The Boy Who Fell Off a Lawn Mower | Watty's '18

9. Secrets Do Make Friends

Chapter 9

Secrets Do Make Friends

A week had passed since Aida had given the apology muffins to Levi. She hadn't seen him once at school and had been running errands most of Thursday afternoon, so she didn't see him mowing the lawn that day, either. On the other hand, she'd had an enjoyable time at school with her new group of friends, but had tried her best to avoid one particular one... Connor. Aida wasn't a big fan of confrontation and wanted to keep off the topic of her dinner. She also conveniently forgot to tell Tiffany about the night, so naturally nobody else at school knew. Connor, for once, kept his big mouth shut, embarrassed that Aida had sent him away at the end of the night when he'd been hoping to stay a few hours.

Aida had been invited to a real sleepover at Tiffany's rather than a I'm-going-to-a-party-but-saying-it's-a-sleepover type of event. It was now Saturday night and she'd been there for a few hours.

"Ugh, this is absolutely terrible," yawned Diane, who hadn't mentioned one thing about Ian in the past week. Nobody knew where they stood after the incident.

"Hey! I tried my best to get alcohol but it's kind of difficult when you're seventeen years old," retorted Tiffany. The two had been bickering all afternoon for no valuable reason and Aida was getting tired of the pettiness.

"Well, we should do something at least entertaining then! We've just been sitting around for so long." Diane drew out her words for emphasis, annoyed with Tiffany's lack of planning. There were seven girls all sitting in Tiffany's room and the clock was rapidly approaching midnight.

"We could gossip," suggested Tiffany, shrugging her shoulders. She was sitting on her bed with her knees up to her chest, looking vulnerable from her boredom.

"We always do that," moaned Diane, who was sitting backwards on Tiffany's desk chair, throwing her phone up in the air and catching it repetitively. "How about we take a drive somewhere?"

"All seven of us in one car? No thanks. Plus, everything worth going to is closed by now," said Tiffany. It was almost like the two girls were spitting venom at each other at this point; the vileness was slowly increasing with every sentence.

"We could play a game?" suggested Aida, speaking up for the first time in a while. She preferred to mostly listen to Tiffany and Diane's musings, rather than participate in them.

"Like what?" sneered Tiffany, accidentally still sounding hostile due to her general irritation with Diane at the moment.

Aida was laying at the bottom of Tiffany's bed, sprawled out like a dog and staring at the ceiling. She moved her hand to her face and wiped it over, thinking. "Never have I ever? Truth or dare? Two truths and a lie? I'm definitely not playing spin the bottle with you people." Everyone laughed halfheartedly for a few brief seconds.

"What was that last one?" asked Tiffany, her attention suddenly snatched up.

"Spin the bottle...?" repeated Aida slowly, confused.

"No, no. Truths and a lie?" clarified Tiffany, staring directly at Aida.

"Yes! Let's play that!" Tiffany clasped her hands together, happy that she found something to do and, in her mind, taking credit for the idea. "I'll go first since it was my idea. Also, you guys better make it interesting."

Aida shrugged the "Tiffany's idea" part off, satisfied that they weren't going to sit there complaining anymore.

Tiffany put her hand on her chin and relaxed her legs, thinking thoroughly and then began speaking slowly. "One; My older sister dropped out of college last month and hasn't told my family. Two; Diane and Ian broke up. Three; I think that broke kid Levi in our grade is really hot."

Aida sat there in a stunned silence at hearing Mr. Lawnmower's name. She was sure that was the lie. He was her lawnmower and Tiffany had never expressed interest in him... until now. She didn't think Tiffany even knew who he was after their brief conversations about him, which were really just "he's poor." She didn't even know Tiffany had an older sister but still found the sentence believable. Nobody knew what had happened between Diane and Ian, but Aida had been expecting nothing less than a break up after his behavior at the party. Levi had to be the lie.

He's poor. The words echoed through the back of Aida's mind again as she suddenly remembered his giant house and the confusion came flooding back to her. As she sat there in contemplation, another girl piped up. This snapped Aida out of her fog and she noticed Diane's face. Angry. She was not happy that Tiffany was using her in their little game. It was clearly to get at her for the irritation from the rest of the night.

The girl speaking, Cassidy, seemed delusional to Diane's red hot emotions as she talked. "It's obviously the first one. About your sister. I don't even think you have a sister."

Aida's mouth fell open. Did other people actually find Levi to be attractive? Tiffany had said it and Cassidy didn't think it was a lie. She thought he was just "poor." Not worthy of the other people at their school.

"I do have a sister! I just never talk about her. You can kind of tell why – she's a little spontaneous. I try to stay out of that."

Aida narrowed her eyes, deciding to speak. "Ian and Diane did not break up?" she tried, confused. She genuinely thought they had, but figured Tiffany had to be lying about Levi.

"Wrong! They didn't! She just didn't want to tell anyone she stayed with him. That was the lie." Tiffany looked straight at Diane, who had completely shed her usual shade of calmness and was now very mad.

"Are you serious?" stated Diane. "I told you that in confidence." She turned her nose up in disgust.

After getting over the initial shock of realizing Diane and Ian hadn't broken up, it suddenly dawned on Aida that the lie was about Diane. Not Levi.

"You think Levi is cute?" clarified Aida, perplexity lacing her face.

"Well duh. I think everyone does. Just look at him. Too bad his family is broke. A shame really." Tiffany had relaxed from the mood she was in and was now speaking loosely.

Cassidy, Diane, and a few of the other girls nodded their heads in agreement. Aida felt bad listening to them speaking negatively about Levi due to his financial status. She wanted to justify his character but truthfully realized she didn't know very much about it. She had to think quickly.

"But he's not poor!" Wrong thing to say.

Aida knew that whether he had money or not didn't matter to her, but knew it mattered to these people and they were supposed to be her friends. She hadn't meant to blurt it out, but she felt as though they needed to know they were wrong.

"What did you say?" asked Tiffany sharply, snapping her head in Aida's direction.

"He's not poor. I uhh saw his house once," said Aida quietly, looking down, unhappy with herself.

"Well that's very, very interesting. Thank you, Aida." Tiffany looked about the room, apparently thinking, before deviously setting her eyes back on Aida.

Aida wasn't sure what she'd just done but she knew one thing; she did not like the way Tiffany was looking at her.

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A/N: Hey all, sorry for the longer time before releasing this update. I just got back from Portugal! The Azores are the most beautiful place in the world and I highly recommend a trip there if you ever have the chance to go!!

Anyways, what do you think Tiffany is going to do?

Until next time xx