Such The Liar Painted Me

9. The Liar and The Painting

I picked up my car from the garage and drove around like a crazy addict; I knew I shouldn't waste time on a hunch. But given the fact that I'd had numerous hallucinations and such that turned out to be true, I had to give it a shot.

Madeleine, or Mads, had a summer mansion far away from our town, which had always been the perfect destination for a private party, for drunkards like me.

I caught sight of my somber puckering of lips and hard stare in the front mirror--to say I was a drunkard was an overstatement.

Yet here I was, a person who had graduated, but she still got the chance to return and be someone else she could never have imagined. Less fun, less cheesy, more caring. More serious.

I knew the McCann's security guard might declare me an intruder and an imposter if I went around asking questions about a girl who he didn't even know. So I followed the road that took me to the mansion, killing the gas at a fork.

I hardly remembered anything about my senior year, unless those things would start happening to me again. Still, that pary felt like yesterday, I could sense the jazz and dancing fervour as Matt and I finally got to make out.

I, being off the rails, should've drifted him away, nonetheless we got over our hurried, nasty kiss in front of our unsuspecting parents and a teacher pretty quickly.

I sighed, watching over the fading, bent trees before I took off that way. This had to be it. Maybe because of that, I never knew what happened to Sophie and Tyler at the party.

But I couldn't get far away. I came across a bridge, now under renovation, men chopping its wooden signposts. All of them unaware of a girl, alone, sitting against it in the middle.

I shoved the door open, by whose noise, Sophie's head must've snapped up before she stood up and started walking towards me.

"Kinda lonely, you looked there, huh. Everything alrighty, then, no dead ghosts haunting you?" I ambled towards her, slowly, making a show of taking off my glasses and cleaning it as much as I could. Shouldn't she be translucent or something?

She ceased to a stop, her face pulled into a frown. "Of course you'd figure it out. I just never expected it to be so soon."

My lips parted to a shaky sigh. "Tell me there's no way you could be dead, please."

She looked at me for a long time, before beckoning me towards the renovation site. "You don't remember much, do you? And how did you find me anyway?"

"Remember when I told you we had graduated, then how are we again here? I couldn't recall much, but that party night at Mads, that I could distinctly remember, Soph. I had a  hunch you would be here."

She quietly walked beside me; no one gave as much a look to her and I tried blending in, but she shook her head. "Don't worry, they're already angry that they've to get this bridge done by next week, so no one really cares about strangers."

"And unexpectedly, the librarian had lots to say about you." There was a mocking edge in my words as she uneasily smiled.

"That woman never could keep her mouth shut...hm."

She led to a far end of the bridge, overlooking the rivulet below...and a tangle of split, crackling cable wires dangling in the air, the tower they were linked to far away.

"Do you know what happened here, sis?" She swiveled around to face me. "Simply put, you were once dangling between those."

"Wai--what? How could I b-- No, that's... that's ridiculous. It's so far away from our house, man! Yo--you can't lie anymore...I know about your drugs and yada yada, do--don't." I gulped in fear, looking at those cables, thinking what they would feel like I touch--

"Y'know what, Olivia, you were the troublemaker twin. You always had a penchant for mischief...and I got to be the perfect girl. Only, I couldn't." She stepped closer to me.

"Can we go back to the part when I was supposed to be dangling between those?"

"I let my start of year define me. I let my love for a boy overwhelm me, and I let the image of a perfect child force my hand. Now that I know, you said you knew about my drugs dealings...?"

I couldn't help but notice her sallow cheeks heighten my doubts, and yet I nodded.

"You know why Della died...y'know where she was this time...you knew."

I took one step back. "She died doing coke."

"Yes."

"It was supplied by you."