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Chapter 22 | Secrets and Lies

"She looks honestly upset, but then, I’ve learned that I can’t read her. The problem with a really excellent liar is that you have to just assume they’re always lying."

-Holly Black, Black Heart

• • •

"So, you are coming, right?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please. Please. Please. Pleeeasee?"

"For the last time Ben, N-O. No."

"Mallory." Ben glared at her.

"Ben." She returned his glare.

They were in the Math class with a substitute teacher, drooling in his chair. Luke, who sat behind the duo of best friends, looked at the two of them, his head bobbing from one to another.

"Mallory Millington, so you are telling me that my childhood best friend, my soulmate and the only girl I have ever loved won't come to my birthday party?" He said dramatically shaking his head.

"Wait, what?" Luke looked at him dumbfounded.

"Shh...I am just trying to do some emotional blackmailing." He whispered from the side of his mouth.

"Smart." Luke smirked.

"You do realise that I am sitting right here?" Mallory scoffed.

"Mallory, Ben is turning seventeen. A young man doesn't turn seventeen everyday except maybe Zac Effron." He smirked at the last part.

"Gee, Luke, that was so funny." Mallory told him sarcastically.

"What's up with you and parties? Huh?" He asked cluelessly.

"Yes, Mallory. Tell him. Tell him why you are so against parties. And if you cannot, well..." Ben rejoiced.

"You son of a bi-bachelor." She narrowed her eyes.

"I thought you were moving on. It's been years." He replied.

"You know, it's official. I am disowning you people." Luke pouted. "I know you both are childhood buddies or whatever, but still I thought that maybe, just maybe you would give me tinniest bit of affection, just a sliver of love. My mistake, I guess. This world cannot be trusted." He crossed his arms and sat with a dejected look.

"Gosh, who twisted your panties! Stop acting all melodramatic, dude." Ben laughed.

"Since, when did expressing yourself become melodramatic?" Luke pulled out his tongue.

"Oh! just shut up."

"No, you shut up."

"No, you shut up."

"No, you..."

"Do you realise you are juniors, and not in elementary school?" Mallory rolled her eyes.

"Look who's talking." Ben and Luke chorused.

After a few minutes of silence, Luke said, "And we, like friends, will straightway go together."

"What?" Ben asked confused.

"To the lunch. It's from Julius Caesar, you buffoon!"

"I never took you for the literature type." Mallory smiled.

"I am smart, ain't I? Like Shakespeare or Wordsworth or something." He winked.

"That every "like" is not the same, O Caesar, The heart of Brutus earns to think upon." Mallory replied grinning cheekily.

"Now that's what I call, 'Burned'! Nerd Style." Ben laughed at a pouting Luke.

• • •

"So, no matter how much I try to convince you, you won't listen. Would you?" Ben said pestering her while they were walking towards the parking lot.

"Nah."

"Great! I give up." Ben said raising his hands.

"Good for you." Mallory winked.

"But seriously, you would miss my party?"

"And here we go again." Mallory rolled her eyes.

"Tell me something? Is it because of that...uh...incident?"

Her eyes widened, as she stopped walking. "Wha-at?" She squeaked. Ben couldn't know about it. No one does. "What incident? No, nothing happened that night. How do you..." She shook her head. "He's lying..."

"What are you talking about, Melly? Who's lying?" He gave her a confounded expression.

"What are you talking about?"

"Your party...when everything happened?" He replied.

"Oh..." She sighed in relief.

"What did you think I was talking about?"

"Nothing." She smiled weakly. "Never mind. I just over reacted. Sorry."

"Are you sure you are okay? You look like you have seen a ghost or something?"

"No. It's nothing, really."

"Well. Okay." Ben shrugged. "Let's go then." He said taking her hand.

She nodded.

"Hey, look there." Ben said grinning. "Look who's over there."

"Who?"

"Your not-so-secret admirer." He winked.

"Pfft. Let's just not talk about it." Mallory said ducking her head and jumping on the passenger seat. "Let's go!"

"What? Why? Don't you gotta talk to him? Bat your eyelashes, laugh cheesily?"

"No one does that." Mallory rolled her eyes. "Besides I got something to tell you."

"Ooooh!" Ben cheered. "I sense some gossip. Come one girl, give me some juicy gossip. I was expecting something. I mean you haven't been talking to him for almost a week now." He said hopping onto the driver's seat.

"Benjamin Jones you are a forty year old lady trapped in the body of a teenager." She chuckled.

"Hey. Hey. Is my masculinity in question, here?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, shut up and drive!"

"Your wish, my command." He gave a mock salute and plunged the keys in the keyhole. The engine came to life and they drove off. When they were sufficiently far away from the school Mallory cleared her throat.

"So, would you speak up?" Ben asked eagerly.

"Yeah. It's quite an interesting story really." She said. "You remember how I went to that party with Andrew..." And she launched into her story.

• • •

(A few days ago)

"Andrew!" Mallory yelled as she rang the doorbell repeatedly. "Andrew. Open up. NOW!"

"What happened?" He said. "Is someone following us? Get inside, quickly!" He hissed.

She lifted the hem of her dress and stepped inside his house. "We need to talk?"

"Can't it wait? I am really tired." He muttered.

"No it cannot."

"What is it about?" He said, bending down to clear the couch which was littered with miscellaneous things like empty cans of coca cola, food wrappings, tissues, a dirty T-shirt, empty pizza boxes, contact lens spray, a couple of empty syringes, razor etcetera. He got a plastic bag and quickly began shoving everything inside.

