Page 50 of Bitter Lies

I guess we’re going to pretend nothing happened, which is just as well because I wasn’t sure how to look into Griffin’s eyes after he outed my lies. Now I know, it doesn’t fucking matter.

And apparently, the gang’s back together again—yay. I think Miranda may be just as fucked in the head as I am, which is definitely saying something.

“Hey, I missed you after you left the party. Some crazy shit went down,” she says, her mouth curling into a wry smile.

“Oh?” I ask through numb lips, reeling under the agony I still fucking feel because Griffin’s dispassion hurts. But why am I surprised?

“Yeah, Jason—oh yeah, you know Jason, he came downstairs half-naked and insisted some chick tied him up and assaulted him.”

Studiously avoiding Griffin’s gaze, which I’m pretty sure is boring a hole in my skull, I back away with a weak smile. “Oh, wow.”

Before she can continue, I escape to my room and sit on the ruined bedcover, staring at the walls helplessly. I’m going to have to clean the mess, but my heart’s not in it.

Although I didn’t expect undying declarations of love, I also didn’t expect Griffin to ignore what I said last night completely, and I admit his cavalier attitude hurts me. I guess some part of me thought if he knew the depths of my trauma, he might actually care.

Why, I don’t know—I think his behavior all the way up until now shows just how he feels, and it’s not warm and fuzzy. He hasn’t shown a shred of decency toward me since apparently, he was wooing me for my virginity. So, yeah, holding out for a tiny bit of compassion from him is insanity.

With a sigh and a curious tingle, I pull out my paints and sit before the wall, spreading the colors in an arc as I create the shapes in my head onto the black stripes and white landscape.

When I’m done, a withered tree stands before me, the branches cold and dark as they stretch toward nothing, the barren stalks empty and sad.

Chapter Fourteen

When will it fucking end?

The first time I realized I liked Griffin as more than just a friend, we were out back at his house, lying on the ground, staring at the stars.

I don’t remember where Max was, but he wasn’t with us as we lay side by side, our hands touching, the cool grass prickling the palms of my hands. My fingers tingled at the contact, and I turned to stare at him as he spoke, seeing his beauty with new eyes.

When he smiled, that tingle in my fingertips surged to my belly, where a swarm of butterflies whooshed through me uncomfortably, and I wondered what it would be like if he kissed me.

“Are you listening to me, Hals?” he asked with a grin, and slowly coming back to the conversation, I smiled slightly and nodded my head.

But sitting stiffly beside him, I battled an acute bout of shyness, my world tilted on its axis as he obliviously pontificated about his football game earlier, his eyes shining with his passion.

Back then, it was an adolescent crush for the boy that all the girls loved, except he only had eyes for me, and I basked in his attention.

He was my first true friend, my first and greatest love, and my fiercest protector until he wasn’t, and I’d like to say there was some seminal moment that points to the change, but there’s nothing.

To this day, I don’t know why he pulled away, except for his story about the necklace and bet, but since my part in that at least isn’t true, I can’t confirm.

I only know that one day it wasn’t me he gave his favorite candy to but some other girl. It wasn’t me he defended in the halls or spent time with after school.

It wasn’t me he looked at with his gorgeous hazel eyes and graced with his beautiful smile.

It wasn’t me.

We grew further and further apart until I couldn’t see past the distance, and over the summer before our freshman year of high school, he acted out the ultimate betrayal when he brought Sarah Park to our favorite spot and took her virginity under the same stars that he promised to me.

Devastated, I searched for answers I never found, and my misery came to a head during our senior year when I got drunk on cheap vodka at a party I didn’t want to be at and confessed my love, only for Griffin to throw it back at me.

Wretched with hurt, I vowed to show him what he was losing by dating Jason, and as payback, Griffin showed me how much he didn’t care by fucking my only friend.

And still, after all this, I’ve harbored these torturous feelings for nothing because the boy I knew isn’t the person he is now, and I’m desperate to see that boy. I’m desperate for my friend, even if he can never be my lover.

Foolish, because somewhere along the way, his feelings for me died, but mine live on, in breathtaking color.

None of it matters, though, because I’ll never reach that boy, and I’m tired of fucking trying.

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