Twelve Truths and a Lie Read online

“God, I don’t know,” she said, laughing. “It’s pretty boring after all of that.”

  She was fidgeting, her fingers skirting along her collar, and it was cute.

  “Tell me, anyway,” I said, stretching out my legs with the little room that I had in front of me. “Please.”

  “I’ve just never been without a boyfriend. Like, ever.” Her hand fell to her lap. “It’s pretty pathetic, when you analyze the reasons behind it. And I’ve had practically an entire year to scrutinize my choices.”

  My eyebrows rose to my hairline. “Never without a boyfriend?”

  “Well, there was that one time when I was like, twelve,” she said in a deadpan tone, before her laughter floated over the din of the bar.

  “I bet you got more jump roping accomplished on the playground due to being single that year,” I quipped.

  “Jump rope?” she laughed and smacked her hand on her knee. “What era are you from?”

  Suddenly, a woman finagled her way in the space between our stools to gain the bartender’s attention with her order. I grinned at Aurora behind the woman’s back and impulsively reached over to brush a stand of her hair over her shoulder.

  The chuckle died on her lips as she watched me, her eyes softening.

  “What are you doing?” she asked in a strained voice.

  “I don’t know,” I said, suddenly embarrassed but unable to break eye contact for even one second, so trapped was I in her penetrating gaze. “Stray piece of hair. I love the fiery color, by the way.”

  Damn, the way she blushed made her even prettier. Her mouth was shiny from her drink, but now as she swiped her tongue along her bottom lip, I considered how she would taste.

  Her ruby mouth, her creamy skin, and that enticing pink tongue—tangy from the lime in her glass.

  When she kept her eyes trained on mine, I wondered what she was thinking. Her brow wrinkled like she was unsure of me, and I supposed I could understand that after everything I’d shared. She probably wouldn’t dream of touching me with a ten-foot pole, and it was just as well until I got my head screwed back on straight.

  Besides, it felt nice to simply be with somebody without any pretense or expectations. To actually get to know somebody purely for the sake of friendship.

  “So, where were we?” Aurora asked, after the woman paid for her drink and created an empty space between us again. I had the urge to close the gap immediately.

  “Let’s see…you were twelve years old, jump-roping your way through middle school, picking up boyfriends along the way,” I said, twirling my finger to get us back on track. “Continue.”

  “I don’t know what happens,” she said in a sigh. “I just…I always seem to find myself in a relationship. With guys who want constant companionship or something, I guess. Maybe there’s an invisible homing device in my brain.”

  My fingers swiped her bangs away as if searching for the offending mark. I had no idea why I continued to seek out new ways to touch her. “You definitely have girlfriend material stamped on your head.”

  She swatted my hand way. “Ugh, what I said sounded so stupid and shallow. There’s more to it than that.”

  “It sounded fine. Honest,” I said. “You’re just trying to figure it all out.”

  “I guess it was nice not to be on my own. To have something to take my mind off things, to always fill up the silence.” She lifted her drink and sipped. “I felt alone a lot, you know?”

  I didn’t know, but when she looked past me to the crowded tables, I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it. That we had rehashed plenty. Though now I was more than curious about her family and why she felt so lonesome.

  “Good Lord,” she said. “This Chastity Club is not for the faint of heart.”

  “Hey,” I said, squeezing her hand, which had now turned into a fist in her lap. “Do you remember my admission just a few minutes ago? You’ve got nothing on me.”

  When the bartender approached again, I asked for a glass of water. I could feel her gaze on me but didn’t turn in her direction. I didn’t want her to think I was trying to prove something because I wasn’t, right?

  “None of those guys were right for me, I knew it deep down,” she said, stewing over her own confession. “Thank God by some saving grace I never got married and divorced.”

  “For sure.” Thank God for that negative pregnancy test, as well. It was definitely an ample wake-up call for me.

  “So my friends were like, enough,” she said, cutting a hand across her throat. “You need to face up to yourself. Why not take the next year to be alone and figure things out?”

