The Best Thing He Ever Wrote

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

They say that just by smiling you can feel better.

What happens if you can't smile? Does that mean that you can never feel completely happy? Does it mean that the people around you will just give up because a smile is something that you just can't do? A smile is a lie, how many are really true? How many are just for the photo and not for the moment? How can a smile fix things?

It's simple.

It can't.

Johnny smiles at me, it's by far emphasized, but he wants Sydney and I to give back some kind of approval. It's hot and muggy and just like every other day in Havenstone, it's boring. Fourteen-year-old Johnny regards us with a shrug before throwing the putty at Mr Ovalson's garage anyway. The old lemon eating demon probably deserved it anyway. He did run Johnny's bike over because he'd left it half way out on the footpath a couple years back. Sydney eyes the putty expectantly as though it might turn into something fantastic or entertaining. But after a moment of nothing, he gives up and looks back at Johnny who is half way up the street. Part of my fourteen-year-old brain tells me it's because Johnny's nervous that Ovalson will come out of his ugly old brick house and yell at him. Meaning that his parents will get an ear bashing and then most likely ground him. The other part of my brain tells me to not mention it, like I was going to bother anyway.

“You lied to me.” Sydney calls to Johnny.

Johnny turns back around, his face half hidden in the shadows of a paper bark, “What are you on about?” He says kicking and scuffing the edge of the footpath with the toe of his dirty old Volley's.

“You told me that Ovalson killed your neighbour’s cat because it meowed too loudly in the evenings.”

Johnny smiles a little, “Well I thought he had. I heard it screaming from my place and the next I knew he was-”

“You lied to me, to creep me out about the old bag. The cat's right there.” He points a finger across the road and at the grey and white tabby that sits cleaning itself on top of the post of the fence, “It wasn't even worth lying about.”

Johnny steps out from the shadows, “You should have seen his face, Brandon.” He laughs, “He thought Ovalson was going to kill him that night when he stayed at my place.”

Sydney shrugs with a little insane flicker in his eyes, “You lied.”

“Brandon?” Olivia says, “What are you doing here? Are you all right?”

The sight of her makes my stomach drop as she sees me beside the bus. I'm glad that she'd spotted me because I'm not sure that I wouldn’t have seen her at all, “I'll take you home.” I say dryly. It's a little too loud to keep talking so we make way to the side of the Ford. I think of at least a million things to shout at her, to say. But nothing seems right enough as a subject starter. She reaches up to touch the bottom of chin but I move away. I feel so cold towards her that it hurts me even more.

“What's wrong?” She says softly.

“Get in the car, Olivia.”

I watch her steadily as she pops her school bag up against the back seat, it slides and for once she doesn't make it sit perfectly. I think she freezes for a couple of seconds to consider it, but then turns around instead. I watch through the corner of my eye as I pull out of the parking spot as her mouth falls open and shut a couple of times like a fish. She fingers the lock on the glove compartment and then finally settles on a few chosen words, “Why can't you tell me what it is? It's like you have trouble telling me what's on your mind and I don't know what sort of a relationship that is.”