Loving the Liar

Ella

Taste of Metal - Henry Morris

The bloodcurdling scream of someone being murdered is like nothing I’ve heard before.

During those long, horrifying seconds, only the sounds and smells stick with me.

The gasping of her emptying lungs. How she chokes on her blood with dire gurgling noises I will never forget.

Blood smells strong. So strong I can practically taste it in my mouth, dying along with her as crimson liquid spills from her lips. A cough and it splatters on my face.

The images don’t stay. They’re flashes of blurriness my brain already tries to erase. To protect me from.

She’s on the ground. I know she is because I am too, kneeling next to her on the forest soil.

She’s dying.

There’s mud and blood in her black hair. That I notice. And her hands come to scratch her throat, her bloody lips. She’s ripping into her skin, coughing over and over again.

She’s dead before I get myself out of the haze.

I can already see the headlines.

College queen bee turns out to be a murderer.

Is this how I’ll go down? For the murder of the woman who had become my ex’s new girlfriend?

What was the point of becoming picture-perfect, of being the popular, flawless girl if my downfall all comes down to this? The murder of my enemy.

My left fist tightens around the note in my hand, hopelessness growing within me.

It’s just a tiny, bloody, ripped piece of paper carrying simple words.

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

Ella

tired of California - Nessa Barrett

Two months earlier…

In the future, I will look back at this call and realize it’s what started my downfall. But tonight, as I watch my phone ring through blurry eyes, I know nothing of the mistake I’m about to make.

My four best friends and I sit in a circle around a fire pit, enjoying the last summer party before going back to college. The August air makes our skins sticky, and the slight breeze from the night is a relief on our hot bodies.

People party inside my friend Alex’s house, but the five of us separated from the crowd and walked to the lake. It’s glistening from the moon and the sky turning a royal blue, leaving the pitch-black of the night behind.

It’s not always fun being popular. We’re used to it, but as someone who’s worked so hard for that status, it’s exhausting. Especially when it’s become my entire personality. People are in my face, watching my every move.

I look down at myself and the light blue bikini I’m wearing. I’m covering the bottoms with a sparkly beach skirt I tied around my waist. It’s gorgeous, and everyone complimented me about it. None of them know I’m wearing a beach skirt to hide the scars on my upper thighs. None of them know that despite starving myself all day so I could look good in a bikini, I still felt my stomach wasn’t flat enough and that I needed something to hide it. I sucked it in all evening. So hard that I have cramps from doing so.

Perfect clothes. Perfect, humble thank yous and smiles. Perfect tits, perfectly toned body. Everything people see is perfect, perfect, perfect.

It’s easier not to pretend with my friends. So, at the end-of-summer party, we always separate from the rest and hang out together so we can be our true selves.

I take another sip of whatever cocktail I made in my solo cup, licking my numb lips and tasting the sweetness. I’m not too sure what I’m drinking anymore, but the world is spinning in the best way, my brain cloudy from alcohol, joy, and love. The excitement of friendship flows through my veins as my friends laugh around me.

I’m smiling too, not sure what for.

I’m happy.

Or at least I was until my phone started ringing.

A five a.m. call probably means my ex is drunk—or maybe pretending to be. I’m not sure I want to hear a tirade about him regretting breaking up just so I can get my hopes up. Down the line, I know the truth. He’ll stay with his girlfriend, and I’ll regret letting him keep me close. A quick call every now and then means I’ll continue hanging on. So toxic. So us.

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten one of those. Since last Christmas. Eight months for something that used to be regular feels like a long time. And I had finally stopped longing for them like a stupid broken-hearted girl.

I was truly broken-hearted. The kind that rips you from the inside out. Every night it stops you from falling asleep, replaying moments of nostalgia, and every morning it drags you back to the abyss the second you’re conscious. It twists inside you when you hear his name, and it stabs you to near-death when you think of him alone. And when you’re bleeding and ready for it all to end, for a never-ending sleep, it keeps you alive just enough to suffer.

That kind of heartbreak.