  I sipped at my water realizing I had practically drunk half of it, engrossed in her story. “And?”

  “It’s been really eye opening. I feel like I’ve actually found myself. Cliché,” she huffed out. “What can I say? I like to go home, throw on my comfy cozies, and click to any channel I want.”

  “Imagine that.” I feigned shock, my hand to my chest. “So your friends threatened bodily harm if you have a relationship or sex?”

  “Well, no. They don’t think I can only have sex. They think all my relationships have been tied to having sex too soon. They might be right,” she said. “But God, I’d like to try a hookup. Just once. How liberating does it feel to just walk away after a night with somebody?”

  Something tightened in my gut, and I struggled to get the words out.

  “It does if you can separate it out,” I said, feeling strange giving her pointers. “Like hey, I’m just here to get my physical needs met, nothing more, nothing less. Purely a corporeal sensation.”

  She was thinking hard about it, her eyelashes fanning across her cheeks, her knee innocently brushing up against mine. “Sounds refreshing actually. No talking about yourself or trying to understand them and what kind of person they are. Just…dude, I haven’t gotten off in days and I need you to help me with that.”

  My cock stiffened in my pants, holy shit. She used those words in such an innocent voice, and the idea of her saying that just a bit rougher, breathier, her hair all mussed up made me painfully hard.

  I looked away, so I wouldn’t betray myself. “Yep, just about like that.”

  When I saw almost all the stools around us were empty, I realized it was getting late. We had sat there talking practically all night.

  As if realizing the same thing, Aurora turned her legs sideways on the stool, breaking our warm connection. “Better get going.”

  After we cashed out, I followed behind her out the door, attempting to adjust myself before she caught on. No worries in that department though, because as soon as we stepped out into the frigid night temps with the threat of snow in the forecast, my dick practically turned into a limp icicle, along with the rest of me.

  When she got to her car, she rubbed her chilled hands together and said, “It was great talking to you again.”

  She made the motion to possibly hug me, before thinking better of it. But damn, I wanted her to. Except we were just…who knew how we’d define it. Acquaintances. Companions. Friends. And not all friends hugged or needed to.

  But fuck that. We had just shared a shit ton of personal stuff, so I embraced her anyway. I had to stretch down because of our height difference, and her face naturally landed in my neck. I felt her hot breaths lashing at my chilled throat and imagined us warming up in a completely different way.

  I sniffed her hair one last time before dragging myself away. “Until next time.”

  8

  Aurora

  I walked my client out. Her name was Lucy and she was on the Autism Spectrum. She’d had much trouble keeping friendships the past couple of years because peers claimed she was too intense and in their face.

  During our session, we role-played some playground situations so that she could feel better about interacting with classmates, but talking and doing are two different things.

  Her mom finally decided to get her on anxiety meds for some of her bigger fears and compulsions, and that
has helped tremendously.

  I spotted Darius in the waiting room slumped down in one of our orange plastic chairs, his knee jiggling a mile a minute. After greeting his mom, I motioned for him to enter my office.

  The walk down the hallway was quiet as usual. He was like a tornado with flesh, always churning inside.

  He opened his backpack and pushed his mess of school papers toward me. He picked through them and finally found the chart that showed he’d had a better week. His teacher had changed to simply writing his initials in a loopy scroll. CM. And then it hit me: Cameron Miller. Shoot.

  This had happened before with friends, because it’s a small world, and sometimes our professional lives intersected. Darius’s mom also signed a release allowing open communication with the school. But it would be unethical to talk about Darius to Cameron in a social situation. So I needed to tread carefully.

  I pulled out a puzzle this time because I knew he would need something to do with his hands. It was an after-school appointment and I could tell he was already antsy, not only because of the time of day, but also because of the meds wearing off.

  We sat side by side at the table and I dumped out the pieces. “What did you do over the weekend?”

  “I had a visit with my dad,” he mumbled.

