Aimee Laine - Little White Lies

“Thank you.” Charley planted her forearms flat on the counter.

He tilted his head over each shoulder as if to shrug. “So, I gotta ask-” He threw a grape above his head and caught it between his teeth. “Given what happened a year ago with this same boy, what’re you going to do when he falls for you? What happens when… this time… you can’t give him up.”

Charley pulled one hand out from under the other, noting James stopped his massage, and Lily stared at her.

Cael nodded once. “And this time… you don’t have to?”

At the end of the four weeks, could she disappear-return to her made-up homeland of New Zealand-and leave Wyatt none the wiser?

Wyatt found her in the cafeteria, surrounded by students. Light danced off her hair, which she had pulled up into a tail. Laughter rang from her entourage. He wanted to run up, scatter the crowd and keep her for himself.

Idiot! You’re hung up on a girl who’s gonna leave.

Instead, he sauntered-not too slow, not too fast-toward the group. A lowly freshman caught his gaze and whispered to another. As soon as Wyatt reached them, the entire group dispersed to other tables. In what used to be the center of the flock, Mira sat, books and bag under her folded arms, relaxed and comfortable.

“Uh, hi!” Wyatt stood, hands in his pockets, longing for a less awkward reunion.

“Hi!” As she tilted her head in his direction, her curls escaped from her band and dropped onto her shoulder.

Wyatt fought the desire to reach out and twirl them, to pull her face right up to his and be the man his friends all thought him. He shook off the fantasy and let himself fall onto the seat next to her.

“So. Um…”

The corners of her mouth turned upward. “Um?”

Idiot! He screamed in his head again. After a number of ‘ahems’ and a few fantastical delusions, he tried a second time. “Sorry, allergies.” The lie worked as well as it could, which he assumed meant not at all. “Uh… so, how’s day number two?”

“It’s okay, I guess.” She shifted in her seat. Her curls fell further as she did.

Stop! Wyatt chastised himself with an internal groan at his stupidity. “Anything I can help with?” Kidney? Liver? My car?

“Well…”

Wyatt left her to her thoughts, though he’d have preferred to take them over. Hands on the table, he entwined and unlinked his fingers. Sure she could see the heat rise in his cheeks, he crossed his arms, propped one foot under the table and pushed to lean back.

“Let me know anything you need. I am the class president and all. I have some pull around here.” He gestured with a thumb toward the doors and levered himself back with his foot.

“Well… the girls? Here earlier?” Her head tilted so her hair trailed to her shoulder.

He itched to tug at it.

“They said there’s a dance coming up, and I should go.” She moved her hands to her lap.

Metal clambered against ceramic as he dropped the feet of his chair to the ground. “You could go with me. I could take you. We could go together.” He pointed back and forth between them. “I mean, I have to go ’cause I’m the-well, being neutral, I wasn’t going to pick a date or anything. But, it’d be great if you went with me. Right? I’d be happy to take you.” He smiled too big, spoke too fast. Heat rushed to his cheeks again, but he forced himself to maintain eye contact.

She looked back at him, her eyes wide. “That sounds like a lovely idea.”

“Cool!” Wyatt slapped his thigh, realizing he’d become a complete dork. One foot back under the table, he lifted the chair’s front legs off the floor again. “So, um, who’re you staying with?” He hadn’t nosed into personal details during their tour the previous day, instead kept it simple and straightforward.

“With a family on Turner Point.”

“No kidding. Wow. That’s a scary hill.” Wyatt scrunched his nose. “At the base?”

She shook her head, bouncing her curls. “The top. Not so bad in the daytime.” Her fingers moved back to the table top, drumming polished nails against it.

“What’re they like?” He knew most foreign exchange students, at best, disliked their host families. For whatever reason, the accommodation process stunk, and every year, one or another of the students left early on account of the families.

“They’re wonderful. There are three my age-Jack, Carter and Leena. Very sweet.” She smiled as she mentioned their names.

He didn’t recognize them, though he knew a couple Turner Point families-the few who risked the hill were districted to go to West. More comfortable with the path of their conversation, he kicked his chair back a notch. His hands fell to the seat where he could drum underneath.

“So what made you pick the U.S.?” His fingers tapped out a beat from the school’s fight song.

She bit the corner of her lip. “A boy.”

Wyatt opened his eyes wide. He’d never considered she might have had a boyfriend already. Here for a boy? Here? Who? Where? Rambled thoughts kept his attention elsewhere and caused his foot to slip.

He missed the support bar.

In his correction, he overcompensated, and before he could catch the table, he caught air. With a crack, gravity won and the tile exacted payment on its behalf.

“Wyatt!” The voice echoed through his head, pounding in his ears. Be quiet, he wanted to say. He reached over his head, rubbed at the spot that throbbed, ached and burned all at the same time.

“Wyatt?” The same voice reached into his mind.

The repetition added to the heartbeat which jolted and bumped within his head. Please make me the invisible man!

Warm palms pressed against his cheeks. Despite his utter embarrassment, his hands met hers at his temple. The bump of jewelry told him they came attached to Mira.

“Owww.” Eyes closed, his cheeks burned under her touch.

He peeked at her from half-closed lids, her face no more than an inch from his. The speckles of lavender in the crystal blue of her eyes sent warmth away from his cheeks and straight to his center. For a moment, he’d have sworn her pupils constricted into vertical slits.

“Oh my god, I’ve got a concussion.” Elbows against the cold floor, Wyatt struggled to right himself.

One hand left hers to hover over the point of impact, where a bump made its home against his skull.

“No, strike that. I’m okay.” Not in a million years would he get away without the memory of the story.

“You’re not okay. Let’s get you to the nurse. Have her take a look.”

Her concern melted his resolve and his distress over the ‘boy’. She did care about him-at least a little. He smiled, though he had no idea what the effect would look like on his face as the back of his head continued its battle with knives and swords.

“God, that hurt.” He rubbed as her hand met the same spot.

Their glances cemented themselves to one another.

Maybe she can like me as much as whoever it is.

Her gaze broke. She stepped around him, wedged her arms under his and pulled until he stood, with a strength he didn’t expect from a girl her size. Cheers erupted around him. His squint, an attempt to reduce the volume, didn’t work.

She must have understood his expressions as her hands covered his ears for him. The touch, and the tingle that went with it, tugged at his heart.

Despite the cheers and cat-calls, to leave would mean her hands would drop, and when they did, their connection would be broken.

“Thanks,” he said.

“No problem.” She mouthed the words.

Despite the throb and the beat that matched his heart, she continued to hold tight. Wyatt shifted his legs to prevent any accidental, visible growth.