A Fabrication of the Truth (8 page)

I put my hands on his chest to push him away, but it ended up being more for stability because my knees started to wobble as he kissed my jawline. I just couldn’t. I pushed him from me. Before I had a chance to walk away, he spun me around, pulling me close to him, my butt pressed up to his hips. Oh sweet Jesus. He had one hand low on my stomach and the other on my shoulder, brushing my hair away. “Good-night, Lexie.”

“Night, Dalton,” I said softly, leaving him standing there.

I was supposed to be in a car commercial, but my mind was everywhere but. Caroline picked me up that morning and I stared out the car window the whole ride.

“Earth to Lexie,” she said.

“Huh?”

“We’re here,” she said, parking the car in the dealership lot, a sea of sedans, coupes, SUVs, and minivans all around. All looked so shiny and clean, lined up in neat rows.

“Oh, okay,” I said.

“You stared out the window the whole drive.”

“Sorry.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“More like who.”

“A boy? A boy, really? A boy.” Caroline’s whole face lit up, a smile ear to ear.

“It’s beyond complicated.”

“It’s Dalton, isn’t it?”

I sighed.

“I see the way you look at each other in the hall. I’m jealous. Even though I heard he’s a bit of a prima donna,” Caroline said while she opened the car door.

“Why? Did someone say that?”

“I heard that he said he wouldn’t play Nat Drummond’s party if anyone was smoking anything while he was in the house.” She got out of the car, scrunching up her face and then bending back in, coming out with her purse. She held her purse up with a smile.

“Really?” I asked. Dalton didn’t seem like the prima donna type.

“Yeah.”

“He seems to really be into leading a healthy lifestyle.”

“How do you know that?”

“We’ve kind of been hanging out.”

“What! Why didn’t you say anything?” Caroline bugged her eyes and flung the car door shut.

“It’s kind of a secret. His lola – that’s his grandma – would flip if she found out, and I don’t want people at school to know.”

Caroline ran around to my side of the car. “Why? Why, and why?” She took me by the shoulders and shook me.

“Can we talk about this after we shoot this thing?”

Caroline pressed her lips together. “Fine, but then you tell me everything,” she said, giving me one last shake.

I stood in my spot, Caroline to my right, Grandpa standing close. I started to sweat, not because I was hot, but all of a sudden I felt really nervous.

“You okay?” Caroline asked.

I nodded and smashed my lips together.

“You’re not going to puke, are you? Please don’t puke on me. Turn in that direction at least,” Caroline said, pointing to the floor on my other side.

A guy squatted down near us holding some sort of gadget. He might have been checking for radiation levels.

“Should I be worried? What’s he doing?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s a light meter. Making sure the lighting is right, so we look awesome.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, looking around the dealership – the cars parked all around us; large bright lights standing close; and grandpa, aka Mr. Chavez, itching his junk.

“Scene one, take one,” said a short girl with oversized glasses, snapping one of those boards – I didn’t know they actually used those.

“And action,” the director, a college guy named Bliss, said. Seriously, that was how he introduced himself.

“Grandpa, my best friend wants to buy her first car,” Caroline said.

“Here at Chavez New and Used Cars, we can make your friend’s driving dreams come true.”

It was my turn. I scrolled through my brain to find my line. Eventually recovering it, I said, “That. Would. Be. Great. Grandpa.” No, I was not skilled in the art of acting. I sounded like some sort of robot version of myself.

Mr. Chavez took a step forward and said his lines about the winter savings event that was “going on now.” It actually wasn’t – it would still be some time before the commercial was released.

Then it was me again. “I. Willtakethe. Red one.”

“Good choice,” Mr. Chavez said with a large smile, flashing what I thought were a shiny, white pair of dentures.

Then in unison, Caroline and I said, “Thanks, Grandpa.”

The commercial was horrible, but everybody else thought otherwise. “Great job” and “awesome” were said all around us.

I told Caroline as much as I could about me and Dalton. We sat side by side in pleather armchairs waiting to be told we could go home.

“So you have a connection from hanging out with him once?” she asked. She held her hand out in front of her, studying her nails. I knew manicure time would be upon us soon.

“It’s hard to explain,” I said, looking down at my chipped purple fingernails.

“Please try.”

“I’d rather not.”

“But why?”

I sighed. “Something bad happened that day, okay? And I never saw him again until—”

“That day in the school hallway,” Caroline said with wide eyes, like everything just clicked.

“Yeah.”

“Wow. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Not now. I don’t know if Dalton has told anyone here.”

“Oh my god, Lexie. My mind is going to bad places. Nobody like touched you guys or anything?” she asked, grabbing my hand and squeezing it in a vice-like grip.

