Page 42 of Liar
I screenshotted the movie times and circled the one I wanted to see, sending it to Sawyer, along with the words, Fine. Looks like you and I are going on a date. Better be careful with those hands, boy.
Why? What’ll you do with me if I’m a bad boy? Winkey face. Was this how he typically was when he texted, or was I just too stunned at this whole thing to realize how normal this was? Was this how Sawyer flirted? The dick probably never had to flirt that hard to get other girls into his bed.
Or maybe it was me. Maybe the problem was me. I’d never really flirted. Ray had been a whirlwind—and a mistake above all other mistakes. We were hot and cold, mostly hot, but we’d never gone through the witty, flirty banter that seemed more common among people my age. Ray was older, more mature. He didn’t flirt. He just took what he wanted, and I, foolishly head over heels, gave him everything.
Fuck you, I eventually decided to tell him, grinning to myself as I draped an arm over my eyes. Felt a little weird getting excited for a date while one of my boyfriends was in the room, but as long as everyone was okay with it…maybe it was all in my head.
Maybe this could actually work.
Sawyer came back with, When? Give me a time and a place and I’m there.
“Excited for the date?” Declan’s voice dragged me out of my flirty stupor with my phone and Sawyer, and I sat up, meeting his knowing stare. “It’s okay if you are. I know you like him.”
Just because it was true didn’t mean he had to be so blatant about it.
“I never understood why you did, but…” Declan bit the inside of his cheek, looking pensive. “He’s not so bad when he’s not drunk or high, and when he’s not getting the whole campus to gang up on me. I think he could be a good guy, but I don’t think he’s ever really had a reason to be one before.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes falling to the carpet. “There was Sabrina, but…”
But we all knew what happened there. Sabrina was his little sister, but he’d been too rebellious, too much of a partier to realize that she needed him. Hell, maybe she’d been trying to reach out to him that night before she was killed. Maybe she knew Dean Briggs would try to come after her, and she wanted to come clean. Get her big brother’s help.
Sawyer had failed her, and he never let himself live it down, even to this day.
“Maybe you can be good for him,” Declan finished. “I know you’re good for me.” He wore long sleeves, as he usually did, ever since that night, and I watched him absent-mindedly rub the wrist that held the scar.
One of these days, when things slowed down and I was able to take a breather, Declan and I had to sit down and have a heart-to-heart about that night. The night when I’d found him passed out in the bathroom, blood everywhere. The night I’d found him unresponsive and called 9-1-1, when I first met Will.
So much had changed since then, between us, between me and all of the guys. We’d grown, survived a murderous stalker, and came out stronger. At least, I hoped we came out stronger. Whether or not we truly did would be up to anyone’s guess.
“I guess we’ll see,” I said.
A date with Sawyer. The little bitch wanted me to look nice, and just for that I planned on wearing my rattiest, holiest clothes to spite him. He wouldn’t win a war against me. I was Ash. You didn’t come out the victor when fighting me or trying to one-up me. The person who always got the last word was, of course, me.
The music was loud. So loud, and frankly kind of annoying. The song the speakers blasted through the house was a song the radio overplayed constantly, as the radio often did anytime a new, catchy song came out. They played it so much you’d rather cut your own ears off than listen to the song again.
Or maybe that was just me being dramatic.
I stood in the hall of a familiar house, tons of faceless people around me. Some were trying to talk over the speakers, others had already cut the small talk and were making out. Others were dancing, though the dancers were mainly grinders, and they were in the living room, where the speakers were set up.
My body wore clothes that were so unlike me it was unreal. A jean skirt—something I hadn’t worn since, you know, third grade—and a low-cut tank top that I couldn’t even remember buying. I reached for my hair, feeling its shoulder-length tresses wavy, as if I’d spent time kinking up the pink bottom and giving it more volume.
I would never do that. That’s just silly and a waste of time, and so unlike me.
This whole thing was unlike me, really. Why was I here again? How did I get here? My mind tried running through recent past events, but it came up blank. I couldn’t remember at all, no matter how hard I tried.
My attention was drawn to the stairs, and my heart skipped a beat as I decided to venture upstairs. Something called out to me, something innate, natural, a guiding force I couldn’t deny. It was almost like a movie played around me, a bunch of people having fun, and yet I felt so different from them, like I wasn’t one of them.
And I wasn’t. I was me. Always an outsider. The poor among the rich. The girl who tried and failed to deliver Ray Ruiz to police hands.
I stood at the bottom of the railing, stopping to glance down at my hands. For a split-second, blood sat on my palms, dripping off and falling to the floor. Drip, drip, drip. Warm and gooey, freshly spilled. I wanted to be sick, to throw up, to wipe my hands and never see a drop of blood again—but I was a woman, so I wasn’t so lucky. Blood came hand in hand with being a woman, but this blood…it had come from someone else, not me.
And that’s what made it worse.
“Hey.” A low, smooth voice broke into my thoughts, and I jerked my head up, noticing someone stood at the top of the stairs, on the second floor. Sawyer. His blonde hair was a bit spiked at the top, his cheeks shaven clean. He wore a nice blazer, dark jeans that hugged each feature on his lower half, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Shit. I didn’t want him to see me with blood on my hands.
But then, when I glanced back down to my hands, the blood was nowhere to be seen.
Sawyer came down the steps, and while I was still confused, he grabbed a wrist and said, “Come on. I’ve been waiting for you.”
