Beyond Our Lies

s i x

"You know," I started and turned my head slightly to look at him, "when you said let's have some fun, I figured you'd somehow manage to get me to do crack but this," I paused and gestured all around us, "is pretty fucking nice ." He threw his head back and laughed at me, the water touching the tips of his hair.

We've been sitting on big ass inflatable floats in the indoor pool at Alex's house for at least 20 minutes now just hanging out. He somehow managed to get me to have some beers and I felt the same way I did yesterday- carefree. The roof of the room was made of glass, allowing us to get lost in our thoughts staring at the sky.

My future became the star of the show in my head. I had the rest of senior year here until I could finally fulfill my dreams. That was the thing though, I had no idea what I wanted to do because I had so many people pushing me every which way telling me what to do. My mom wanted me to stay in this town and become some well known lawyer, my dad couldn't give a shit as long as it didn't cause a bad reputation to our family name, and everyone at school made it seem like a huge deal of going to some Ivy League college and doing something in academics. In reality, I wanted none of that. I didn't want to stay here, I didn't want anything with academics, I didn't even want to go to an Ivy League.

Sometimes I didn't even know if I'd make it to graduation so why should I have to stress over my future.

I turned to look at Xander once again to see him already staring at me. I softly smiled and he reciprocated it. I glanced at the stars before asking him the same question I've been trying to oh-so-desperately figure out on my own. "What do you want to do in life?"

I could see his expression change multiple times in a matter of seconds- surprised, sad, back to surprised with happiness dancing in his eyes. "Why do you want to know my future? You planning on figuring out the best time we should get married?"

My laughed slightly echoes in the silent room as my cheeks burned bright way. "In your dreams, pretty boy."

A sigh escaped his lips as he slid his fingers lightly over the top of the water, finding it much more exciting than anything else. "You really want to know?"

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Nobody's ever asked me that before. I mean sure teachers do but they never actually care. They just want to seem like they do so they only talk about the importance of college, not actually helping us if we don't want it. Nobody actually gives a fuck." Wow. I never expected him to answer like that, with so much rawness and passion in his voice.

"It's not much but... low and behold, Juniper Matthews!" I made sure my voice echoed as I fake cheered for myself. Then, I used a spokesperson voice, "Now tell us Ms. Matthews, what is your big news you want everyone to know?" I looked at Xander, seeing he was holding back a laugh. Back to my normal voice I said, "Well your honor. Wait no sir, yeah. Sir, I'd like to let everyone know I give a fuck about Xander and his future!" I cheered for myself again.

"Wow I really am fucking stupid." We both laughed and I waited for him to tell me his plans.

He paused for a moment, probably hoping I would magically tell him I didn't want to hear it. That wasn't going to happen though. "I want to be a graffiti artist. For that career I really don't need to go to Princeton or some shit but nobody gets that. Sure, it's technically illegal but it's what I want to do and that's all that matters."

"You know they'd literally murder you if they found graffiti in this town by you, right?"

His lips quirked upwards and he nodded his head. "That's why I'm getting the fuck out of this town as soon as I can."