Courthouse

White lie

Well now what? I was doing so well! 

“Is that true Tess?” Cole looks at me exspectently, what did I miss?

“Yeppers, that is true.” I agree and look over to nova who is nodding.

Ava squeals and jumps up and down, “How long have you been together?” She smiles.

Wait what? How long? Together? What did I just agree to?

I look at Nova whos giving my her famous ‘just go with it’ faces. Shes used to my spacing out, and trys to help me out when she can, but now she just made up a lie and I have no clue what it is. 

Wonderful.

“Not too long, only like a year or two.” I smile and hope that my response works.

“Not long she says, a year or two she says. Thats a good bit of time Tess!” Ava scolds me, “Thats it, we are going to skip the first few classes today and you are going to tell me all about him!” She smiles and pulls me from the floor and Nova sighs. “Do you want to stay Cole? Or are you bent on going to class like a good kid?”

“No, I’ll stay but I want to get back before Anger Managment class, I can’t miss it again of I’ll have after school for the rest of the trimester.” He frowns and makes his way out of my room.

“Ok then, we can talk in my room if you want!” Ava grabs me by my arm and starts pulling my from my closet.

“No actualy I need to talk to Nova real fast, can we meet you there?” I smile and try to act unaffected by whatever Nova just signed me up for.

“Sure, I’ll give you two 5 minutes of so then I’ll come and find you two.” She smiles and skips from my room as Nova closes the door behing her. 

We walk over to the far corner and stand for a moment before I can’t take it anymore.
“What am I missing here? What did you say!” I whisper-yell.

“Relax, I told them that William is the name of your boyfriend.” She shrugs.

She Shrugs, thats not a shrugging matter! You shrug when you see a chicken crossing a road, not when you throw your friend under a bus for a outlandish lie! Boyfriend, me, him, no.

Ok, I can work with this. They dont know anything about him, I can make it all up and in a few weeks I can fake a phone call from him with him saying something stupid and me breaking up with him, because no way am I give anyone, real or fake, the privlege of breaking up with me.

Alright, So Ava wants to know everything about someone that doesn't exist, but she doesn't know that, so she will want pictures. I have a bunch of pictures of my cousins friend who comes to my house with my cousin all the time, So there’s that. I have a vague idea of what he looks like, so if I have to give a description before a photo I can keep it short and point out that I have photos.

She might want a last name so I’ll have to keep it simple incase she trys to google him, Smith will work for now. Then there is the fact that if or when she googles him she might find something, but nothing that matchs the photos, I’ll say he doesnt have any social media, its a strech now-a-days but I can make it work somehow. It would be easier if I say he is an only child, or a military brat. 

Yes, Military brat, that way he would of moved around a lot and never really stayed in one spot. Maybe with a ghost dad, that way I only have to remember one parent's name. His mom can be Sarah Smith, simple, strait forward, and hard to track down.

Pieces fall into place and I realize Nova saved me with this one, It wasn’t hard to create a ghost guy in my head, it won’t be hard to sell it if I pretend to be embarrassed about it. Maybe an on-again-off-again relationship like Novas, that way I can get away with acting uncertain about it. I can use a few of the older stories that we did as a group and edit it so it was me and him, nothing big though, that way there is no way to cross reference anything with my file.

“I know that look, you have a plan.” Nova smiles but it falls quickly as Ava runs into the room. 

“Ok, come on I wanna hear everything about him!” She squeals causing Cole, who has just followed her in, to flinch and take a step back.

“Ok…” I look down and try and make my face red.

Ava spares not one second dragging Nova and me down the short hall and into her room while Cole follows behind 

Running into her room she does a running jump onto her bed and turns exspectently to us. “Ok, start at the beginning.”

“Ok, what do you want to know?” I frown and act shy.

“Everything, who, what, when, were, how!” She grins.

“Ok,” I laugh “Where do you want me to start?”

“Well I know the who, sorta so, what does he look like?” She smirks and pulls us onto her bed.

“Well I have pictures if you wan’t to-” I start but Ava jumps in. 

“Is that even a question? Hand them over bestie!” She squeels and I pull up the photos and hand her my phone. I look over to a ghost white Nova, oh, I forgot to tell her my plan. Tables have turned then. “Do you want to see Cole?” She turns to a frowning Cole, big shock.

“No, I think I’m going to go to class, wouldn’t want my grades to drop.” His frown turns to a small, and fake, smile. As he 
turns on his heal to leave Ava frowns.

“Ok then, have fun I guess.” Her frown doesn’t last long as she remembers she is still holding my phone. “Nice, Some me your texts!”

No,no,no,no,no,no,no. That wasn’t a option!

“She has to delete them so her mom won’t see them.” Nova swoops in and saves the day again, atleast I heard her response this time though.

“Yeah, and he hasn’t texted me in the past two days. Plus I can’t text him because I dont have his number in my phone.” Thats believable, who knows phone numbers by heart now-a-days anyway? “Its weird though, he is acting really distant here lately.” Wonderful, terms for a break up.

“Yeah, I never really liked him though so…” Nova draws off, “Well, it doesn’t shock me.”

She and I deserves a milkshake after this performance, why wasn’t she an actress? 

“Oh, you poor thing!” Ava grabs me and pulls me into a unwanted hug.

God, I hate hugs. When do they end? Is there a good stopping point, no, no there is not.