1,000 Lies Told At 40,000 Feet High

I glanced again at the number written on my hand and began to type them into my phone. Crap, was that a six or an eight? I could hardly tell. Why hadn’t I written it down before now? Before it had half rubbed off and become practically impossible to read! I went with the six and pressed the call button before I could back out again. I held the phone up to my ear and crossed my fingers, hoping that I had gotten it right. The cool breeze and the laughter of children did little to calm me now.

“Hello.” I sighed in relief as the familiar voice reached my ears.
“Chace, hi, it’s Piper,” I said back into the phone.
“Piper. Hey,” came Chace’s reply.
“I hope that you don’t mind that I called,” I said nervously.
“No, of course not. Is everything ok?” Chace sounded worried and I immediately felt bad for possibly tarnishing his weekend. I didn’t want to tell him all the details of Oscar and I’s conversation. It wasn’t just that Chace didn’t like Oscar, I didn’t want him to have a greater reason to hate Oscar. I was secretly hoping that if Oscar ever came with me to Sydney, then the two guys would get along.

“No, no, I’m okay,” my voice cracked a little as I replied and I hoped that Chace wouldn’t pick up on it.
“Are you sure?” Chace didn’t sound convinced.
“Yeah, of course. How’s your weekend? I hope that I haven’t disrupted you or anything.”
“My weekend is going good so far. My brother is in his school footy team and they had a match last night so I went and saw that with my family. And today it’s such nice weather that my parents were thinking that we’d all go down to the beach for the day. What about you? What are your plans for the day?” Chace answered. I could picture him now, sitting at the kitchen table with his family. His mum would be making sandwiches for their trip to the beach and Chace’s dad would be sitting at the table reading a newspaper. I wasn’t so sure about Chace’s brother though, maybe he was with his friends at a skate park or something. What did teenage boys do in their spare time?

“Umm, I’m not sure what I’ll do today. My father’s busy all day, so I guess I’ll do homework or something,” I replied shrugging my shoulders, momentarily forgetting that Chace couldn’t see me.
“That doesn’t sound like much fun. If you want, you can come to the beach with my family,” Chace suggested.
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t want to impose on your family outing or anything,” I said quickly. The children in the birthday party had finished their game of pass the parcel and were now overtaking the play equipment. It was becoming harder to hear Chace speaking over all of their yells so I got up and began to make my way towards a painted green park bench.

“No, really Piper, you should come. My brother is bringing a friend from school and my parents really won’t mind.”I hesitated and didn’t answer. The beach did sound nice. It would be a lot better than sitting around home moping. What was the harm in going to the beach with a friend?
“Alright, I’ll come,” I agreed, laughing a little and shaking my head, “Where can I meet you?”