What A Lie Looks Like | ✓

1.26: sephine

"Have you thought about where you're going to college?" Hayes asks, and I stop playing with his hair out of surprise. We're currently lying on the floor of my room, listening to the commercial-free radio station. His head is using my stomach as a pillow, but I'm not complaining because, in exchange, he's letting me play with his hair.

"I don't think I'm going to college."

The plan has always been to get the grades and test scores so that I could go to college if I wanted to, but it's been expected of me to get into a company right out of high school.

His head turns to look at me with his eyes wide, "What do you mean you're not going to college? Everyone goes to college."

I brush the hair that flopped in his face back, "Not everyone. I could go to college if I wanted to, but the goal is to get into an international dance company and have a professional career."

His eyebrows knit in confusion, "So where do you think you'll end up if that happens?"

I look back up at the ceiling, "The most likely ones in are Australia, New York, London, and France. Peterson has a friend at the English National Ballet who showed the director my last performance, and they're coming to watch me at the next competition. That's why Peterson's been pushing me so hard because it's rare even to get the attention of those companies. I've done well the past few years at the competitions I needed to place at. It also didn't hurt that I did that internship in Italy last summer."

"You spent the summer in Italy?"

I smile, thinking back to the town I stayed in, and the people I met that helped me learn I could channel my anger and grief into art. "Oh, I thought I told you that. I stayed in Verona, and it's where some of Shakespeare's plays took place. Some of the friends I made there tried telling me how Shakespeare is better than Dickens, but I always tuned them out. However, it was insanely cool to see Juliet's balcony."

"Like the one from Romeo and Juliet?" He asks, intertwining my hand with his running a thumb back and forth across my knuckles.

"The exact one from Romeo and Juliet."

He rolls off of me and pulls himself into a sitting position, "Do you know what we can do that Romeo and Juliet never could do without creating mass panic?"

I find myself shaking my head as I sit up alongside Hayes, "No, I don't think I do. Maybe you should show me?

His eyes light up full of mischief at the challenge. He tilts my chin up, and the anticipation is killing me as I wait for our lips to meet, but he stops mere mili-meters before making contact. "I wish I could, but you see, I have this girlfriend now. I'd rather not make her angry by kissing another girl."

"I don't think she'll mind in this case." I never let myself actually enjoy kissing him before, but now it's addicting. I curl my finger around the collar of his shirt and pull him against me, relishing that I can do this without feeling like I'm betraying Ethan.

Hayes smiles into the kiss, and I nip at his bottom lip to get him to deepen it. However, Hayes does the opposite by moving his mouth to pepper kisses along the nape of my neck before covering my cheeks with pecks as I laugh. "Happy looks good on you, Montgomery. Much more convincing than whatever happiness you were trying to pass off before."

He's not wrong. I can't remember the last time I felt this free. I highly doubt that Tessa will ever end up doing anything with what she knows because she would have by now if she were going to. Hayes seems as if he's moved past Cam and Tessa, but he still hasn't spoken to Cam even though I keep trying to hint towards it.

"I don't feel as guilty anymore about moving on from Ethan. I know that everything that happened was my fault because of the decisions I made, but I also know that I can't wallow and hide behind it even more."