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Chapter 4: Secrets, Sleepovers and Little White Lies

Secrets are things that you tell everybody to tell nobody.

~Starlight24

"Ew," said Marie for the thirtieth time as Hailey slathered some weird gunk onto her arms. "Can you please save that for later? I think I might puke." Marie ran her fingers over her waxed arms protectively.

"Marie, stop being such a spoilt-sport. Besides, things aren't as bad as they seem from the face value! Plus, I've heard that this does wonders to your arms," Hailey wiggled her green fingers in front of Marie's face, which made her wrinkle her nose in disgust.

Deirdre looked at me and rolled her eyes. "Those two are the weirdest besties ever." I had to agree.

We'd spent around three hours at the mall, just lounging around the place and shopping (not to forget guzzling down cold coffee from Starbucks) and they just casually asked me to stay over, and so I did. I had gotten to know them better, and I realized (to my happiness or sadness, I honestly didn't know. Yes, I'm messed up like that; don't judge) that they weren't the cliché bunch.

Marie Spindle was an A-classified uppity bitch who held her nose up high and scorned everything and everyone including Deirdre, Hailey and I. Except she was nicer to her friends than other people, and when she wasn't obsessing over her looks or money, she was criticizing other people. I still admired her quiet confidence, though.

Hailey was a complete open book, with her wild nature and chattiness. She could be extremely deceptive, as her porcelain features masked her naughty streak, so she could manipulate people with her façade of bambi eyes and pouts in a matter of seconds (trust me, she made me spend fifty bucks on her clothes just by doing that). She wasn't as girly as Deirdre or Marie, but she wasn't a tomboy either. She and I bonded in that weird plane in the middle.

Deirdre was a confused mix of everything. She was sassy and confident, and she knew she was gorgeous, which really boosted her self-esteem. She had absolutely no time for self-pity and was so cut and dry that she could make someone cry. She didn't believe in sugar-coating her words, and if she was sugary sweet to you then you'd know she hated you. She was blunt but somehow completely lovable, and everyone tried to suck up to her.

"It's twelve o'clock," murmured Marie, her eyebrows done perfectly as she furrowed them. "If I don't sleep soon, I'm gonna get bigger bags under my eyes than my shopping bags!" Hailey grunted at this.

"One night, Marie! Just one single, little, itty-bitty night! Do it for me, won't you? If our friendship ever mattered to you, you'll stay up for me," Hailey pleaded. Whoa, talk about emotional blackmail goals.

Marie rolled her eyes, but didn't protest. Lay it all on me by Rudimental and Ed Sheeran was blaring through the portable speakers that Hailey had brought along. I decided to pipe along and started to sing. Two words: Bad idea.

"Let my love in, let my love in, Lay your heart on me," I sang. Pretty soon, I was screaming the lyrics out and dancing on Deirdre's bed. Nice way to make first impressions, right? "LAY IT ALL ON ME!" I was practically screaming when the song ended.

I flopped back onto the bed and noticed all of their eyes on me, wide with... admiration? I felt my natural blush creep up to my cheeks. Yikes. "You sing so well!" gushed Hailey, and even Marie nodded. That must have meant something. "Like, I was literally enthralled. I think you're one of the best I've met!"

I blushed deeper and shook my head modestly, allowing my blonde curls to smack my face. "You're dancing skills, however..." began Marie, shaking her head sadly. Trust Marie to be able to criticize me at any time. I was too happy to say anything, for I'd thought I sounded like a dying walrus trying to imitate a goat. Oh well.

"Hah, we've finally got someone to deflate Natalie's swollen head!" exclaimed Deirdre, happily.

"What do you mean, Deirdre?" I asked. I liked saying her name because I got to roll my Rs.

"First of all, please call me Deeds. That's what everyone calls me, anyway! And Natalie, AKA Nat," spat Deirdre/Deeds in distaste. "Thinks she's the best at singing. I'd like to see her face when she finds out you're better!" I shook my head again.

"I bet I'm not," I started, earning an annoyed look from Deeds.

"Oh puh-lease. I mean, modesty is just a very subtle way of boasting." Well that put things into perspective.

"Speaking of Nat... I think she hates me," I stated. "She asked me to come over today, and I told her I was hanging out with you. She suddenly turned all cold and rigid and left. What's up with the two of you?" Deeds' smile was full of contempt.

