To Find the Lie, We Must Discard the Truth

“Ryan, honey, since you’ll be at the school, can you give Sky a ride to the resort? I don’t care if you guys don’t talk, there’s just not many options. Pick her up at 2:30. Thanks sweetie!”

I stare at the phone when my mothers message ends. She wanted me to do what? I must have heard her wrong because, well, that just couldn’t happen. Not now at least. And who in their right mind calls at eleven the night before to tell me this? Was she just waiting until last minute so that I couldn’t back out of it?

So much for not listening to messages until lunch.

I sigh and head off to class. I’d have to leave early from there to get to the dorms by 2:30 since that’s when my class gets out. Though I have absolutely no problem skipping a couple minutes of Business Law, it’s not exactly the most exciting topic out there.

When I get out of class I walk straight to the dorms. Hopefully my mom let her know about this too, so it didn’t seem like I was just popping in. I get to her door and knock. That instant it opens to an unfamiliar face.

Which is when it hits me that I never met the roommate. Probably because most of the time, Sky came to the house, not the other way around.

“Um, hi, is” I pause for a second, wondering which name I’m supposed to use, “is Veronica here?”

The girl gives me a strange look and shakes her head no, “Veronica doesn’t live here.”

I scratch the back of my neck nervously, slightly embarrassed about that mix-up. “Oh, um, is Sky here then?”

She nods and opens the door a little wider before screaming “Sky! There’s another hot guy here for ya’!” And with that, she disappears around the corner. I glance around the room, noticing that a lot had changed since the last time I was here. If I walked into this last month I would have said Sky decorated it, but instead at the time it looked a lot more girly.

“Liam! Thank god you beat Ryan here-” When she sees that I’m not Liam she stops, probably from shock.

I ignore her comment though it really hit deep. Could she have actually moved on that fast? And why doesn’t she want me to know? But that’s for a later time since right now, we need to leave. “Um, I’m supposed to give you a lift.” I state the obvious, not knowing what else to say.

“Ryan, I-”

I didn’t want this conversation right now so I just cut her off, “are you ready to go?” she nods her head slightly and walks back into her room.

Her roommate comes out and leaves, not even acknowledging that I’m there but says hi to someone behind me. So I turn around to find another guy, probably Liam, standing there.

“OH. EM. GEE! Sky you didn’t tell me your boyfriend was Ryan Richards!!!!” I let out a sigh of relief knowing that he was gay and not some guy Sky would be dating.

I heard chuckling as Sky came out of the other room with her suitcase. She looks between the two of us and rolls her eyes. “Liam, this is Ryan Richards. Ryan, this is Liam Henderson. He’s my lab partner for chemistry.”

I guess Liam saw something change in me, now that I knew her lab partner wasn’t the other Liam I was thinking of who I knew was in her class. He grins like a fool, “You thought her lab partner was Liam Taylor, didn’t you?” I shift my eyes to the floor, ignoring the question. “Well you don’t have anything to worry about. Now, if you were my lab partner…” He trails off and I raise my eyebrows at Sky. She was obviously amused at the scene that was playing out in front of her.

“uh, Liam, can you give us a sec?” Sky asks and he nods, leaving the room and closing the door behind him. “I wasn’t exactly planning on going to the resort. Liam’s family offered a plate for me at their dinner and I took it.”

I shrug, “fine with me. I guess I’ll be on my way then.” I turn to leave when her voice stops me.

“wait, can’t we talk about this Ryan?” I could hear the pain in her voice which almost made me give in to talking.

I take a deep breath, making sure I stayed calm during this. “I came here to give you a ride to Thanksgiving, that’s all.”

“I didn’t want to go because I didn’t know if you’d be okay with it,” she comments, making it that much harder for me to not turn around.

“I’m here to give you a ride.” I repeat, “do you need it or not?”

When she doesn’t answer, I move to leave again. This time she moves so that she’s blocking the door, “I didn’t think you were going to pick me up Ryan, that’s why I made other plans.”

“I don’t care.” I lie, which she could easily see through.

“Ryan, we need to talk about this. I can’t, I can’t just stand by and wait.”

I stare at her for a moment. Her hair was still blonde, and short. Her skin, though fading back to her normal color, was still tan. The clothes she wore weren’t as fitting as they were before, but more than she usually would have worn. She was still skinnier than before all of this happened, and she wore a small bit of make-up. “I’m not ready to talk,” I tell her. Which was partially true. It was hard talking to her when she still looked the same as Veronica.

Before I knew what was happening, Sky picked up her duffel and grabbed the keys out of my hand. She left the room while I just stood there shocked.

