It Started With A Whisper (Rewriting)

It Started With The Truth About Liars

"Miles Mathers is in the same room as me."

Alexa was rocking back and forth on her heels, peeking out into the theater through the curtains, her eyes on the boy sliding into his leather jacket with a crooked smile at the foot of the steps leading on to the stage. I was sure then, as I stood behind my best friend with an amused look, that if Alexa's eyes had the ability to turn into hearts, they would of that very second.

I was honestly surprised she was even able to speak coherently and breathe right now, considering she had been dreaming of this day for the last two and a half years, I had thought she'd be hyperventilating or passed out by this point.

"Nova." Alexa poked my arm with a huge grin, "Miles Mathers is in the same room as us." she repeated, as if she hadn't realized she had been muttering it to herself for the last couple minutes.

Her grin stretched even wider across her face, resembling that of the Joker the moment Ace glanced sideways, looked back at Miles, then quickly turned his entire body in our direction. In doing this, he completely turned his back to the movie star and eventually made the decision to stalk over to us and scold us like children with a scowl.

"What the hell are you two doing here? Didn't Dad say to stay the hell away from this theater tonight, Lex?"

I looked between the siblings, still astonished they were related, even after over a decade of being friends with them. Alexa was as fair skinned as I was, and burned horrible in the summer. Freckles lined her cheeks, nose, neck, and arms, and her blonde hair was so light it was almost platinum. Ace was in every definition of the words, tall, dark, and handsome. Though he'd gotten his father's height and a few of his facial featured, he favored his mother in his rich dark skin, lean build, and hazel eyes I'd spent hours staring into for years.

Now he wore a white button up, a beautiful contrast to his skin, and a black blazer was slung over his right shoulder, as if he were going to slip into it right before the showing.

"It's Miles Mathers, Ace. Why wouldn't we be here?" Alexa eventually responded, straightening as if it'd magically give her the height to be eye level with her older brother.

Ace finally shifted his intense, irritated stare to me and I retreated into myself a little. I hadn't seen him since we'd broke up last July. Though he'd promised we'd be okay eventually, we agreed it'd be best to keep our distance for a while. Being under that gaze had me feeling things I had long since buried and I didn't like it.

"I expect this out of her," he made a gesture toward his sister, "but come on, Nova. What the hell? You guys can't be here."

I opened my mouth to respond, pausing momentarily when Alexa shot me the look from behind her brother and disappeared somewhere in the dark theater.

"Look, I tried to talk her out of it." I responded softly. "You know how she is. She doesn't take no for an answer."

He stared at me for a minute, as if he were seeing who it was that was standing before him rather than looking passed me. "Why?"

"I just explained—"

"No, why did we end it the way we did? We could have tried harder, Nov." he said.

I shifted back and forth on my feet uncomfortably, shaking my head. "It was just as fantastical as Lex's idea of marrying Miles, Ace. You're this. . . this star in the making and I'm a nobody struggling through college from a broken home. I wasn't going to hold you back when you had this whole perfect, beautiful life ahead of you. Nor were we going to sit around and pretend we were going to constantly wonder all those months we were about if the other person was being faithful. It just wasn't realistic."