"You see, I came to this school around four years ago, and Nat and Dylan were best friends. There were no real boundaries between the different levels of popularity, but Dylan and Nat were definitely the most loved. Insert me into the picture, who very wonderfully destroyed this setting. Nat had been crushing on Dylan from the beginning of time, and everyone but him knew it. They'd been BFFs from when they were in diapers, and Dylan suddenly decided that he liked me. As soon as that happened, Nat tried to make life miserable for me." She looked at me to see whether I'd been following the story. I think my mouth was open and my eyes were wide. My expression seemed enough for her to continue with zeal.

"So Nat used to do whatever she could to get me into trouble. She'd send nasty notes to the teachers and sign it off with my name. She'd put red ants in my cheerleading dress on the day of our school's big soccer game, when I was the lead cheerleader. Even that didn't seem to be enough for her! She decided to make everyone hate me by ripping the school's performance outfits and leaving my scissors as evidence. I was shunned for at least a year, when Hailey and Marie decided to ditch Nat and befriend me." This made Hailey give Deeds a beaming smile.

"I'm so glad we did!" she exclaimed, making Deeds give Hailey one of her prized smiles.

"As I was saying," continued Deeds. "Nat was furious about this. She then did something extremely horrible, but all evidence pointed at her. She took a matchstick and lit up the school's auditorium, and I don't know how but she was planning on framing me. However, Marie was there and he took a video and gave it to the school's princi. Nat nearly got suspended, but her parents are really close to Mr. Jones so he kept her. Talk about partiality!"

Hailey decided to interrupt Deeds' story. "I also made sure Dylan knew that Nat had made life miserable for Deeds by telling Bryan, who is one of Dylan's best friends."

"Wait... How did Bryan listen to you?" I asked, having a flashback of Hailey introducing me to everyone. She'd said: This is Bryan Acosta, who happens to be one of the nicest guys ever. Oh, that made sense.

"No!" shrieked Hailey, laughing hysterically. "No, we aren't dating. We're cousins, actually!" I laughed and nodded. Right, wrong thoughts, I guess?

"Back to my story, alright?" asked Deeds, looking annoyed. We all nodded, not like we had a choice anyway. No one could stop Deeds from her extended rant session. "So Nat wasn't allowed to come anywhere near me, and Dylan disowned her completely. This caused her to cry and make a huge scene. By now, though, everyone had started hating her. I don't know how she got the few friends that she has, but they pitied her and took her under their wing. Now, they are the biggest wannabes on the planet. The rest of us formed our own group and just eventually became the 'populars'. Nat's hate grew bigger and bigger every day, but she couldn't do anything about it. She then became that rebel-goth kid who hated the world and acted too cool. Dylan eventually came around and decided to acknowledge her presence, and this gave her an open gateway to poison his mind against me. Believe it or not, it almost worked! It took twenty long hours of telling Dylan that he was way too gullible that got the stupid facts about me out of his head.

"Nat even thought she might have another shot with him, and tried to get him to like her. It didn't work, because six months ago, Dylan asked me out and I accepted. This completely crushed Nat's heart and she's been trying to make everyone hate me ever since. So if you told her that you were hanging out with me, she's probably plotting your death right now. Welcome to the club." Deeds sighed, and my mouth clamped shut. Wow, I didn't think the backstory would be this huge!

"If I may," I began, smiling. "I have the most perfect song for this feud." The girls looked at me and cocked their heads. "Baby now we got BAD BLOOD!" I yelled, which was greeted by a chorus of laughter from the rest.

Suddenly, Deeds laughed out loud when she looked at her phone. "I see your fight with Dylan! It's quite entertaining," Hailey and Marie crowded around Deeds' phone while I blushed and shot lasers at my shoes with my eyes. Ugh, how embarrassing.

"So who won in the end?" asked Hailey, after the girls read through the comment war.

"I don't know... That's for you to decide!" I exclaimed.

"Team Day all the way," said Deeds, giving me her beaming smile. "And that rhymed, and I'm skilled like that, thanks."

"Starlight should see this," gushed Hailey, and this made Marie frown.

"As if Starlight would have enough time as to be able to check out someone else's comment war! I bet she gets millions of these every day," muttered Marie in disapproval. I tried to smother my smile and kept a straight face. I guess this wasn't good enough, because Deeds looked at me suspiciously.

"What happened?" she asked. Before I could answer, she pipped up, "And please don't say 'nothing', because I know something is up." Well screw your perception. But I was a good liar; I could weave something up.

"I... Remember how I said I was homeschooled?" I asked, and they all nodded. "Um... Starlight and I used to be together. Her house was right next to mine, and we used to be best friends." I gulped. What the actual fudge was I blabbering!?