Liam snapped his fingers in front of me, getting me out of my trance, “I don’t know about you, but I’d run after her right about now.”

I do, and catch up to her about the same time she reached my car. Sky sat there in the driver’s seat, waiting, I’m assuming for me. Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to get the keys away from her, I open up the passenger door and slide in. “We. Are. Talking.” She says before pulling out of the parking lot and heading toward the resort.

For someone who wanted to talk, she wasn’t exactly good at it. At least not right now. It’d been about half an hour and nothing was exchanged between us. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, “why?”

Sky turns to face me for a moment and then back to the road, “why what?”

“why the 8th? Why then and not months ago?” I complete the question quietly, not facing her.

“besides the fact that you finally wanted to have sex with me…” she pauses for a moment before continuing, “I guess I let go that day because I knew that I was finally free of any consequences. I was finally 18, in college, living on my own…no one has control over me but me. So if everyone found out, it wouldn’t Liamer. They can’t take me away anymore.”

“that’s all. Because you finally didn’t have anything at cost?” for some reason this really annoyed me. It was such a selfish excuse.

“what? No! I didn’t want to be separated Ryan. And yes, your right, I could have decided to tell you now, or before our wedding. Or hey! Why not in a couple years?! But I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. I want to be with you. I don’t want to pretend Veronica is with you, I want it to be me, to be us. Don’t try and tell me that you don’t want to be with me anymore Ryan. I know that’s a lie.” There was a long pause between us after her last statement. I didn’t know what to say to that and she was obviously done speaking.

About another hour went by with the radio being the only noise heard in the car. Just another two hours and we’d be to the hotel. This time, it was Sky who couldn’t stand the silence and finally spoke up again. “Scream, curse, tell me you hate me, freaking hit me if you have to. Do something so that I know you’re not just some dead soul.” I wasn’t quite sure how she wanted me to respond to that.

“I don’t hit girls.”

“then yell at me! Ryan, it’s not good to just keep quiet about this. I know you’re mad at me, I understand. You just need to act mad at me.”

When she said this, it hit me like a rock. Was I actually mad at her? Maybe in the beginning but I don’t think that’s it. Not anymore at least. I understand why she made the choices she did I just don’t agree with them. “I’m not mad at you Sky.”

“you’re not? well you should be. If you did this to me I would be pissed.”

I ignore that and continue with my train of thought, “I’m disappointed though.”

“oh.” That’s all she said. ‘oh’. It sounded as if this was worse than me being mad at her.

“I just wish you trusted me enough to tell me what was going on. Any of it. I mean, the whole part of the abusive god-parents…why didn’t I know?”

“you didn’t know about my parents straight up. You didn’t know who my family was or why I had to work so many hours. It took time for me to tell you and it was going to take a lot longer for me to tell you I had been abused.”

“At least when you told Katie the truth, you could have told me. She told her boyfriend for goodness sakes! Yet I was still left to wait.”

“did I tell Katie to tell Matt? No! of course not. And I didn’t even mean to tell Katie! Hell, you would have known that day if I’d stuck around. I was just rambling on about how stupid you were to bring me to my parents and Katie caught those two words. So don’t blame me for her finding out. If anything it’s your fault.”

“oh come on! You can’t blame this on me Sky! You’re the one who left. You’re the one who pretended to be someone you’re not. You’re the one that manipulated me, cheated on me, ran away from me, lie-”

She quickly cut me off from continuing the list, “okay, that’s enough.”

“you’re the one who said I could scream at you.” I point out, lowering my voice now.

Sky pulls over the car and shakes her head, “I wanted you to scream obscene things to get it out of your system. I wanted you to not mean what you said, to just have to feel the power for that moment.” Though I wasn’t looking at her, I knew that she had started to cry. “This though, this just hurts.”

For the first time during the car ride, I turn to look at her. She honestly looked like a mess, sitting there with her head on the steering wheel. “Hey, look at me.” I whisper.

When she doesn’t move, I unbuckle my seatbelt and move so that I’m facing her. I gently bring my hand under her chin and slightly push it so that she’s facing me. She obeys, but closes her eyes.

“Sky, look at me.”

Reluctantly she opens her eyes. I find that they’re back to her beautiful hazel eyes, not hidden behind those blue ones any longer.

“I spent a whole week screaming non-sense, throwing things around the room, and basically throwing a tantrum. I wanted to be able to talk with you without screaming at you.”

“I love you Ryan. Please try to understand that’s why I did all of this.”

I lean over and give her a light kiss on the lips. “I may not forgive you one hundred percent, but I understand. And no matter how I feel about that, I will always love you.”