Lie Like You Mean It

“Get up and make me another one of those drinks.” Zero’s voice came muffled through the blankets I had piled over me.

“The recipe’s on my desk.” I mumbled and rolled around to face the wall. I was about to go back to sleep when I realized that I had to go to school today. I slowly lifted myself from my bed, only to find Zero staring at me with those intense hazel eyes of his.

“I said make it yourself!” I almost yelled it at him. But I remembered the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal – one of them being headaches and lowered my voice.

“I’ll leave you alone if you tell me I’m special. I’ll make it myself every day, even.”

“Forget it. I’ll just make it. Now move so I can just get dressed.”

He just snorted and walked into the bathroom as I swung my legs over the side of the bed, extracting myself from the pillows.
I honestly don’t understand that guy. Why does he crave that lie? No, why does he crave it from me? I don’t see him strutting around the house asking his sister or my parents to tell him he’s special. I should never have even said it that night – joke or not. Now he’ll just keep pestering me. I don’t know if he’s usually like this or if I should blame it on the nicotine because I’ve heard that withdrawal leads to a lot of crazy behaviors in certain people. Nevertheless, I pulled on a black and red striped jacket along with some black jeans.

“Nicolas? I brought your school supplies.” My mom walked through the door with my black book bag in her hands.

“Hey Mom.” I took the fairly heavy bag from her hands and threw it over my shoulder. “How’d your interview go?”

She brushed a piece of hair behind her ear and then smiled. “One look at my résumé and they were sold. We’re going out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate so don’t pout too much about going to school.”

“Who said I was pouting?” I asked. I cringed at the sound of the bathroom door creaking open and Zero walking into the room, dressed and ready for school.

“I was pretty sure you were pouting.” He said. I rolled my eyes at him and brushed past my mom.
Too bad Zero followed me downstairs.

“Hey! You guys hungry?” Mina asked. She was already at the table with some toast. Man, why couldn’t Zero be more like her? At least she was trying to adjust while Zero was just being disagreeable and outright annoying.

“O-oh. Um… no, I’m good.” I said. I’d probably end up throwing it up later anyways; that’s how nervous I was. I set to work on mixing the quantities of herbs for Zero’s nicotine drink.

“Make him something or else he’ll be hungry and I don’t wanna hear him bitch.”

“I said I didn’t want anything!” I retorted, slamming the withdrawal cure on the table in front of him. Maybe it was some weird way of him exhibiting concern for me. But knowing me – I probably misinterpreted it so I let that thought go. That was too weird. The guy who’s been torturing me for the past two days showing concern for my well-being? Highly doubtful. I mean, come on, how twisted would that be? Besides, people don’t change that fast, unless they were like that to begin with; and I can’t really picture Zero expressing genuine worry for someone other than himself.

“Aww… Nicolas, you’re so cute when you’re angry!” Mina said, making my cheeks heat up. I hated it when my shortness was mixed into ‘being cute’. It made me feel like a stuffed animal of some kind.

“Jesus Mina, save it for your internet boyfriend.” Zero announced, looking a little bored with his head in his palm lazily looking at the table under his elbow. His glass of herb mixture was empty already. I guessed he chugged it – no sense in trying to savor the disgusting-looking formula.

“Haha, I guess the cat’s out of the bag.” She laughed, obviously not embarrassed by that, which meant Zero failed at something, which made me secretly happy.

“How is Mikey doing anyways?” He asked, stealing a piece of bread from Mina’s plate. She furrowed her brow at him and pulled her plate out of his reach as he took a bite from the pilfered toast.

“Michael’s doing just fine. Says the heat of California’s really getting to him though.”

So that guy that instant messaged her was a long distance boyfriend. Can’t say I particularly cared though. That was her business.

“What about you Nicolas? You have a girlfriend?” Mina asked, a smile tugging at her lips. I blushed and shook my head. “Aww… what a shame.”

I can’t even shake hands with strangers, what makes her think I can ask a girl out? Besides, I haven’t ever really liked anyone before. Then I looked at Zero, waiting for some impertinent comment about how I couldn’t get a girl because of some flaw I have.