"Funny how you were never mentioned by her," said Marie, with this breezy spite behind her words that stung. Mental note: Give Day June Winters a shoutout.

"Uh- Yeah, I wonder why. I should, like, ask her or something," I hurriedly lied, feeling like an idiot. "And, she eventually moved away. She... her name always brings a smile to my face." I said. My face was flushed and I wanted to kick my own ass. I was usually such a good liar, why did the world have to use today to have to blabber all of this utter and complete BS!?

Deeds gave me an adoring smile. "Dylan is head-over-heels in love with Starlight," she began. Aw, that was sweet. Dylan loved me-not-me. Well gee. "And it would be nice if I could tell him all of this!" she exclaimed. WHAT!? NO! She didn't seem to want to take my thoughts into consideration, because in a matter of seconds, I got a text from Dylan:

Hey Day... Wtf, you friends with Starlight?

Holy shit.

Me: Yeah... I don't like publicizing it though...

Dylzz48: Well no one cares. I just posted it on Onlinathon, sweetheart. My next-door-neighbor is Starlight's bestie! Cheers, and try to mention me to her, will you?

Oh goodness. What had I gotten myself into?

"So tell us about her!" said Hailey. The only one who seemed mildly pissed was Marie, but that was just her perpetual look of distaste at simply everything. "Was she pretty? What was her real name?"

I hadn't thought this out at all, had I?

"Yeah, she was really pretty. She told me not to, like, tell anyone her name, so... yeah. It's a secret." I waved my fingers in front of their faces with this air of mystery, trying in vain to cover up for saying something so stupid and desperately trying to change the topic. WHY THE HECK COULDN'T I HAVE KEPT MY ACTING SKILLS IN CHECK AND MADE A POKER FACE!? WHY GODS, WHY!?

"How did she look?" asked Marie, curious. If I had sparked Marie's curiosity, I had definitely made a huge mistake. Oops.

"She had... orange hair, kinda like Hailey." I began, and Hailey grinned at the mention of the similarity between her and Starlight. "She had big, brown eyes the color of a mahogany door and perfect features." Okay, describing had always been my strong point. I wasn't stuttering anymore, touch wood.

"Her eyes were flecked with bits of darker and lighter shades of brown and black, and her ears were pointed. I'd always teased her about being part-elf!" I exclaimed. I was getting good at this. "She learns ballet, so she has these beautiful calf muscles and is extra graceful. She's pretty tall, almost as tall as Dylan. She is really skinny though, and has a gymnast's body." I took a deep breath. "I miss her- I haven't seen her in a really long time." I dropped to a nostalgic voice.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I took it out. My notifications read: You have 140 new followers on Onlinathon! This was obviously because I was supposed 'Besties' with Starlight24. *Insert a series of mental face palming*.

Dylan had posted another picture of me, but this time I looked marginally okay. I don't even know where he got that picture from. The caption read:

Meet my next-door-neighbor, @DayWinterz, who happens to be BFFs with @Starlight24! Hope my awesomeness is mentioned xD

GOOD LORDS, please save me.

"I'm so glad we're friends!" yelled Hailey, enveloping me in her huge bear hug.

"Yeah," I muttered. "I'm so glad." My feeble laughter was drowned by the start of our sleepover special Movie Marathon, but my thoughts were too distracted to even focus. Hopefully this hubbub will die down and leave me in peace!

I wanted people to know me for me, Day June Winters. I didn't want people to want to know me as the 'Best friend of Starlight24'! This was exactly what I had been dreading; my cover would be blown. And right now, it had been blown in a completely different way that made me feel like I had been chucked into a bottomless pit. Why did one little lie have to ebb out all of my confidence of making people like me for being me? Why did one little lie have to change everything?

How did a sleepover with just a gossipy secret session turn into a weaving loom for little white lies? 

A/N:

How was that? Day's conflicting emotions got the better of her :)

Do you think she should admit who she is? Do you think she will?

Teaser: Guilt consumes Day, so she skips school. She shows off her sass again as she bumps into a new guy ;)

Pic of Deeds on the right :) she's so pretty!! #GirlCrush

Please Comment/Vote/Follow/All of the Above if you liked this :)

Best comment gets a dedication!

I'd also like to apologize for such a terrible chapter. I promise I'll give you a better next chapter!

Song of the day: Lay it All on Me by Rudimental and Ed Sheeran

Love you all,

~Lexi