“No! No, but it’s just bad, okay? And I’ve never told anyone before. Dalton’s always been like my secret.”

“And you want to keep him that way.”

I shrugged and winced a little. She smiled and lightened her hold on me. “I don’t know,” I said. “If people learn everything about Dalton, they will eventually learn everything about me – and I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

“I’m here, okay? To listen and stuff when you’re ready. I know you have a reason for your lies, your way of distancing yourself and not letting others close, but I have yet to learn why.”

“Maybe soon,” I said, thinking about how Dalton said that he’d be ready to tell me some things soon, too. Maybe the time had finally come. “Distancing myself from others?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, totally – basic like Psych 101 stuff,” Caroline said with a roll of her eyes.

“Hmm, maybe you’re right.”

“Great job, girls.” Mr. Chavez said, walking toward us across the showroom. He had on a pair of gray slacks and a polo shirt with the car dealership name embroidered on it, and it looked a little too tight. I could see the outline of his belly button from his protruding gut.

“Thanks, Mr. Chavez,” Caroline said, flashing a toothy grin.

“Yeah, thanks. I had fun,” I said.

“I’m going to keep you on my speed dial.” Mr. Chavez then did that fake gun shooty thing with his fingers. Caroline shot back, and I waved.

“Oh my gosh, we so have to do another commercial together. Maybe Dalton could be in it,” Caroline said.

“Shut up.”

“He’s super hot.”

“Yeah, I know.” We made no attempts to get up and leave. The pleather chairs were actually pretty comfy.

“Just making sure you know. Don’t let him get away.”

“I’m going to try not to.”

“He’s also very mysterious. Has an edge to him. There’s a lot of speculation going around.”

“Like what?” I asked, picking up a minivan catalog from the side table next to my chair.

“Witness protection.”

“Okay, that makes no sense. They wouldn’t send him to live with his lola, and he certainly wouldn’t have the same name.”

“All right, next one. The mob.” Caroline tapped her chin with a finger and nodded her head.

“Nope.”

“He just got out of juvie.”

“Can’t see it.”

“He’s a runway model, and you guys know each other from Paris or something like that. The theories always fluctuate.”

“He’s too short.”

“The truth is boring. I can’t just believe he’s your neighbor’s grandson.” Caroline sighed and looked up at the overly bright fluorescent lights.

“That’s it.”

“But something happened. That’s the good stuff we all want to know.” Caroline sat up and looked into my eyes.

“The
we all
in your statement, is the exact reason why I’m not saying.”

“Can you tell me sooner than later?” she asked, not blinking.

“It depends. Is the
we all
still involved?” I asked, not blinking back. The contest was on.

“What if I just changed it to just me?” she asked, widening her eyes, trying not to blink.

“Then maybe.” I couldn’t help it, I blinked. Caroline smiled, victorious.

Once I got home, I looked out my bedroom window to see if Dalton was where I usually saw him – nothing. I texted him and got no response. I just saw him the night before, but I missed him. I wanted to talk to him, take in his presence, feel his breath on my skin. I wanted to know what his lips felt like on mine. I slept in the basement, just in case he showed up. I hoped I wasn’t too late. What if he gave up on me overnight? The day before I would have said that was just fine, but I realized that it would make me sad. I couldn’t contain my feelings for Dalton Reyes anymore.

I got a text from him the next morning:
not feeling well, talk to you soon.

I wanted to go next door with chicken noodle soup, tuck a blanket around him, and watch him while he slept, but I knew his family would never let that happen. I moped downstairs for some breakfast.

“It looks like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” my grandma said, holding her jumbotron coffee mug.

“I think I went to sleep on the wrong side,” I said, slipping into a kitchen chair.

“Want to talk about it?”

“No. Can I have a couple of friends come over today?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

“Thanks, Grandma.”

***

Caroline and Luiz showed up together.

“Hey, guys,” I said, letting them in.

“Okay, what is going on? This is odd behavior for you. Reaching out for friendship, unheard of,” Caroline said, standing in the front room with her arms crossed.

“Let’s go to the basement.”

Luiz grabbed Caroline’s elbow. “She invited us over so she can off us in the basement. What did we ever do to you?”

“C’mon,” I said, leading the way, passing through the kitchen where my grandma still sat, reading the newspaper, and drinking her coffee. “Caroline, Luiz, my grandma.”

“Hi,” they both said.

“Hi, girls,” my grandma said, quickly glancing up. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said.

“Why are we going to the basement?” Luiz asked as we walked down the few steps off of the kitchen.

“Truth be told, I really am going to kill you and there’s more space down here.” In actuality though, I might have been ready to reveal some things, but there was no way I was bringing them in on my Enzo lie, and once they walked into my room it would become pretty clear. They would think I was off my rocker.

