How Kisses Can Lie

Silence Speaks Louder Than Works

Well, I have never been so glad something was over since that time my mom gave me a certain speech about "the Birds and the Bees".

After our embarrassing exchange, we both just played along as if nothing had happened, continued with the actual dialog, and our awkward exchange became just another line of the play.

I don't think the crowd noticed either but I know we'll find out by tomorrow if they did; rumors in my high school spread faster than Clara's legs.

If you were wondering, Clara is my best friend, and she's also a self-proclaimed slut. And she's also that girl in the corner right now flirting with her thousandth man-prey today.

I roll my eyes at the thought of her fickle affections as I push through the hoard of people exiting the auditorium to get to her and her new man-candy.

As I approach the pair I can hear mystery boy purring "I know a great way to burn off the calories in that pastry you just ate" into her ear. She giggles in response and looks up, fluttering her chocolate brown eyes at him. I can practically smell the lust when I come to a halt in front of them.

"Hmm I know a great way to do that too. It consists in jogging away from this asshole. Let's go." I interrupt the two and pull my hormonal best friend away by her hand, leaving that jerk dumbfounded.

"Wow. A+ for you today in the cockblock department Ariel." She says laughing it off. I guess she's become accustomed to my overprotectiveness by now.

"Keep your voice down woman! There are people around us, you shouldn't be calling me by my Sanctus name here. Besides, I think what you meant to say was the horrific mistake preventing department. Or the preventing irresponsible best friends from being even more irresponsible department. Or the -"

"Alright, alright. I get it. But what's teenage years without a little bit of irresponsibility?" She says grinning widely.

"I'm pretty sure you've had enough irresponsibility this week alone to last you all the way into your 50s." I reply, giving her a slight roll of the eyes, "besides, that guy was a total douche who would just sleep with you for, well, sex." I finish, not even sure myself that my sentence made any sense.

Clara looks at me with a confused look on her face.

I desperately try to squeeze through a group of girls with skirts no longer than the guys they were flirting with's penises.

"You know what I mean. He would just use you for sex."

"...and I would use him. So we're both equally as bad anyways."

"Sure but I know that deep inside this hurts you more than you let on. It's self destructive behavior in a way and you know it. This whole thing is just a way to distract you from something much deeper." I tell her, shifting the previously light tone of this conversation.

Clara stays silent. Which just confirms my suspicions. She literally can't say anything, because of her restraining witch abilities.

See the thing about nature is it always holds a balance. Us witches are creatures with certain gifts, but every gift must have a flaw to restore equality in the balance of nature, and to prevent the gift from being used outrageously.

Clara's gift was, as her name reveals more or so, clairvoyance. She could read the future; it would occasionally come to her in flashes. Downside? You could see through her clear as daylight; she was unable to lie.

But the bright side is she really does mean that "no" when you ask her if you look fat in that dress.

"Your silence speaks louder than words." I tell her as I push open the exit door, the cold wind hitting me.

"Don't go around like you're an angel either. If I'm not mistaken I clearly remember Hailey stating you had "maketh out with thy boyfriend" earlier on during the play, and I don't think I recall that being in the script I read before you went on stage." She said, with that sly grin of hers. The playful tone was back.

I shot her a glare.

"Really, you heard that? Weird, I would have thought you were too busy sucking mystery boy's face off. And you know why I did what I did. I didn't really have a choice."

Even though mine wasn't inevitably part of my daily life, my witch flaw was just as handicapping as Clara's in my opinion. I could read minds. Seems cool right? Only problem: I could only do it while kissing the person of whom I wanted to read the mind of.

I'm not going to lie, I was guilty of kissing Hailey's dumb jock of a boyfriend. But it was only because he snuck into the classroom of Mrs. Alamondo (our physics teacher who was, might I add, way too hot to be a teacher) and got all the answers to the pop quiz that was going to take place that evening. He refused to tell me any of them, and I was definitely not familiar with atoms and whatever other bullshit we were studying. Besides, he wasn't opposed to making out with me at all, that cheating scumbag.

"Well, if you weren't such a fun ruining beotch I would probably be sucking something else than his face right now."

"Clara!" I exclaimed, playfully pushing her left shoulder.

I turned around making sure no one had heard me shouting her Sanctus name. The school knew Clara as "Sarah", and me as "Ari".

She rolls her head back in a fit of laughter and I quickly join. When she's recollected herself enough to manage to form a coherent sentence she continues:

"Sure, you didn't want to fail physics class again and have to go to summer school, but admit it, you liked it." She says, dragging out the "l" in "liked".

"Well I did enjoy it. But not because I was kissing "Patrick Reynolds, captain of the football team" " I say the last bit in an overly girly voice, mocking half of the girls in our high school.

Clara pretends to swoon, also taking a dig at all the ditzy high school girls we see drooling over him on a daily basis.

"But I have to admit I got some kind of satisfaction out of getting her "oh-so-perfect boyfriend" to kiss, and I quote, a girl so ugly that every morning when she sees me she has to check her calendar to double check that it isn't Halloween. Uh oh. Am I going to hell?"

"Probably. But that's okay, we'll keep each other company up there." She says making me laugh one more time before we climb into my car and blast the music too loud to do anything else but sing terribly over it together.