Lie is Just a Word

𝓢𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓷

Song of the chapter: gold rush- Taylor Swift

11 MONTHS AFTER THE MURDER...

Tick. Tick Tick. Time had never moved slower in Zander's life. Watching the clock was useless. It still didn't change the fact that he still had another thirty-three minutes left in the class. In the last twelve minutes he'd tried everything he possibly could to make time feel like it was moving faster and absolutely nothing worked. Not even once. If Hell existed it would probably be sitting in a hot classroom for the end of time. No fire, no demons, just mind-numbingly long and pointless lectures.

At the moment, he was tracing his fingers along every single scratch on the desk, counting them. One. Two. Three. Four. All of his classmates appeared to be just as bored as him and resorting to just as pointless tasks. A couple of boys in the back were making and throwing paper airplanes, a girl was taking a nap, another was texting. None of them paid attention to the lesson which only aggravated their already grumpy teacher even more.

Zander felt lucky that this was his final class of the day. No more annoying teachers or soulless classmates for the rest of the day after this. In Zander's mind, everyone at Harborough High sucked, well everyone except for Scarlett but she was dead. She had been for eleven months now. Eleven months. Nearly a year. He couldn't believe it had been that long, but what was even more unbelievable was the fact that the police hadn't found anything. They had no suspects even after all this time.

All Zander could think about was how messed up it was that someone had murdered Scarlett and gotten away with it. At least for the past eleven months. Hope that justice would be served was dwindling among the citizens of Harborough, not that most of them cared anyways. Scarlett hadn't been like the rest of them with their mansions and their 100k income. She was just a normal highschool girl who had been caught up in something that led to a tragedy.

Zander wished he could understand what happened. Why someone took the rest of her life away from her? He didn't. Didn't understand, didn't know if he even wanted to. He wanted a reason but knew that wouldn't be good enough. It would still feel like rubbing dirty in an open wound. Scarlett's murder had left him in pure agony. He missed her more than anything. Without her, he had next to no one.

DING.DING.DING. The bell rang, nearly deafening the students. Zander couldn't wait for this day to be over. He quickly stuffed his books in his backpack and slung it over his shoulder before making a run for the door. He wanted to be out of there as soon as possible. Over the three years he had attended Harborough High, it had only caused him pain. More than just getting out of the school, he wanted to get out of Harborough. The school wasn't the only problem in the town.

The air was warm as he headed toward the area where the buses parked in front of the school. He was about to walk towards his bus, number 16, when he noticed a girl seemingly panicking from the corner of his eye. He recognized her immediately as Carly Brager, one of the most popular girls in school, or she was. School politics were always complicated, but it seemed that her popularity had dropped over the past few months as she stopped caring.

He didn't know what was wrong but something in his gut told him it was major. He had never seen Carly act like that and he had known her for five years. He had seen her anxious before, but not nearly this anxious. She seemed like she was going to throw up or pull out all of her hair at any moment.

Before he had much time to react, she took off at a brisk walking pace. He didn't give it much thought and decided to follow after her. Something was up and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

She turned left at the first intersection and just as she got out of sight, he decided he was at a safe enough distance to follow suit. He didn't want her to see him following her since that might spook her but he wanted, no needed to know what she was hiding.

At the corner of Laurel Street and Dahlia Lane, she stopped in her tracks and pulled out her phone. Zander took this as an opportunity to hide and dove into some bushes about 15 feet away from where she stood. She was either too wrapped up in what she was doing to notice, or had noticed and didn't care much. She began dialing a number. As the phone rang, she paced back and forth, looking even more nervous than before. Zander couldn't but feel like following her was justified by finding out whatever it was she knew. He also had the feeling that he was about to find out.

Finally, the person on the other end picked up and Carly let out a sigh of relief. "Christy?" She asked hesitantly. Zander immediately recognised the name. Christy was Carly's older cousin. She, like Carly, had been somewhat of a local celebrity, especially at Harborough High. "So ummm... y'know Winter? Morais." She paused, "Mhmm.. Well yesterday afternoon I-I skipped class and umm saw her and Pierce. Pierce Ogden," Zander couldn't hear what Christy had said. "They were in the courtyard.. kissing," Zander had to cover his mouth with his hand to stop his jaw from dropping.

He never really liked Pierce much and wasn't too familiar with Winter but he never expected that. Were they having an affair before Scarlett was murdered? Even if they weren't it was still messed up that after her murder her best friend and her boyfriend were seeing each other. It disgusted Zander to even think about that kind of thing.

Carly wasn't saying anything for a little bit. Zander guessed Christy had something to say. She was probably wondering the same things he was. Who wouldn't? "Okay, I'll let you know if anything else happens." Carly muttered. "See you later," Zander heard the familiar "ding" that signaled Carly had ended the phone call. She was just about to leave when out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tuft of brown hair. "Is anyone there?!" She called out. Zander kept quiet.

She turned to leave when Zander let out a deep sigh. Noticing his mistake, he held his breath, hoping against all odds that she hadn't heard him.

"Pierce?" She called. He decided it wasn't worth it to continue hiding. He rose from the ground, dusting off dirt and foliage from his clothing. The anxious look on her face faded into one of annoyance. "Really, Zander?" She nearly laughed as she pulled a leaf from his hair. "Wait... how much of that did you hear?" He shot her a weak smile, "Enough to know that Pierce is an asshole," Carly rolled her eyes but couldn't agree more.

"You really want to know everything?" She asked. Zander nodded, "C'mon let's go somewhere farther from the school...just in case someone else followed me." She stretched out her hand, which he took. The two then walked the short distance to a local park.

She led him to a bench, 'Sit down," She instructed. He took a seat "I'll tell you everything I know on one condition: you never tell another soul,"

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