“And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does, too.” –K. Hosseini

I know you’ve probably heard it many times, but I cannot possibly stress the importance of this point enough to you.

When lying, the truth is key.

Seriously. If someone asks you a question in which you have to lie, feed them a little bit of truth with it. Then, if they choose to investigate on the matter, you have a little bit of the truth to fall back on. And, hey, you won’t fail the lie detector test. Win!

So, when Perrie fell into step beside me the next morning, and asked nonchalantly, “So, what did you get up to yesterday afternoon?” I hardly hesitated as I replied, “Nothing much. Just over at a guy’s house.”

“Ooh, scandalous,” she said, flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder and smirking. “Who’s the lucky guy? Wait, no, let me guess. Is it that new guy? I heard you and him were flirting at football practice yesterday.”

“Yeah? Who told you that?”

She smirked triumphantly. “Oh, no one important.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “But seriously, Cam, who’s the dude?”

“Oh,” I mimicked in her tone of voice. “No one important.”

Her lips puckered in irritation. “No fair. I tell you about my boyfriends.”

“He’s not a boyfriend, Per,” I told her, stopping in front of my locker and opening it to search for my first-period textbook. I shut my locker and turned to her, cocking my head to the side. She had dark bags under her eyes, but they were bloodshot, and her usually tanned skin looked a little pale. “Hey, you okay?” I asked, touching her upper arm lightly. “You don’t look well.”

In fact, it looked like she had almost tried to cover it up with concealer and mascara, but had not done a very good job. She looked tired and sick.

Her eyebrows drew together and she shook her head. “Huh? No, I’m fine, Cam. Just had a crappy sleep last night, that’s all.”

Liar, I thought to myself, but didn’t push the subject. Maybe she was just feeling under the weather, or something.

“All right,” I replied, just as, overhead, the intercom bleated out a four-note song to alert all its students a message was coming in.

“Camila Stryker, report to the principal’s office, please. Camila Stryker, to the principal’s office.”

I groaned and swore under my breath, before quickly opening my locker and throwing back in the textbook. “What’d you do now?” Perrie asked, leaning against the navy metal and regarding me suspiciously.

I shrugged. “A better question would be what didn’t I do?” I shut the locker and then turned. “I gotta go. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye-bye, now,” she responded, and I turned back towards the crowded hallway and made my way through the crowd of students and towards the office.

Upon entering the air-conditioned office, I looked around to find the usual set of waiting chairs, breezy office ladies and loner teens who cast me wary looks as I moved past and towards the principal’s room.

I breezed in without knocking and leaned against the door, faced with a surprised Mr. Smythe.

“Walter,” I greeted, leaning against the door with a smirk. “How’s that solitaire game going for you?”

“Camila,” he said evenly, but I could tell by the fidget of his fingers and the smoothing of his tie that he was still nervous. “Come in, please.”

I sighed and dislodged myself from the door, and kicked the door shut behind me with my ankle. I sat down in the chair and lounged back, crossing my arms over my chest. “What can I do for you today, Walt?”

“It’s Mr. Smythe to you,” my principal said, narrowing his eyes.

I scoffed and rolled mine. “Right. Okay, Walter. What’s up? Because, you know, I have classes to get to. You do want me to get a proper education, right?”

“I’m here to talk to you about your little change-up on the cheerleading team,” Mr. Smythe began, steepling his fingers on the desk in an effort to look important. “It’s safe to say Coach Sarandon wasn’t happy about that.”

I thought back to the overweight cheerleading coach and cringed. “I’d be upset too if I had a really bad thyroid problem. Did you know that can lead to tuberculosis? Because I did not. It can also lead to halitosis, and that’s no good, either—”

“Camila, quiet, please!” he said exasperatedly, blotting his shiny forehead with an embroidered handkerchief. “You can’t just go swapping the cheerleading captains around—especially when we’re so close to the big game.”

“Sure I can,” I said, leaning forward and narrowing my eyes at him over the wooden desk. “And you wanna know why, Walter?”

He winced and leaned back slightly, but I didn’t wait for a response.

“I can change the cheerleading captains around because my family is the one that funds it. If you have a problem, perhaps you can take it up with my father—I’m sure he’d be more than happy to withdraw his funding and leave you flailing around for donations to keep an over glorified dance team together. While he’s at it, maybe he’ll even stop funding the football team you seem to love so much. We wouldn’t want that, now, would we, Walt?”

He shook his head hurriedly. “No…”

I smiled and stood up from my chair. “Exactly. So unless you want that, I’ll do what I damn well please with the team, and you’ll get your nose out of my business. Are we clear?”

He looked around, obviously enraged by my words, but not sure what to say. “Camila, you can’t—”

“Yes,” I said in a forceful voice, making my way towards the door. “I can.”

I opened it, and was a mere foot out when I turned around and said, loud enough for all of the office to hear, “Oh, and by the way, Mr. Smythe? You can quit your little extra-curricula activities with Coach Sarandon. She is so not your type.”

And then I shut his door loudly behind me and breezed out of the office without a second glance at the other students and staff that had overheard. I made my way out into the crush of people, and ran straight into a body the shape of a brick wall.

