Perfect Places

Hurt Or Help

   "Rae?" Someone asked me.

   I was then forced to exit my train of thought, "Oh, sorry. What?"

   "My dad asked how you slept." Zane told me.

   "Heh, I slept pretty well, thanks for asking. You?" I tried to have as smooth as a recovery as I could.

   "I slept pretty good, thank you." Mr. Lennons replied.

   He looked skeptical. The one thing he didn't know what that I was insanely skeptical oh him too.

   "Excuse me for a second," I laughed.

   I couldn't handle it anymore. The lies, the deception, the everything. I quickly walked through the living room, snatched my phone, and exited the home.

My hands immediately dialed Jessica's number. After a few seconds, she picked up.

"Rae, what the heck? It's like ... so early." She moaned.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Whatever. Jessica, can you help me out with something?" I asked frantically.

"Uh ... yeah ...?" She sounded groggy.

"Ok so," I was hoping Zane wasn't wondering where I was, "Are you up for doing some investigation work?"

   "What?" Jess trailed off.

   "Do you wanna be a detective with me?" I asked again, getting restless.

   "Rae, I don't even know what that means." She sounded a little annoyed.

   "Alright, it's a yes or no. I'll tell you more in person, I just need to know if you're in out not."

   "Okay, okay." She replied, "Sure, I'm in ... whatever that means."

   "Cool." I was happy to end the conversation, "See ya later."

   "Wait, wait, wait-" Jessica attempted to say.

   Before she could finish, I hung up. The conversation needed to end before people started to get suspicious.

   I turned around and faced the front door. I was tempted to open it, but I didn't. I came insanely close too though. I even rested my hand on the doorknob.

   For some reason I couldn't bring myself to open it. Something inside just told me to ... investigate. Before anyone could see me, I ran over to Mr. Lennons car. Without even thinking, I looked into the driver's seat window. Thankfully, the window wasn't tinted.

   I couldn't see anything suspicious, but the car did look really ... clean. At first, I didn't think that was weird, but then I got thinking.

What grown man's car is completely clean?

Because I wasn't seeing anything suspicious from the angle I was at, I needed to move. I ran to the passengers side, and looked into the window.

I squinted my eyes, and took a moment to examine the passengers seat. Everything looked fine, but after a few moments, I saw something.

The something that I saw was in a small, shiny, golden tube. The more I looked at it, the more I began to recognize it.

It was a tube of lipstick.

"Rae?" I heard Zane call from the front door.

My eyes widened, and I turned around. I tried to make it look like I was just looking around the yard.

"Everything okay?" He asked as he walked up to me.

I put on a fake smile, "Yeah. Everything's just ... peachy."