Nothing came out of his mouth. I don’t know if I should blame that on the lack of nicotine or if I should just be happy he’s not insulting me. He leaned into Mina’s ear and whispered something inaudible to her. I admit I wanted to know what it was, but I kind of didn’t. All Mina did was nod, so I supposed it couldn’t have been anything too bad. But I must’ve been getting conceited because for a few minutes I thought it was about me.

The school was a bit smaller than my old one, but it was normal. My parents say I could take advanced classes if I would just apply myself, but I think I loved video games much more than schoolwork. So I just accepted my average grades and my average classes. I mean, it wasn’t like I was struggling with school; I just kind of let everything run the way it wants to. You know, whatever happens, happens.
Video games and music were the only things I really felt like I needed.

Nevertheless, Mina stuck by my side the whole morning at least in the classes we had together. I had to keep reminding myself that they went to this school before I moved here. However, Zero just sat in the back of the classes he took with me; which were very few I might add.

Morning went by incredibly slow. I hated it. I just wanted to go back home, put on some loud music and kill stuff on a game. I have reason to believe that school was making me more violent than video games ever could.

Wait. When did I start getting this violent? Two days ago, when Zero moved in with us. Ugh. I blame him. I mentally groaned and planted my face on the desk I was sitting at while the teacher handed out grades to everyone; everyone but me, being the new kid I was.

“Nicolas.” A singy-song voice caused me to raise my head from the surface of the table and look up to none other than Mina. “You’re sitting with me at lunch right?” Like I had a choice. It was either with her or alone where anyone could talk to me. I didn’t want that so I nodded to her. “Great! You can meet all my friends.” Then she leaned in to whisper something in my ear. I didn’t avoid it since I was getting used to her. “FYI, they’re all talking about you.”

I rested my head on my palm and glanced out the window. “I don’t care. I just want to go home.”

“Where’s the fun in that? As a new student, you’re able to forge a whole new identity.”
“I’d rather be myself.” I stated as if it were the simplest thing in the world. I cringed at the scraping of chair legs on the floor as Zero hastily stood up and rushed out of the room muttering some excuse to the teacher. “What’s his problem?”

Mina just sighed and ignored my question. Must be a damned twin thing. Part of me wanted to understand or at least ask about it. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like I was an outsider so I kept my mouth shut and tried to focus on the questions we were given. But damn, I think Zero’s conceitedness was rubbing off on me because I was beginning to think he’d left due to something I’d said. But a stubborn side of me told me not to dwell on it.

I felt like I was cornered by hungry wolves at lunch; each of Mina’s friends aching to ask me questions about where I moved from and such menial things. There was no substance behind their questions and it was annoying as hell. They wanted to know the ‘new kid’ not ‘Nicolas’ and that really pissed me off because it was like my attention was a possession; like a shiny trinket for them to play around with.
For Mina’s sake, I tried to remember their names because I respected her enough for putting up with Zero’s shit all the time. The guy with the idiotic shutter shades was Brian, the girl with the glasses was Brittney, the kid who was wearing a hoodie was Cody, and then there was another boy with blond hair named Garrett. I think those were their names.

“So you play video games a lot Nick?” The kid I assumed to be Cody asked.

“It’s Nicolas.” I corrected him in an almost arrogant way even though I didn’t mean to. Zero’s influence really was rubbing off on me. “A-and yeah, I do.” I stuttered, even though I really wanted to sound as confident as I could, I couldn’t shake the remainder of my shyness while I was communicating.

“Oh, sorry. You wanna hang out and play some video games sometime?” I was about to say no, but Mina nudged me as if to say, ‘go for it’. So as much as I wanted to decline, I said sure. He smiled up at me and then looked thoughtful for a few seconds.

“Okay, how about we hang out this Thursday? I’ll be getting a new fighting game by then so we can test it out together.” He suggested.

“S-sure.” I replied, trying to keep the grudging tone out of my voice.

“Great! Give me your cell so I can put my number in it.” I fought my need to roll my eyes at his request and took out my cell phone and then trading it off for his. For a second, I contemplated giving him a wrong number, but reminded myself that I might as well just give him the number and if I was lucky, he’d piss Zero off enough that he’d never want to come around again.

That thought almost made me laugh.