“Whoa,” someone said, and I looked up to see none other than Zach standing above me in a t-shirt and jeans, his backpack slung carelessly over his shoulder.

“Hey, there,” I said breathlessly, regaining my composure and stepping back and to the side to allow us some space.

“Principal’s office, huh?” he asked, turning to look at the plaque of the room I’d just walked out of.

I smiled. “Oh, yeah. I’m a regular bad girl.”

“Good,” he said, nodding. “Because, you know, good girls are interesting, but they’re not quite as exciting as bad girls.”

I thought back to the girl in the photograph and wondered what the ginger girl had been like. She looked like a good girl, but looks could be deceiving. What was his relationship with her, anyway? Were they still together?

I started off from him, but turned around with a wink. “Haven’t you heard, Zach?” I called over the din of the crowded hallway as people made their way from homeroom to period one. “Good girls are just bad girls who don’t get caught!”

~          *          ~

Walking from my chemistry class to the cafeteria, I couldn’t help but think about Zach. We shared a few classes, but had not exchanged more than two words since the beginning of school. Part of me tried to remain cool and unruffled—after all, I wasn’t interested in anything like that—but the other part wondered what he thought of me, and how much—if anything—he knew about my past.

I turned the corner towards the lunchroom, and stopped unexpectedly when I spotted Perrie leaning against the lockers and talking to Jeremy Quagmire, the mayor’s son and also resident stoner and drug dealer. Definitely not the kind of company we kept.

He was the kind of guy you avoided at all costs, unless you were looking for a quick high. He was thin and pale, with dark brown hair that flopped over equally brown eyes, and he was the kind of guy who still thought loose black t-shirts and black jeans were still in fashion.

I started towards them with slit eyes, and, when I reached them, I easily slotted myself between Jeremy and Perrie, creating an acceptable distance. A look of fear flitted across Perrie’s face, and she swallowed thickly.

“Hey, Per,” I said casually, putting a hand on my hip. “I didn’t know you were slumming it with the junkies nowadays.”

“This ‘junkie’ has a name,” Jeremy said, moving around so that he could look into my eyes. Inside I could find nothing but seething hatred, but I relished it. “And chill. We were just talking about an upcoming project.”

“Thanks, shortstop,” I quipped, glaring at him. “But I wasn’t talking to you.” He stayed still, glaring at me, so I waved my hand dismissively. “I’m sorry, am I not getting my point across? You can go now!”

His fist tightened around his leather jacket, and he spun around and walked off without another word, an annoyed gait to his walk. I spun around and smirked, crossing my arms over my chest. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said defensively, fiddling with the end of her shirt. “It’s like Jeremy said. We just have an upcoming project.”

“And you got paired with that loser?” I asked, cringing. “Tough luck.”

“He’s not that bad,” she said, staring after Jeremy. I turned just in time to watch him disappear inside the cafeteria, and then turned back to Perrie. “You don’t have to be so rude to him, you know.”

My jaw dropped. “I didn’t realize you had a problem with my attitude. Last I checked, you loved my rudeness.”

She rolled her eyes and slid past me, starting towards the cafeteria. I walked with her. “Don’t you ever get sick of it, though?” she asked. “I mean, do you really always have to pick on these people?”

“Sure I do,” I replied breezily. “I have to remind them who the boss is around here.”

“Whatever,” Perrie grunted, but I chose to drop it in favor of a less defensive turn of conversation.

“Any new gossip?” I asked, pushing through the red doors and into the cafeteria, where we were immediately enveloped in the noise of chattering kids and the smell of oil and deodorant.

“Not really,” Perrie responded. “Word on the street is that Anna Milton’s pregnant to Danny Waltham. I also heard a rumor about Principal Smythe and Coach Sarandon being involved in a torrid love affair.” She turned towards me with a smirk. “But I have a strange feeling you knew about that already.”

“What would give you that idea?” I said, faux-surprised, as I walked to the lunch bar and picked up a Cobb salad and iced tea.

“I also heard another rumor that you and the new guy—Zachary Templeton, is it?—are pretty much dating.”

I laughed. “I didn’t realize I was important enough to merit a spot on the gossip mill. Honestly, I’m flattered.”

Perrie shrugged and grabbed an orange from the salad bar, as well as water and a strawberry yogurt. “Apparently so. It seems you’ve been very busy lately.”

It wasn’t that I’d been especially busy—my days normally consisted of interactions similar to these ones—it was just that I’d been a little less smooth with my exchanges lately. I really needed to tighten ship a little bit.

“Whatever,” I replied. “It’s just stupid high school gossip. I have bigger fish to fry.”

“Still blackmailing the mayor, are we?”

“As long as he keeps screwing up, I can keep getting things I want. I still owe Tamara Owens that new recording studio in town. Boy, did she give me some good secrets for that one. Did you know she pushed that up-and-coming superstar, Rae Fisher, down the stairs so that she could perform in the music festival? Musicians are catty.”

Perrie and I took our seat at our usual table, and Perrie smirked as she uncapped her water and took a sip. “Almost as catty as you.”

I shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve done a lot more for a lot less.”

~      *      ~

Happy New Year! Thanks for a fabulous 2014, and I hope 2015 is just as amazing :)

xXx