Caroline and I sat down on the couch, and Luiz took the old recliner. It was red corduroy and held together by duct tape in some spots. It also smelled faintly of feet.

“That’s the window he crawls in?” Caroline asked, pointing over her shoulder.

“Wait, what? Who?” Luiz asked.

“You didn’t tell her?” I asked Caroline.

“Not my story to tell.”

“Tell me what?” asked Luiz.

I explained everything to Luiz. During my story, she climbed off the recliner and onto the couch with us.

“And you’re not going to tell us what happened that day when you were eleven?” Luiz asked once I finished.

“Not yet.”

“He seriously lives next door?” Luiz asked.

“For now.”

“Did you ask us over here for boy advice?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I thought you were going to sort things out with him,” Caroline said, knocking me with her shoulder.

“He’s sick right now, said he’d talk to me later.”

“Do you think he’s lying?” she asked.

“No, I just, I don’t know. What if he’s avoiding me?”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“He lives next door,” Luiz said.

“Yeah, I said that already.”

“Let’s go over there.”

“I can’t.”

“Caroline and I.”

“No, why? I’m not that kind of unhinged person. I mean, I wanted you here because I’m trying to work out my feelings for a boy. I’ve never had to do this before. I didn’t invite you over so we could stalk him,” I said, the three of us shoulder to shoulder – feet pulled up, crossed, and tucked under.

“I’m just curious where he lives. I want to see him in his habitat. I mean, it’s all pretty mysterious. You have a secret day you don’t want to share. He acted out, as my mom would call it. His parents dumped him here. Is it all connected?” Luiz asked.

“No, and you won’t find any answers going over there.”

“Maybe we can just get Dalton to talk to us,” Caroline said, pulling the bottom of her sweater sleeves over her hands.

“He’ll think I sent you over there to see if he’s actually home or something.”

“If he says anything, we’ll say you had nothing to do with it,” Luiz suggested.

“I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

“How would two friends visiting from school get him in trouble?”

“They’re like really strict, and he’s sick. Just let him rest, Luiz.”

“You’re no fun,” she pouted.

I shrugged.

“So before that one bad day, you never hung out with him?” Caroline asked.

“No, but it was like…you’ll think I’m a weirdo.”

“We already do, Lexie,” Caroline said.

“Thanks.”

“So…”

“Okay, so his lola moved next door to us about a year before that day. Soon after, on the weekends, her grandkids would visit – Dalton and his sister, Hailey. I’d see them coming and going, and then I’d see Dalton hanging around all alone outside his lola’s house.”

“He calls his grandma by her first name?” Luiz asked.

“No, ‘lola’ means ‘grandma.’”

“Oh, okay.”

“I only met his lola a handful of times, and none of those encounters were ever very pleasant. She’s a get-off-my-lawn type of old lady.”

“Did you often stand on her lawn?” Caroline asked.

“You guys, do you want to hear my story or not?”

“Are you making it up?”

I looked over at Caroline. “No.”

“Okay, real quick. How often do you make stuff up?” Luiz asked.

“Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

“All the time.”

“Why?” Luiz looked truly perplexed.

“I have issues, okay?”

“You invited us over, so that might be a step in the right direction,” Caroline said, squeezing my knee.

“Right direction of what?” Luiz asked.

“Of telling us something real about her,” Caroline said with her eyebrows up, slightly shaking her head.

“So, your parents?” Luiz asked.

“I live with my grandma.”

“Where are your parents? I’m guessing your mom doesn’t work for some fashion designer?” Luiz started to catch on.

“I don’t know where my mom is. She left when I was five, and my dad…” My heart rapidly pulsated in my chest. Did I dare to speak the truth out loud? I felt like I was going to throw up.

“You okay?” Caroline asked.

I nodded. “Um, yeah, it’s just…”

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” Caroline said in a gentle tone.

“Thanks…” I looked from Caroline to Luiz. It was about time I started to let some people in. They didn’t need to know everything right away, but at least I could start somewhere. “My dad’s in jail.”

“Really?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah.”

“Wow, that sucks,” Luiz said, summing up my situation perfectly.

“It does.”

“But you didn’t invite us over here to talk about your life, right? Well, regular life. Love life, though,” Caroline said. The great friend that she was, she picked up on my discomfort level.

“I think I’d lie too,” Luiz said.

“Luiz!” Caroline said.

I smiled. I needed to have my friends over more often.

“Okay, about before – get-off-my-lawn,” Luiz said.

