Lie to Me Again | ONC 2024

2 - Midnight Rain

Yuki sipped from her straw, a tapioca pearl sliding up with the sweet coffee flavor into her mouth. "You really think I should try to win Rhett over? Seems easier to convince Ethan to play the game." After her initial burst of ambition, the task of making up with Rhett looked like a mountain compared to the hill of winning over someone new.

Her co-worker, Cate, finished wiping her side of the counter and tossed the wet rag over. "He's your Truth but you can win the scholarship? That's a no brainer to me."

With about half an hour before closing, most of the customer flow had ebbed, but there'd always be one who squeezed in for a boba blast right when they tried to lock up. That or they wanted to meet Mango, who sat purring on Yuki's lap. She stroked his fluffy head before picking him up and setting him down on her stool while he meowed in protest.

Picking up the rag, Yuki avoided Cate's questioning glance. The other girl shrugged and went to clean the blender, her strawberry blond ponytail swishing behind her. "All I'm saying is you've got nothing to lose by trying him first. Weren't you two close?"

Yuki sighed, pointing a warning finger at a miffed Mango to keep him off the clean counter. "We were best friends. Only saw each other in the summer when I came out to visit my grandparents, but we wrote all year-round."

In truth, even the thought of being able to talk to Rhett again, to crack jokes and tease him made Yuki's heart burst with longing. But the secret kept them apart, the reason she'd pushed him away. If the logic for her action had existed before, it'd grown stronger now.

As if hearing the conflicting thoughts, Cate put down the blender and came to lean with her back to the counter next to Yuki, smoothing her tangerine-colored apron over her jeans. "I don't know what happened between the two of you, if it was your fault or his, or even a little bit of both. What I do know is that it's better to face up and make amends because you only find a friend like that once or twice in a lifetime."

Yuki smiled at the nudge from Cate's elbow, though her heart ached. "He's likely to reject me though. If he's my Truth, then I could be his Lie."

Cate laughed and it made her blue eyes sparkle like oceans over the golden stars of her freckles. "When you get to be my age, you'll find that rejection isn't the end of the world. Besides, wouldn't you be even then? You seem like quite the heartbreaker yourself."

"Okay, esteemed senior citizen," Yuki teased. "Your additional four years of wisdom must come in handy." She pushed off the counter and almost tripped over Mango. "I'll lower the shades."

A storm had moved in and on, scattering droplets of moisture across the windows. That's what she hoped she'd been to Rhett, a brief midnight rain in the summer of his life. She hoped she hadn't broken his heart. She hoped he'd moved on.

Maybe she was scared of rejection, but Yuki wanted to believe her reluctance was because she didn't want to hurt him again either.

She'd hurt him enough as it was.

A dull pain stabbed Yuki's abdomen when she reached for the cord to lower the blinds. She sighed, grabbing a chair. Even now, after a full year, her body refused to heal fully. While she considered herself to be lucky to not be wheelchair-bound, it still rankled that she'd proven all too fragile. After wrestling the shades closed, she walked to the other side to flip off the "Open" sign.

The bell on the door chimed, prompting Mango to run over meowing his trademark welcome. Never failed. Cate swore customers waited until they saw the sign blink off to make a fashionably late entrance.

Whenever students from Zenith High came in—which wasn't often—Yuki abandoned Cate at the register and hid in the kitchen until they left. But with the door between her and the kitchen, it left no escape path this time.