White lies.

Part 5

Chapter 5. Kim.

We get an invitation to a party.

You seem tired and withdrawn as you put on your eyeliner, and I pull on my dress before I ask you what's wrong.

You don't reply.

We zip up our dresses in silence.

"I feel like you're always there for me," you confess after a while. "You never have any problems to dump on me, but each day I dump a new load of bullshit on you."

I am already on my feet, crying that it's not bullshit, it's your life.

You stop me with a hand. It's funny how after so long you still have the same effect on me.

"I feel like I'm not trusted. Like you don't trust me with your problems."
You hold up a hand. "Wait, wait. Tell me one problem you have. It can be stupid or whatever you want, but tell me a problem. Please, Kim."

I look at you, and there's so many I can say, but I can only think of one. You.

I say I don't have any, and I know you don't believe me.

The party is loud and overwhelming.

The boy who welcomed us in's breath smells like alcohol as he leers at us and I want to be anywhere but here, amidst drunk teenagers and cheap beer and suffocatingly close bodies.

But I don't leave.

I can't.

Especially not when you seem at home here, laughing, cheering, tossing back those cheap beers I know you don't care for.

Your lips are red. Your eyelids are pink. Your dress is short and enticing.

You shine.

Someone jolts against me and I smell the alcohol on his breath before he speaks. "Hey there girlie. Here all alone?" He leans against me, dirty hands creeping down my back.

You are long gone, I know, swept away by the crowd.

I shove him away and I look for you when I move through the sweaty bodies.

When I see you your drink is halfway to your lips before it stops.

You turn. Your eyes fix on something I cannot make out amidst the teenagers.

Before I try to get a closer look, I look at you again.

Your eyes are filled with something so achingly familiar yet oh so foreign.

Betrayal.