“Oh, yeah, so sometimes I’d see Dalton outside, always by himself. Usually just sitting on the lawn reading or walking back and forth on the sidewalk with his Mimkendo DS. The first time I saw him, my heart skipped a beat.” I almost totally forgot about that day, that feeling. It made my heart skip all over again.

“Really?” Caroline said.

“Yeah, I know, cheesy. But ten-year-old me was enamored. I thought he was so cute. He was kind of small, but that was okay. I thought he had the prettiest face. I wanted to stare into those eyes of his and kiss him. He was the first boy I ever liked.”

“That is so cute,” Caroline said. “You can still tell, when you guys look at each other.” It always boiled down to the way we looked at each other.

“But the thing is, we didn’t really know one another. It was like from afar. He’d sometimes catch me staring out the window at him, and he’d show off.”

“Like how?” Luiz asked.

“I think he used to take gymnastics because he would stand on his hands, do backflips, stuff like that.”

“Adorable,” Caroline said.

“Why didn’t you ever go out there and talk to him?” Luiz asked.

I let out a sigh. “That’s where things started to get complicated for me. I was told to avoid kids in the neighborhood, and my dad rarely let me have friends over. I went to their houses. Most who knew me thought it was because of the zombie in the basement.”

“What?!” Luiz said.

“Some story I told in third grade, really stuck with a good number of kids.”

“You’ve always been an odd cookie, huh?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah,” I said softly.

“I didn’t mean to upset you or be mean or anything. It’s what initially drew me to you.”

“Okay, whatever,” I said, having a total self-deprecating moment.

“Really, I thought a girl who could make up that extensive of a royal history must have had a really good imagination and be pretty awesome to hang out with.”

“You really don’t come from royal blood?” Luiz asked.

“No, and you know what?” I asked. I turned around on the sofa, lay on my back, and threw my feet up over the top, my head dangling toward the floor.

“What?” She took the same position as me. Caroline followed suit.

“I never had tea with a prince, either.”

“But Dalton…,” Luiz said, placing her palms on the floor next to her head and doing some sort of off-the-couch backbend.

“He wanted to get on my good side. And hey, you said you always thought I was full of shit, anyway.”

“I only said that because I was kind of jealous.”

“Oh,” I said. I could have never imagined that somebody would be jealous of me, but I knew as soon as she found out the truth, her opinion would change.

“Okay, so why didn’t Dalton ever come to your door?” Caroline asked.

“His lola told him he couldn’t come over and plus, I think he was kind of shy. So we’d just wave to each other and on Halloween, he stood out on the sidewalk so I could see his costume, and I stood behind the screen door so he could see mine. I don’t think either of us realized at that time that we could see in each other’s houses through the window in my room. So it was like some odd, short-but-long-distance, non-speaking thing we had going.”

“And then the day he finally mustered the courage to come over,” Luiz said.

I sucked on my lip. “That’s where this story ends.” I somersaulted off the couch and onto the braided rug beneath us that covered most of the old tiled floor. I lay flat on my back, Luiz’s words circling through my mind.

“I think it’s just beginning,” Caroline said, smiling. She pulled herself up to sitting and then climbed off the couch, joining me on the floor.

“I never really liked someone like this before. This is all so new to me. These feelings,” I said, still trying to shake Luiz’s words.

“Do you daydream about him?” Luiz asked. She came and lay down next to me, sandwiching me between the two of them.

I could feel my cheeks starting to flush. “Um, maybe, yeah.”

“Does he interrupt your thoughts even though he’s not around?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah.”

“When you see him walking down the hall is he like in slow motion?”

“Would I be a weirdo if I said yes?”

“Nope, you’d just be in love.” Caroline flashed me a smile.

“I’m not in love. I just like him.”

“A test. Try to say ‘Dalton’ without smiling or getting a dreamy look in your eyes.”

“That’s silly, Luiz.”

“No, it’s scientific.”

“For science, Lexie,” Caroline said.

“Fine.” I sighed and then said, “Dalton.” I clamped my lips together trying to keep in the smile his name brought to me.

“Oh my god, you’re so in love.” Caroline threw her arms around me, squishing me in a hug.

“But we—”

“Don’t say you barely know each other. You know way more about each other than you think,” Caroline said, letting me go.

“I feel all…like my heart…”

“Aw, you can’t even form a coherent sentence.” Luiz shoved me in the shoulder.

“Stop.”

Luiz’s face fell. “It was a playful shove.”

“Not that. It’s just…what if he really doesn’t like me?”

“That boy loves you,” Luiz said.

“You think?”

“We don’t think. We know,” Caroline said.

Luiz nodded, agreeing with Caroline.

“I told him I just wanted to be friends, like secret friends.” I scrunched up my face, feeling guilty that I told him that.