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Hope you like this chapter!

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BARBARA CALLED ME two hours after the Robin Wick incident -  apologizing for her lousy behaviour and almost begging me to forgive her.

I wasn't exactly keen on talking to her at the moment, much less on the phone, since I'd always preferred texts to phone calls - especially in times like these. And I'm sure she knew that, but after talking to her, I started to feel glad she had chosen the phone as a way of communication.

Because if she hadn't called me, I never would've heard the real emotions behind her sorrow-filled words.

I never would've heard the lie.

"I am so sorry for this, Cece," she repeated for about the fifth time, her voice pleading. "But you need to trust me on - " she stopped, her tone changing ever so slightly. "Uh, I mean, you need to trust me."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Trust you on what?"

"Nothing," she said flatly, "just trust me. That's all."

"Hmm."

I couldn't help but notice the way she had spoken throughout the whole conversation. The words had left her mouth in a determined, sad-sounding way and then stopped short after each sentence. At first I thought she was making that two-second pause between sentences in order to regain her composure and think about her next words. But then I heard a slight shift in her voice before the beginning of each sentence, and it took me a few more moments to realize that she was, in fact, stifling laughter.

The feeling in my gut was telling me that something wasn't right. Barbara had been dead-set on making me forgive her, I could tell that from the way she had first spoken through the phone. She had replied with a genuine, remorseful I'm sorry, and I knew it was only a matter of time before she was going to convince me to forgive her.

Maybe not forget, but forgive, even though I wasn't entirely sure I was able to do that yet.

But then I started noticing the changes in her tone.

Moments later, when I hung up the phone, I could feel my stomach twist with nervousness. I knew something was going on. Barabara was acting strange - stranger than normal.

She had never been so careless and so inconsiderate of my feelings before.

Even more, she was the one who had suggested the whole prom date plan and convinced Megan to bring Will that evening. She was the one who had planned setting up Will and I, after all.

I think that was the thing that bugged me the most.

And now, Barbara was backtracking, basically swapping places with me and taking Will for herself.

Something doesn't add up, I told myself. And the more I repeated these words in my head, the more I started to feel like I was right.

Barbara was hiding something.

The sound emanating from somewhere behind me made my thoughts come to an abrupt halt.

I gazed across the room and noticed the laptop screen greeting me with a new call on Skype.

I bolted up from the bed where I'd been meditating upon these matters ever since hanging up on Barbara, and pressed on the green button after the sixth or seventh ring.

"Hey, Mitch," I smiled, trying to dissolve the remains of my previous anger towards Barbara. "How come you're calling so often? Did you spend too much time in the sun?"

"Ha-ha," he fake-laughed, but his lips tugged into a smile as he looked directly into the web cam. "No. If you must know, I wanted to check if you were okay. Barbara mentioned the... uh... thing."

"Oh, um, yeah." So that's how it was called now. Thing. "When did you guys talk?"

He shrugged, and I could see him glance at the clock displayed on the wall behind him. "About four or five hours ago. Why?"

It was my turn to shrug. "Just curious. You guys rarely chat on Skype without me, that's all."

"She was the one who called me. She said she needed to talk to someone, so I listened," he smiled briefly, but I could see that it didn't quite reach his eyes.

Looks like Barbara forgot to mention that.

"What did she say about me?"

"Well," he began, his smile broadening, "she said she was very sorry about the whole thing. She really feels bad, you know? She didn't mean to make you feel... left out."

I snorted. "Left out? How about humiliated? Betrayed? Back-stabbed?"

He shook his head at the screen, smiling. "Cece, you're exaggerating."

"Maybe."

"So I figured."

"Just please tell me something."

"What?"

"Why are you both hiding something from me?"

His eyes widened in shock. "What?"

It was a complete shot in the dart, but I needed to check. "You and Barbara. What are you hiding?"

He snorted, but his lips curved into a smile. "Jesus, Cece. We're your friends. Why would we hide something from you?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "You tell me."

He shook his head and lowered his gaze to the floor whilst covering his mouth with his hand in order to keep himself from laughing. "Cece, I need you to answer this very honestly." I blinked, waiting stiffly in my seat. "What did you smoke?"

I rolled my eyes, feeling my muscles relax ever so slightly. "Nothing."

"Then what's up with you? Did Barbara really make you this paranoid?"

I bit my lip. "I don't know... I mean, I just found the whole thing so weird, so I assumed - "

"Cece," he stopped me, his face now blank through the camera, "I can assure you there's nothing to worry about."

I let myself look at him completely, my eyes locked at his own. His face and hair looked white into the light cast by the screen, so white that if it weren't for that almost indiscernable smile creeping up at the corner of his mouth, he would've looked almost sinister, ghost-like.

And if it weren't for that smile, I also would've believed him.

"You're lying," I said matter-of-factly.

He laughed again and shook his head in disbelief, probably trying to look as if he were laughing at my incredulity. "Cece, do you really think - "

"You're lying," I repeated, feeling the anger rise inside me. In moments like this, my temper was as bad as a Rottweiler's after having its food stolen from his own bowl. "Why are you keeping secrets from me? Whatever happened to always being honest with each other?"

"Cece..." he sighed, his face wrinkled up in a frown, and I figured I'd touched a soft spot.

Mitch and I had made a promise after merely the first few weeks we'd met, which had been about a year before. We promised we'd never keep secrets from each other, as we both had a major pet peeve when it came to lying. Therefore the two of us forever excluded lying as a possible solution when it came to any potential problems.

And now, Mitch was breaking his promise. He was lying to my face. And worse, he wasn't admitting it even after being caught. 

"I can't believe you're doing this. I've never kept any secret from you, much less - "

"Why did you inquire me about prom?"

I was cut short by that. "What?"

"Why did you ask me those things about prom? You've never showed so much interested in this before, and yet yesterday you were asking me all these questions with so much curiosity that I couldn't help but wonder if you had a fever."

I suppressed a smile. "So what? I was curious because now that Mac is no longer in the picture, I figured - "

"You'd go with me?" he grinned.

That startled me. "What? No, I just wanted to - "

"What?"

I chewed on my lip, feeling my face grow hot. "I- I just wanted to know because I remembered that last year had been such a mess with you and - and that guy who stole your date. So I just wanted to check if you were able to push pass those awful memories and maybe go. Again."

"With you?" He asked once again, a sly grin plastered on his face.

I shook my head, maintaining a straight face. "You know that changing the subject makes you a hundred times more guilty, right?"

"Guilty?" He raised his eyebrow and glanced around the bedroom. "Didn't know this place was a hidden court room. I guess nana forgot to mention that."

"Shut up. You're still a liar."

"Can I have this conversation after hiring a lawyer? Oh, maybe nana knows something about this, hence her house being a secret court room. Do you think I should ask her?"

"I'm hanging up now."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

"You can't."

"Wanna bet?"

"Fine, but you'll lose."

"I don't think so."

Then I hung up, and felt bad about it for the rest of the day.

Even though I had all the reasons to be mad at Mitch.

He and Barbara were hiding something from me and they weren't that keen on spilling the beans, either. Not even to their supposedly best friend.

So be it then, I thought to myself and snuggled further underneath my blanket, trying to ignore the hole drawing into my stomach, as well as all those awful scenarios with the two of them playing inside my head.

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