  I bumped his shoulder lightly. “How did it go?”

  “It was decent, I guess,” he said, searching for a piece, his fingers working overtime. “He gave me money for clothes.”

  Knowing he needed something to center him, I slid a bunch of pieces toward him, so he could go to town finding the right one. “Did you get some new things?”

  “Mom took me shopping,” he said, shifting in his seat. “I got me some decent sneakers.”

  I looked down to see his new black shoes that were a far cry sturdier than the torn white ones from last week. “Nice.”

  “I wanted me some new LeBron’s, but then my brothers wouldn’t have been able to buy shoes,” he said in quick succession, not meeting my gaze. Almost like he didn’t want me to know that he had done a good deed. He was definitely not an attention hog.

  “That was cool of you,” I said, spotting a wash of color climb his cheeks. “Bet they’re excited about their new shoes, too.”

  He nodded, way ahead on fitting pieces along the border of the puzzle.

  “Did you and your dad talk about anything important?” I asked, after looking at the large round clock across the room. Time could fly in these sessions, and I didn’t want to lose any valuable minutes.

  “Like what?” he asked, even though he knew exactly what we had discussed in earlier sessions. But a refresher was always good.

  “About how you feel,” I said, trying to lead him. “How you want him to visit more.”

  Thing was, I knew they wouldn’t. They would just go on as if nothing had happened, never broaching any of those essential topics. Talking did not come easy for many families. So much heartache and frustration and fear often lead to long bouts of silence instead. Easier to squash those feelings than dig up all the sharp edges. They’d find a way to poke and prod eventually. Or in Darius’s case, erupt.

  “He…he doesn’t want to talk about that kind of stuff,” Darius said. “He wants to forget that all of it happened. And sometimes, I do, too.”

  “Yeah, of course. Makes a ton of sense. But if you don’t try, at least once or twice, it’s all going to fester inside of you,” I said. I’d wanted to do a session with his father and him, but his dad had refused. He saw our agency as the enemy, and I could totally understand that. He needed to blame somebody, if it wasn’t himself. “The idea is to not have you repeat that same behavior—that same anger your dad has. You don’t want your son to come see me in twenty years.”

  He gasped and looked me in the eye for the first time. Then his lips wobbled into a devious grin. “Will you even be alive in twenty years?”

  I teasingly nudged his shoulder. “Oh, I’ll get back at you for that, just you wait.”

  It was so great to hear him laugh. Like he had no troubles in the world in that moment.

  “You’ll want to have a healthy relationship with your own kids someday, right?” I asked, fitting a corner piece in.

  “Right,” he said, face serious again.

  “With your brothers, too?” I said. “They already look up to you. But you need it to be for the right reasons.”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled, almost looking embarrassed. It was true that most siblings fought to the death and then protected each other fiercely against the rest of the world. But Darius had to be not only a brother but also a caretaker to them while his mom worked longer hours at her receptionist job to put food on the table.

  “That means you have to get your frustration out in different ways,” I said, finding a couple more pieces to finish the border. “You can’t be fighting and getting kicked out of every school.”

  He dipped his head.

  “So, let’s talk about ways to release that frustration.”

  We spent the remainder of the session talking about getting his anger out. He was assigned a journal and was to begin bringing it to sessions next week. I wouldn’t read it. I would only check that he was recording something in it every single day.

  I chose that method for him because, according to his records, he was good at writing in school. It was at least one solid way to release all of his pent-up frustration. I knew he could do it if he put his mind to it.

  * * *

  Later that night, I received a panicked text from my friend.

  Sydney: My period is late.

  I attempted to stave off her alarm.

  Me: You’ve been late before.

  Sydney: You’re right. But does this time have to happen right after I’ve had a thing with him?

  She was referring to some mysterious guy she hooked up with about a month ago that she claimed was one of the best sexual experiences of her life. She acted like it was no big deal after that, but I knew it had been. And she refused to give up his name. Nicole and I were afraid it was a parent of one of her dance kids. And that he was married or in the middle of a divorce. Yikes, would that get messy.

