blew it out as a sigh.
“How about the beginning?” Ally. Always so logical. A rule-follower.
“Why don’t you start with who picked you up in the limo last night.” Jules. Always wanting the best part first. I watched her peel all the cheese from her slice of pizza and stuff it into her mouth all at once.
“I have an idea. How ’bout you write down the different parts to the story on small slips of paper. We put them in a hat and we go around the circle and each choose one. And you tell each part of the story that’s chosen. In the order it’s chosen.”
“Hayden! Lord! We are not in elementary school! But, your future students will love you!” MacKenna laughed hard.
I smiled at each of them sitting around my sorry ass on the floor. They didn’t have to be there. I didn’t ask them to be. They just were. They were true friends. I sucked in another deep breath and blew it out in a hiss, as if I’d just lifted a heavy barbell over my head and was about to let it drop. Symbolic, for sure.
“Catfish. The MTV show.”
“Love that show!” MacKenna was a TV junkie; I knew she’d know it. “It’s a documentary that follows people who have duped other people online and one or both of them falls in love with the other person. These two guys, Nev and Max, document how they help the people investigate, then they record the two people actually meeting.”
Everyone nodded, mouths full of pizza and chips.
I just sat there and waited for them to catch on.
“Wait! You need us to investigate the guy you think you like online?” Jules was ready.
“Not exactly.” I finished my beer, tossed the empty in my recycle box and rubbed my face hard with my hands. “I’m the fake person.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Hayden laughed, truly not believing me.
“I wish I was.”
“So, let me get this straight. You pretended to be someone else, snagged a guy and now need to tell him the truth?” Emily wiped her mouth with a napkin from the stack Ally carried in.
“Yeah, something like that.” I grabbed another beer. I could see how college students could become alcoholics during their four years at school.
“So, is that the guy from the limo?” Jules grinned.
“Yes.” I was fine with them asking the questions. All I had to do was answer. My heart raced.
“So, then he knows it’s you?” MacKenna’s eyebrows danced across her forehead as she tried to make sense of what I was trying to say.
“No, he knows me as myself. He knows me as Kate. He thinks someone else is the fictitious persona I created.”
“So, he is in love with you…and cheating on you…with you.” Hayden spoke what the rest of them were thinking.
“I’m not sure he’s at the love stage yet.” I wanted to rewind the conversation.
“For shit’s sake, Kate, just tell us. This twenty questions jizz is stupid!” MacKenna had had enough and I didn’t blame her.
“Guys, I’m not sure how much of this I want to tell you. Don’t take it personally. Right now it’s a giant web of deceit and it gets bigger by the day. I feel swallowed whole and helpless. And the thought of putting it all out there for you all to judge gives me so much anxiety.” Tears fell in my lap. Who had I become?
“I’m a little hurt that you’d think we’d judge you, Kate. You can’t imagine some of the things the five of us have been through over the last two years, but the last thing we’ve ever done is judge each other. Sisters stick together through thick and thin. We all do and have done stupid things; it takes a strong support system to get through those things sometimes. Please let us be that for you. We just want to help.” Emily was my favorite of the girls. I’d never say that out loud for fear of hurting the other four, but her sweet heart was one I never wanted to be without. I decided to start at the beginning and see how far I could get.
“I went to a small high school and all I did was study and get good grades. Some kids brag about how hard they partied in high school. Well, I could brag about my 4.6 GPA.”
“And if you hadn’t been such a smarty pants you wouldn’t have been placed in Webster and we wouldn’t even know you. So, thanks for not partying.”
“You’re welcome, Ally.” She leaned into me and hugged me with the arm that wasn’t holding another pizza slice.
“After graduation I started to daydream about what coming here would be like. The dorm life, the parties, the boys. I knew I had the studying and grades thing figured out but the rest of it was far out of my comfort zone, so I developed a fake online persona and got my feet wet with meeting people, flirting—you know, the innocent stuff. It just wasn’t something I could do under my own name and still have the freedom to explore.”
“So, a guy fell for you.” Jules tipped her head to the side, completely following along.
“Yes. And I assumed I’d never meet him. But here’s the thing. I stopped pretending to be someone else when he started opening up to me and our connection became more about real life than online flirting. The only thing that wasn’t me was the name he knew me by. And I guess I fell for him, too. But I never had any hope that we’d ever meet so I kind of guarded those feelings so it wouldn’t hurt when we never moved past the friend thing.”
“Makes sense. So far, I don’t see anything wrong with what you did. Sure, you pretended to be someone you weren’t but how many times do we do that in real life just to get through painful situations? We pretend to be strong in front of our peers but cry alone at night. We drink too much to fit in and then feel guilty about it later. You just chose a safer, albeit far more public, way of doing just that. It’s a coping mechanism.” MacKenna patted me on the knee and smiled.
“So, why can’t you just tell the guy you used a fake name for privacy reasons and then tell him your real name?” Ally’s solution would have been perfect three months ago.
“I should have, way back in the beginning.” I picked at my fingernails.
“Does this guy go here? Is that where the complication comes in?” Jules’s voice was soft and calm. It helped me breathe a little easier. They really weren’t going to judge me.
“No, he lives in Europe. But he’s here for work.”
“But, he’s not moving here, right? It’s not lik
e this is the love of your life. I’m not really following why you can’t come clean. Is it just because you don’t want him to be upset with you?” Not knowing the backstory put the girls at a disadvantage so I wasn’t offended at Ally’s question.
“He’s fragile. He’s been through a lot emotionally and for him to let his guard down and trust someone he barely knew was a really big deal. Now, for me to pull the rug out from under him almost four months later seems so cruel. Not to mention there’s someone else involved now that’s forcing my hand to shove the truth even deeper.”
There was a knock at my door. I froze. I felt him. My skin tingled and I shivered. I was so hurt by him for having sex with Gretchen practically right next to me but there was no way he could know that I’d been awake. So, how was I to react? How was I going to get him past the girls?
“You want me to get that?” Jules started to get up.
“No. No. No.” I whispered and waved my hands. Maybe if we just stayed quiet he’d go away. I just wasn’t sure how I could face him knowing he’d fucked Gretchen on my futon the night before. I reached over and touched the futon and immediately was aware of how much I wanted him to explain away what happened there.
“Hello? Kate?” He called out my name. And with the hint of an accent I was sure the girls knew it was “him”—they just didn’t know who he was.
“You’ve got to let him in. Come on. We’ll quick clean everything up and get out of here. You two need to talk. You need to tell him, Kate.” Hayden didn’t skip a beat and within seconds they stood before me with their food and drinks in hand.
“Please, Kate. I saw your light on; I know you’re in there.”
The girls mimicked having weak knees at the sound of his accent. Their eyes rolled and they clutched their chests and fanned themselves. I laughed a little which expelled just a small bit of nerves that had taken up residence inside me. The nervousness was always there. Lies make me nervous. I rolled up the polar bear comforter into a ball and stuffed it back in my closet.
There was no way to make this happen any less awkwardly. I’d open the door, the girls would see it was Oliver Walt I’d been duping all this time. They’d have to drool and ogle him on their way out.