I could barely maintain appearances.

So, of course, the calls didn’t help me heal, they just kept that constant, craved toxicity going. Because that was what we were. Destructive. Suicidal. Meant to break.

But God, those calls felt so good. The tiniest hint of a drug to an addict that’s been sober long enough to be proud but not long enough to be healed.

Just a little. It won’t change anything.

It always did, kept me dependent.

My therapist told me to write my ex a letter whenever I felt it was necessary. A way to let things out. On paper, safely. Just make sure I never send them. I couldn’t write letters, but I wrote a few sentences every morning. It relieved me to talk to him every day.

The last note I wrote was a week ago.

I think I’m over you. I’m sorry.

But I don’t truly think I’m sorry about it.

Tonight, I’m ready to drunkenly shout, “What the fuck? Chris is calling me.” Rather than hide it from my friends.

But I know how the conversation will go.

Peach will throw her red hair behind her shoulder and send me a death stare. Don’t even think of answering it. He’s calling because you posted a picture of you and Matias on your story earlier tonight.

Matias and I aren’t even a thing. We fuck from time to time because he’s halfway decent at it, and I’m a way for social climbers to get to the top. Fuck the queen bee and become a subject in her court.

People love hanging out with me. And if I don’t want to acknowledge them, they hang around me until I give them the time of day.

Ella Baker asked to borrow my pen! Wow. Tell your diary about it.

But back to my current problem—the phone ringing on my lap, and how it would be a bad idea to accept it.

My friend Wren—currently dragging Peach to the lake to throw her in the water—would look at the ringing phone, shrug, and shake his head. He wasn’t the biggest fan of Chris when we dated. They’re too similar. Quietly dominating. Perfect on the surface, monsters deep down. He never bought the gentleman act.

My sweet girl, Alex, would hesitate, feel bad for him, even though there’s nothing to feel bad about. But in the end, she would put me first. She would give me a hug and discreetly take the phone away. I look at her, dancing by the fire in her hot pink bikini. Singing to Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well,” ten-minute version, like she’s going through a heartbreak, when really, she’s living her own fairy tale with the love of her life.

“Ignore him, tell him to fuck off, do whatever.” I startle, looking up from where I’m sitting and over my shoulder. Achilles is smiling at me mischievously. “Either way, the guy isn’t going to let you go. Trust me on that.”

His usual deep voice is a rasp from the alcohol, and his gray eyes sparkle with the secrets he never shares with us.

I don’t ask what he knows that I don’t. We’ve always put Achilles on a pedestal. In high school, I was prom queen, and he was king. We never dated, never even slept together, but people liked to imagine we did because we would have been the perfect power couple. He wasn’t here during freshman and sophomore year, studying in France where his mom lives. His parents had a messy divorce, and he chose to go live with her. But he’s been back since the beginning of the summer, and he took his rightful place among us once again.

In private, Achilles is the leader in a group where we’re technically all equals, and yet don’t mind always giving him the last word. So much so that as soon as he returned to Stoneview, he told our old friend Chester to not even think of approaching us anymore since he’d been a complete dick to Alex.

I look out at the lake where Wren and Peach are now splashing water at each other. Tilting my head to the side, I squint my eyes. I don’t think she’s wearing the top of her bikini anymore.

The sun will be up soon. We’re all going to watch it rise above the lake like we’ve done every year before going back to school since we were kids.

A sense of independence washes over me. A new start.

Letting a smile spread on my lips, I answer my friend without looking at him.

“I guess the only thing that matters is that I’m over him.”

And before I can scare myself out of it, I pick up.

But I don’t let my ex talk.

“Chris,” I say with a newfound strength. “There is absolutely nothing you can do to get me back. I wouldn’t go back to you if you were my last option on earth. Even in an alternate reality where I’m on my deathbed, and the only way to keep myself alive would be to be yours again. I still wouldn’t. Goodbye. For good.”

I hang up and throw my phone on the pebbles covering the bank.

I’m officially free of Christopher Murray.