My Promised Lie

Chapter twenty

Chapter twenty

“You ready?” I heard mum yell from downstairs. I slid my fingers through my hair, I picked up a hair clip and pinned back the sides to the back of my head. “Just a sec mum” I yelled back to her. I took one last look in the mirror and smiled. I lifted the front of my dress as I stepped down the stairs. I watched as my yellow tinted, white heels hit each step. I raised my head to see Jake, staring and smiling at me. Mum stood beside him, also staring and smiling, I couldn’t help but giggle. I got to the ground and stepped towards Jake.

A random thought came to my find ‘Since Cinderella had two totally different lives, just like me, does that mean I’m going to lose my shoe, because I paid a lot for these. ‘

Jake leant forward and kissed my cheek, he leant even more and whispered into my ear. “You look incredible”

We stood outside the building doors, Jake slipped his hand into mine. We turned to each other, he nodded at me and smiled. As we walked in, the room looked vintage, once through the doors it had a short bunch of stairs. The night seemed pretty normal, dancing, drinking and talking. It seemed like just a normal party, the ones on T.V. not the ones I wasn’t invited to. The parties held on the Friday nights when instead would be studying and doing homework.

“Hey” It was Samantha, she sounded every enthusiastic as she walked up to us.

“Um, hey” I said back

“A, can I speak with you. Alone” I assumed she was talking about me when she said ‘A’. I stood up and followed her outside. I saw Jake stand up, I hoped he hadn’t followed us.

“I can’t do this anymore” She said throwing her shoulders down. I didn’t understand, wasn’t that what I should be saying. I stood there confused.

“I can’t lie to Jake like this. I love him, I just wanted to make him understand that there was no one like me, I saw how close to both actually got and I couldn’t understand, he never acted like that with me. I still had the feeling I had always had for him; I just didn’t know what they were.”

I didn’t understand anything of what she had just said, it just didn’t process in my mind. I stood there mumbling the letters ‘m’ and ‘uh’.

“Are you serious?” I turned to see Jake, with a baffled and slightly angry look on his face.

I still could only pronounce the ‘m’ and ‘uh’

“Jake!” Samantha said, she obviously didn’t know what to say.

“What is going on? Sam, why wouldn’t you just tell me you felt like that and what are you two ‘lying’ to me about”

I stood there like an idiot, I couldn’t say anything, my mouth didn’t seem to want to join in the conversation.

“I just wanted you to understand that I’m the only one that could make you happy, but turns out I wasn’t. I asked A to go out with you, just for a bit, I would give her a makeover and helped her out, but you both got too close, I just wanted you to feel the way I feel for you, but instead you fell for her” I could see the tears form in her eyes.

“Is that why you gave her money? You were paying her?!”

Samantha nodded, not lifting her head off a spot on the ground.

“And you agreed to this?!” he turned to me.

“I didn’t know it would go this far” He gave me a guilt look, like ‘how could you even consider doing such a thing’. 

“I can’t believe you, what did you think, date me for a few days, make me fall for you, then Sam shows off and makes me want her, although I can’t do anything because I wouldn’t want to hurt you. I would actually care, for your feelings and how it would affect you. But all you could think about was a makeover and money”

He turned and walked back into the building, Samantha called and ran after him. I didn’t know what to do now. I would have to go through the building to get to the car park, then have to wait or mum or walk home. The fence behind me didn’t look as if it would be hard to jump over. I turned and began to try and climb the silver fence. I got one leg over but my shoe got stuck as I tried to bring my other leg around. There was no way to pull my foot away, I bent down and untied the strap. I slipped my foot out the shoe and lifted it over the fence.  I fell to the ground, feet first. I grabbed the bottom bits of my dress and started to run, through the paddock of short grass. After a short time of running, I bent down, untied my shoe and threw it into the distance. I continued to run, feeling the grass between my toes. It suddenly made everything, seem like it didn’t matter.

I remembered back to when I was five, dad and I would always go to a park near the house. There was a swing, just a swing and a field of grass. Dad would push me on the swing for hours, if I would bored of it he would make up stories and chase me around the field. I would run as fast as I could, my shoes would fall off as soon as I began to run, I would feel the grass between my toes. Dad would run up behind me and pick me up off my feet, he would snuggle me close as he fell to his knees. He would then turn and fall on his back. We would spend the rest of the day staring up at the clouds. He would always tell me the same thing “Alice, nothing will ever compare to being here with you” although being five I didn’t know what ‘compare’ meant. As I grew up, we just stopped going to the park.

I fell to the ground and stared up to the stars.

“That star, you’re that star. The brightest star in the sky, the best looking star, the one that lights the night sky. Dad, no matter where I am, you’re that star to me, I will always see you as that star, the brightest one.” I wiped a tear from my eyes and closed them tightly.