Lies Don't Die

Chapter One

        Ms. Furtick hands me my poetry quiz back and her icy blue eyes thin into a straight line as she walks away. I stare down at the back of the quiz and slowly reach down to flip it over. My breath comes out in short, raspy breaths. “60%?!” I whisper to myself. My heart picks up pace and I fear that my fellow classmates could hear it. As I look around the room, I see friends giving each other high fives and smiling back at each other.

        The school bell rings and we all get out of our seats. “So class, remember that on Monday you have no school, so I’ll see you Tuesday.” Ms. Furtick’s voice is only an echo as I walk past her and into the hallway.

        My friend, Calum, jogs up behind me. “Kaitlyn, how did you do on the quiz?” A hopeful twinkle shines in his dark brown eyes. 

        “Failed it! She gave me a 60!” I nervously twirl my auburn hair around my pale finger and stare down at it. How am I going to tell my parents?

        “That’s too bad. Do you want to come get Froyo with Luke and I after last period? I know it’s cold but, whatever!” Calum flashes me a huge smile. “I think you deserve it.”

        “Sure! That would be awesome. I’ll call you after my last period.” I wave as we walk our separate ways to our next class. Calum and I met in Kindergarten. He had just moved from Australia and was really friendly. We’ve been friends since then and he’s my best friend, him and Luke. I also have a good friend named Nicole. She has a friend named Bree so I will sometimes hang out with Bree, but most of the time I just hang out with Nicole. Nicole has many other small friends that she hangs out, that’s because she is one of the most popular girls in our entire school. Everyone wants to be her friend and they all believe every word she says. It’s like she has little worshipers. Luke was Calum’s old friend from Australia who moved over here a year ago and joined our school

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“Okay class, you're dismissed.” My social studies teacher opens the door and lets us out. It’s the last period of the day so I slowly jog toward my locker and spin my combination into the lock and put all my school stuff into it.

        Nicole peers around my open locker door. “Hey Kate! You free later? Bree and I really need to talk to you.” Her icy green eyes sparkle in the hallway light.

        “Sorry Nikki, I’m hanging out with Cal and Luke.” I fake a little frown. I like her and all, but the last thing I want to do today is talk about boys and fashion. I just needed to chill and talk because now I’m in a bad mood about my test grade. Nicole and I have been friends for at least three years now. Much shorter than I have been friends with Calum. It was Calum’s idea that I should make some more friends other than him so I met up with Nikki and we had become friends right away. “Maybe another day. See you later, Nikki.”

        “Tell Calum I say hi!” Nicole calls from behind me. I wave and keep walking. Nicole has grown a little crush on Calum ever since he joined a band known as 5 Seconds Of Summer. Cal was the lead singer, but we don’t talk about it much. I pull out my phone and punch in Cal’s number. I’m about to type in the last digit of his number when I bump into someone. Startled, I drop my phone on the ground and a short breath escapes my mouth.

        “I’m, I’m  so sorry, I sh-should have been looking.” I stutter a little bit as I look up into the person’s eyes. It was Michael Clifford, our school’s bad boy. He sits in the back, doesn't raise his hand, and dyes his hair a different color every now and then. At the moment he’s wearing his Green Day shirt that has a few rips and cuts in it. Michael already has his eyebrow pierced and has a small ear piercing on his left ear. He’s very punk rock and has a bad reputation at the school. Michael looked very punk rock so he made people very intimidated just to look at him! Nikki said that last year, someone saw him shoplifting at the mall but he was never caught and the person who witnessed it didn’t say anything. They were too afraid of him. Nikki also told me that he beat up a guy just for saying hi to him. So I was kind of scared to see what would happen to me.  

        Michael reaches down and grabs my phone. The corner of his mouth rises up into a crooked smile. “Sorry.” He hands me my phone and walks past me. I stare frozen in that one spot, staring at the long, bright dyed red hair lying around his ears.

        “Kaitlyn, you ready?” A hand rests on my shoulder and I’m snapped out of my trance. I spin around and see Luke with his huge, toothy smile spread across his face.

“Yeah, lets go.” We walk through the front door of Belmont High School and head off toward the Tutti Frutti down the road from the school. “So Luke, how was the test in L.A. for you? I flunked it so bad, my parents are going to kill me!”

“Pretty good, 85%. Not the best grade ever but it will have to do. It was hard though.” Luke exhales and a small amount of condensation fogs up and flows over his head. I reach into my bag and pull out my purple beanie hat. The cold wind picks up a little and nips at my nose. I try to rub my arms for more warmth, but nothing is protecting us from the cold. Luke and Calum are doing the same.

“Okay, so maybe froyo isn’t such a good idea for this cold weather. And I probably should have brought a thicker coat.” Calum says from the other side of Luke. Once again, we are all rubbing our arms trying to get warm.

“Maybe we should stop in there.” I point over to a Starbucks and the boys nod in agreement. We jog as fast as our numb legs would carry us to the warmth inside of Starbucks. Luke gets to the door first and holds it open for us.

“Okay, this feels a lot better!” Calum whisper-screams to us as we rub our hands together and start to get feeling back into our noses. “You guys go get a seat, I’ll order us three hot chocolates.” Calum flashes us a smile and walks over to the line to order. Luke and I find a seat and start to take off our thin sweatshirts and hats. I place my hat in my bag as I sit down. I blow onto my hands to try to warm them.

“So, I saw you bump into Michael before we left. You looked at him a funny way. Were you in love?” A playful smile spreads across his face, causing his blue lip piercing to glisten in the light.

“What? No.”

“Yeah, okay. Keep lying to yourself.” Luke raises his eyebrows and leans back in his chair.

“One hot chocolate for you and one for you. Enjoy.” Calum interrupts our awkward conversation and places the hot cocoas in front of us and sits down beside Luke and we talk for hours.