Beyond Our Lies

t w e n t y t h r e e

My eyes were beginning to burn from staring at my homework with the dim light of my car. It was now hours after school had ended and I was using this time to get ahead on some of my assignments. I sighed and rubbed my eyes, trying to get the pain to go away when all of a sudden my phone began vibrating. Xander's name was on the screen and I immediately answered.

I greeted him happily and he did the same. "Where are you?" His deep voice questioned and I furrowed my brows.

"Um... Nowhere?" I gave him a extremely broad answer to see if I could remember where I was supposed to be right now.

"I've been looking for you at this party for twenty minutes. I was starting to think you were hiding or some shit," he chuckled.

"What par- Oh! My parent's party? Yeah i'm not at that shit." I laughed and started putting up my books while he was on speaker.

"Wait seriously? How'd you get out of that? I thought they always demanded you to go." I could hear the sounds of the party getting farther and farther away, most likely from him going outside to hear better.

I smiled at how he remembered those little things but then I paused. What should I tell him? I fucking despise lying to this boy but then again I don't want him to judge me for being kicked out. My bottom lip was beginning to hurt from the pressure of my teeth against it.

"You still there?"

I snapped out of my overthinking and softly laughed. "Yeah sorry I zoned out. Well, I got into a fight with my parents and they didn't give two shits if I stayed or not so..." trailing off towards the end of my half lie.

He made a sound of understanding before replying to me. "You know it is kind of a dick move to force me to survive these terrible parties on my own."

I laughed loudly and joked, "I'm sorryyyy. I know it's just going to be so boring without being able to look at my beautiful face."

"That's exactly why it's going to suck," he murmured. The boldness of his statement made my face heat up in a matter of seconds. Fuck me. I heard him laugh, "You know, you're cute when you're dazed."

"What? You can't even see me!" I exclaimed as I fanned my face, trying to get it to cool down.

"Don't have to. You do it around me so much all I have to do is picture it."

I groaned loudly, "Oh my god shut it before I come over there and make you myself." As soon as the words came out, I realized how sexual that sounded and I already knew he was going to think so too. "Do not laugh at that. You know what I meant."

However, Xander didn't listen to me as he full on chuckled. I smiled at the angelic sound that was so rarely heard, "I'm sorry." Huffing, I mumbled a 'sure you are' and we went on to talk about random stuff for ten or so minutes before another voice on his side could be heard.

"What the fuck are you doing, sitting out here, boy?" The deep-voiced man raised his voice at Xander and I could physically feel myself go frozen from anxiety.

"I'm sorry dad one of my friends were calling me." His voice sounded panicky, something I had never heard from him. It almost sounded like mine when I would talk to my dad. That thought didn't sit right with me.

"Does it look like I care? Get your ass in there right now." I heard loud movement and then he hung up. I stared at my phone in confusion. What the fuck just happened? Hoping it was just an off day for his dad, I still desperately needed to make sure he was okay.

Me:
-are you okay?

After a few minutes he replied with a simple 'yes.' and I sighed. It was obvious he wasn't going to talk anymore so I put my phone in the cup holder and pulled out my warm blankets. Covering myself with them, I stared at the moon outside of my car window and dozed off, praying to a god Xander didn't even believe in that he was okay.