The Darkest Lie Read Free

group of girls. They didn’t cut me out or anything—they’re way too nice for that. I just kinda waned.
    Alisara gives me the kind of smile that makes little creases on her cheeks. Out of my old group, she’s the only one who still tries to continue our friendship. “I’m glad you had a good summer, CeCe. I’ll catch you later, okay?”
    I force a fake smile onto my own face. “Of course. Later.”
    I walk down the aisle and sit where I always do. The middle seat in the middle row. Too close to the front, and I’d be called a gunner. Too far in the back, and I’m a slacker.
    The middle is exactly where I want to be: invisible.
    Invisible doesn’t silence an entire room when you walk in. It doesn’t leave a trail of whispers in its wake. Maybe it means nobody will ever squeal your name from across the room, either, but that’s a trade I’m willing to make.
    The seats on either side of me are empty, but five minutes before the bell, someone plops down next to me. The new guy.
    My hands clench around the black-and-white composition notebook I’ve been carrying around all summer—the one that’s a prerequisite for our Intro to Psych class. Before I can pretend to be terribly busy with the course syllabus, he turns to me with an easy grin.
    â€œHi. We didn’t get the chance to be properly introduced before. I’m Sam Davidson.”
    â€œCecilia Brooks,” I mumble. “Everyone calls me CeCe.”
    â€œI’m new here.” He shifts closer to me. As in, his chair moves an entire six inches in my direction. All of a sudden, I can see the freckles sprinkled across his nose, turned cinnamon by the morning rays of the sun. A thin scar snakes across his forehead, almost hidden by his hair, and his dark eyes puncture me through his glasses. I feel like I’m plunging down a roller coaster, weightless and free.
    I look down, but his bare ankles mock me. Reminding me of my role in this morning’s debacle.
    â€œI thought I was going crazy this morning,” he continues. “Everyone stood there and watched that poor girl being bullied like it was some You Tube video gone viral. But then you gave us a hand, and I realized I hadn’t entered some freaky fifth dimension after all. So thanks for that.”
    I blink. It was a few papers. Less than nothing. And also more. Because it was a lapse in judgment. A failure to be unremarkable, before the school year even begins.
    â€œI hear we have open lunch periods here,” he says, oblivious to my turmoil. “And I don’t know where to go. Maybe you could show me?”
    Despite everything, my stomach flutters. Because the way he looks at me, it’s like a blank slate. He doesn’t see the girl everyone’s been gossiping about for the last six months. He doesn’t see my mother’s ghost lurking behind each of my features. He sees me.
    I open my mouth to say “yes,” when I notice the people staring. Girls, primarily, and from the looks on their faces, it has nothing to do with Mackenzie—and everything to do with the new guy talking to Cecilia Brooks.
    â€œI can’t,” I say.
    He looks at me expectantly, as if waiting for the rest of the sentence. I can’t because I have a yearbook meeting. Or: I can’t because I have a boyfriend.
    But I don’t want to lie. He’s been more genuine with me in five minutes than some of my classmates have been in their entire lives.
    â€œI’m sorry.” I stare at my notebook, my lifeline this past summer. The thing that kept me from reliving, over and over, how my mother looked in her casket.
    â€œWow.” Sam’s voice, light and gracious, pulls me back to the present. Smoothing things over even as I’m shooting him down. “As far as pickup lines go, I thought that was pretty good.”
    I can’t help but smile. “I’ve heard worse.” Much, much