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Ch. 19

He had a mouth so cool, butter wouldn't melt. A stew of lies so thick it was harder to swallow than to stir. He was Gemini. Two names, two professions, two lives, all were two sides of the same coin. He wrapped himself so closely in lies it was hard to detangle his web, even he believed himself half the time.

—————pb—————
How do you face the obstacles of life?
Even when you know they'll only cause strife?
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While Lip was gone, Debbie sat with me for a while. She had seemed anxious the past few days and I'd missed her.

"What have you been up to Debs? I feel like I haven't talked to you in days."

"Nothing much..."

"You alright?" She seemed shifty, like she didn't want to meet my eyes.

"Yeah I'm fine..."

"You don't sound fine." She kept anxiously checking the watch on her wrist.

"Lip is supposed to be back soon."

"I'm sure he will be, don't worry," I said. I knew where he probably was, Karen had been out of school for a couple of days.

"He better be. I'm getting tired of people wanting me to keep secrets!"

"Secrets? What are you talking about?"

"Lip! Jimmy! Everyone wants me to keep my mouth shut but— oops." Her eyes were wide and she flushed a bit.

"Who's Jimmy? And what secret is Lip trying to keep? He's probably over at Karen's, right?"

"You knew?! Why did he say not to tell you if you knew? I'm a kid! I can only keep so many secrets!"

"Debbie calm down! It's okay, I don't know why he didn't want you to tell me, he's weird. Who— who is Jimmy?"

She got a deer in the headlights look.

"Debbie? Just tell me it'll be okay..." she seemed to be having a deep internal battle for all of ten seconds before she just couldn't take it anymore.

"Steve." She blurted.

"What?" I asked, now she was talking about too many people for me to follow.

"Jimmy is Steve," she said insistently.

"What, that's his middle name?"

"No! That's his name! I saw some lady calling his phone and he would always leave when she called and so I found her name and phone number and traced it to this house on the north side and I took the bus over there and I walked up and asked why is she sleeping with my sisters boyfriend and I barged into her house and we were talking and she started talking about her youngest kid Jimmy who was in medical school and then all of a sudden Steve walks around the corner and she's calling him Jimmy who she was talking about and he looks at me and his eyes went all big and he got super quiet and—" she took a deep gulp of breath to continue but I cut her off.

"Woah Debs! Take a breath, does Fiona know all this?"

"No, he told me not to tell her because he was going to! And he hasn't yet! And he said he was going to today and he keeps trying to bribe me!"

"How long have you known all this Debs?"

"A couple weeks..." she said sheepish.

I couldn't think. For a few seconds my mind was blank and I completely forgot about how much I hated Karen and where the fuck was Lip.