Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Without thinking, I drop my entire armload of pizzas. The boxes hit the sidewalk hard, and it’s a testament to cardboard engineering that they don’t bust wide open and spill pizza all over the place. I ignore the pizza boxes and hurriedly stab a response into my phone. I stand there, thinking about what I just wrote, then I delete it and start again.
A good ten minutes later, I’m still hammering away at the screen and deleting. Nothing has come to mind.
I don’t know how to convince Victoria that I’m not a lying douchebag of a baghole because even I don’t believe that. Granny was right. The lies…they always catch up with you in the end.
“Hey, do you need some help, man?”
I spin around to face a teenage kid wheeling his bike down the sidewalk. He’s got baggy jeans, a purple T-shirt, approximately thirty-two piercings in his ear and face, and a bright green mohawk. He’s also staring at me with genuine concern, and he has the kindest dark eyes I’ve ever seen. It’s nice to know the world hasn’t gone to complete pot, says the guy who has been lying to the woman that he’d like to…well, spend a good amount of future time with. More time, more moments, more laughter, more smiles. Just more of everything.
I’ve had so many fake relationships in the past because that was the way it had to be, and I wouldn’t really call them relationships but more casual stuff, so much so that what I’ve shared with Victoria, which is something genuine, has been more than a burst of sunshine. It’s like the sun has crawled inside my chest and is shining like a floodlight, and my god, I don’t want it to go out.
“I’m…yeah, I’m okay.” I jam my phone into my pocket and bend down to pick up the boxes of pizzas.
The kid, who I shouldn’t label a kid because he’s probably sixteen or seventeen, drops his bike right there in the middle of the sidewalk and bends to help.
“They look intact,” he says. “The boxes. Can’t guarantee the pies inside, though.”
“That’s okay. It should all taste the same.”
“The cracks in these sidewalks are wicked. You really have to watch out. Is that what you tripped on?”
“Yeah.” I swallow hard at the bitter taste of the lie on the back of my tongue. It’s just another lie to add to the whole heap that is causing me to have a spectacular heart attack at the moment. “Something like that.” You tripped over your own dishonesty, fart sack.
“Here. Let me help you carry those. Where’s your car?”
“It’s just the black one right there.” I point with my head around the boxes in my arms.
“Whoa,” the kid exclaims with a sigh. “Sweet whip. I’m saving up. Just got my bike right now, but I got a job washing dishes, and even though it’s shit work, I get good hours, and they’re all after school. They work with my schedule too. I should be able to afford something next year.”
I make a mental note to find this kid later and gift him something for helping me. We’re not really in that kind of business, and Granny would protest, but one good turn deserves another. It can’t be that hard to find someone with green hair who works as a dishwasher in a small city like this, can it?
“Ryan,” the kid says, offering his hand as he packs the boxes into my trunk for me. He takes the ones from my arms and sets them in too.
“Atlas.” It’s the second time I’ve given my real name here. I should be more careful.
“Cool name.”
“Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.”
“Sure, no problem. See you around.” Ryan takes off with his hands in his pockets to retrieve his bike, and then he goes strolling down the sidewalk, happy as can be, actually whistling.
I swear people are giving teenagers a bad rap these days. I don’t know what it was like to be a real teenager since I was involved in too much shit, along with my brother. We had a tough go of it, so I wasn’t your average anything. Then we met Granny, and everything changed, and we were definitely anything but average after that.
I slide into the car, the smell of hot meat and mouth-watering cheese no longer so hot and tantalizing. My stomach is a wreck, and I don’t think I could jam in a single bite and get it down. My hands are shaking, and I’m sweating through my T-shirt, partly because it’s six thousand degrees in a black car, and I haven’t started it yet.
So I quickly do that, pumping the AC, but there isn’t any way to cool me down. It’s an internal purgatory I have going on, and the only way to deal with it is to face it and face it like a man, which means coming clean.