"Emily Clout." Mallory said gravely. "What does the name mean to you?"

His hand froze mid air. "What? What did you say?" He turned around dismayed.

"Emily Clout." She repeated.

"I do not know anybody by that name." He said resuming his actions.

"Yeah? That's why you were all wide-eyed a second ago?" She demanded. "What are you playing at, Andrew? Or should I say Cole?" She hissed the last part.

"How the hell do you know Emily?"

"Answer my damn question first!" She yelled. "You told me about your sister. Emily's your sister. Isn't she? And why are you even lying about it?"

"Fine. Okay." He raised his hands defensively. "Let's say I do know her. But does that necessarily mean I am his brother?"

"You said 'The Beasts' killed your sister. I know Emily died because of them. It only adds up. And the other day, I saw this truck with 'eagles and foxes', the one in your garage, I saw it in the graveyard. And the person had visited Emily. And wait a second...that was the day I gave you a ride home and your car had broken down quite near to the cemetery." She concluded.

"So, you were the one who left blue tulips, the one who the florist told me about. And even her description matched to yours, only she kept talking about a green-eyed boy, but you..." She looked up. "...have black?"

Andrew looked at her silenced by shock and before he could speak, she resumed talking.

"B-But...you should have green eyes not black. Unless..." Mallory's eyes landed on the saline solution spray on the couch. "...unless you wear contact lenses. Of course. That's the only possible explanation. Emily had green eyes, you must have them too. That only makes sense!"

"Okay, so you think I am Cole? And that is because of all those ridiculous reasons? I mean, fine, I did know Emily. I accept it. But does that necessarily make me his brother?" He justified.

"Who are you then? A friend, if not family? How did you meet her? Because as far as I remember she had two best friends, one of them being me and other Ben."

"I met her in...uh...a family gathering." He said.

"So you were friends, then? Seriously Andrew? How many friends do you have? Do you fight dangerous criminals for all of them?" She said shaking her head in disbelief.

"She was your friend, too. Right? And you are doing the same thing. Aren't you?" He reasoned

"It's different. I haven't signed up myself for some elite gang. Besides, I only want them to have what they deserve. And to tell you the truth, I am doing it more for myself then her." She said.

"Antonio and others should have been sentenced, five to ten years under first-degree kidnapping, twelve years under attempted homicide and another twenty years under homicide, which sums up to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. But, due to lack of evidence and eyewitnesses, judge dropped most of the charges. They were sentenced four years under assault and battery charges. All I am trying to do is get justice. But you, you are practically putting your life at risk. Why?"

"Because I love her?"

"Romantically?"

He pressed his lips to a thin line. "Yes." He gulped. "I loved her romantically. That's exactly our relation. We were lovers."

For a second Mallory just looked at him in the eye. And then she laughed. She laughed humorlessly. "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. You are lying." Her face transformed to a serious expression. "You are lying and it's written all over your face."

"What? You don't think I can love someone?"

"Fine, okay. Let's say I believe you. No don't give me that look, I am speaking hypothetically." She said and his eyes narrowed. "Now, that explains why you would visit her, but the other part, the florist said something about a green-eyed boy. And Emily had those. As far as I know, so did her brother..."

"Yeah, I don't have them, because I am not, I am not her brother."

"Then, what is that solution doing their? You don't use it to clean windows do you?" She said wryly.

"The truth is that, my work sometimes demands disguises. And that is why I have all sorts of contacts and other stuff. If you didn't notice, I was wearing brown ones tonight."

He picked up a box from the table and sure enough it had practically contacts of every eye color you could possibly imagine.

Mallory shook her head. "No. No. You are lying. You cannot....you are not..."

"I lied. Okay? I lied about my sister. I was talking about Emily all along."

"And why did you lie exactly?"

"I..uh...I..." He was speechless.

"Andrew, you weren't lying then. But, you are lying today. I don't know why. But you are."

"Believe it or not. I love her. And she loved me. That's the truth."

"You are lying." She said retreating towards the door. "And I will find out the reason, eventually."

And she turned around while he stood there, for once in life, shocked to silence.

• • •

"Okay. So he tells you a story about his sister. Then you somehow figure out that Emily happens to be her. And when you confront him, he said it was all a lie and actually he loved Emily..." Ben tried to comprehend.

"Uh...Yeah..."

"Either he is telling the truth or he is screwed." He said pulling the car in Mallory's driveway.

"Do you think he is telling the truth?" Mallory asked.

"Maybe, he is. Who knows. Why don't you believe him?"

"I would have believed that he loved Emily but she loved him back, that's ridiculous."

"Mallory, you know that Emily kept a lot of secrets. You do know it."

"Yeah. But his story has a hell lot of loopholes. Don't you think?"

Ben shrugged. "I don't know. It could be true."

"You don't believe me. Do you?" Mallory said in disbelief.

"I do. But all I am saying is maybe you are a little prejudiced when it comes to Emily."

"Prejudiced? Seriously, Ben?"

"Hey, don't give me that look! I am just telling the truth." He raised his hands in surrender. "How do you know that she didn't have a secret lover?"

"I-I know, okay?" Her shoulders drooped, as she said more to herself than Ben. "She was my best friend. I just know."

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So...what do you think? Is Andrew lying? I think he is. What do you think? ;)

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-Ridhima