  Me: True. But I bet it’s stress because of that. You have to chill out.

  Sydney: You’re probably right.

  Me: It might help if we knew who the guy was.

  There was a long pause, and I thought maybe I had pissed her off. If somebody had pressed me about my covert meetings with Cameron, I might balk as well.

  Sydney: Fine. It’s Maddie. But I don’t want to talk about it with you guys, not yet. I just want to go to sleep. So tired. I’ll have a clearer head tomorrow.

  Oh God, Cameron’s roommate, Maddie. I just knew she had a crush on him.

  Me: Thanks for confiding in me. I love you, friend, and all will be okay.

  I made myself a Lean Cuisine and turned on the television to a decorating show, but I could barely concentrate.

  My phone buzzed with a text from Nicole.

  Nicole: Did she tell you?

  Me: Yep.

  Nicole: Oh gosh, that would be a disaster.

  Me: Yes, it would. But we’d help her through it.

  Nicole: All my appendages crossed.

  Me: Same.

  Nicole: Want to come over for dinner on Friday? Michael has a work thing.

  Pause. Was I meeting Cameron? Did I say something? No, not yet. It felt nice that this was my little secret.

  Me: Might grab drinks with a co-worker. Another day?

  Later as I lay in bed, a text came through from Cameron.

  Cameron: How do you feel about Marvel superheroes?

  Me: Well, X-Men is my favorite and that franchise has done a good job with the prequel movie.

  Long pause. Too much?

  Cameron: Want to see the new Avengers movie this Friday?

  Me: Meet you at the theatre?

  Cameron: Deal.

  And just like that we were doing something different. Meeting in a new loca
tion. One that did not involve any kind of alcohol. I still wasn’t sure if he was in denial about his drinking habits. Many people were. But if I noticed anything off, I’d deal with it then. Or not. None of my business.

  Except, we had shared a lot last week. So that made him a friend. And I wouldn’t be able to ignore any warning signs. But this time would be different because we were absolutely not dating. The pressure was off. I didn’t have to fix him, only help him, if he needed it.

  I was actually excited to see a movie. Hadn’t I wished for somebody to go to the cinema with lately? Sydney and Nicole were not into those blockbuster franchises.

  They hadn’t read the comic books like I did when I was younger, alongside my brother. God, I missed Aaron sometimes. It had been too long. Usually I flew out to see him and his wife and kids once a year for the holidays. Maybe I’d call him to talk, just like old times. I scrolled through the contacts on my phone and did exactly that.

  “Everything okay, sis?” Aaron asked in a semi panic. That’s when I realized it was after ten o’clock at night, my time.

  “Yeah, everything is fine,” I said. I could hear his television playing in the background. “Just needed to hear a friendly voice from my past.”

  “Is this because Mom’s birthday is around the corner?” he asked, lowering his voice. I hadn’t given it much thought until he said it. Sometimes the dates of her birth and death just snuck up on me. I swiped at a stray tear, not even realizing that I had begun crying. What in the world had come over me?

  “Maybe,” I said, trying not to sniffle into the phone or he’d really be worried about me. Though he knew I could pretty much cry at the drop of a hat. “Just…miss you guys sometimes. Not my awkward teen years or anything like that because, whoa. Just having a family around me.”

  “Oh, Rory,” he sighed into the phone. “Honey, I miss you, too. I’m sorry we don’t live closer.”

  “Oh, please don’t feel bad, it’s not anybody’s fault. It is what it is,” I said. My brother moved to the city where his wife lived and where he was able to find a job after their wedding. At least my mom had been alive to see him get married. Thankfully her accident hadn’t happened that night, even though she had gotten fairly sloshed at the reception. I was still in college at the time and completely mortified, if not sick with worry. “I’ll be sure to visit this summer. But I have a good job and great friends and I have no complaints in my life.”