A Fabrication of the Truth Read Online Free

pocket.
    “What do you do for work?” I asked.
    “I move goods,” he said.
    “Uh,” I said, not having the slightest idea what that meant. I realized years later that meant drugs.
    “If anybody asks, just make something up.” And that’s what I had done ever since.
    It was like he gave me permission to fabricate everything. What a feeling.
    ***
    “You sure you can’t come to the party tomorrow?” Luiz asked me at the end of the school day. She was one of Caroline and mine’s friends. She also knew I was full of shit – she just didn’t know how full.
    I sighed and looked at Luiz. She was the tallest of the three of us, but that wasn’t saying much because neither Caroline nor I were what you’d call Amazonian women. Luiz was also much bustier, and she made sure to emphasize it, constantly getting in trouble at school for wearing shirts that were too revealing. She started keeping a cardigan in her locker for when teachers told her to cover up or go home. I didn’t know what the school was afraid of – they were just boobs. Half the world’s population has them.
    “Let me guess: an invitation to the embassy to have tea with some prince,” Luiz said with a smirk on her face. She tugged at one of her long, dark-brown curls, the curl bouncing right back into place as she released it.
    I showed Luiz my middle finger. At first, I thought my rudeness delighted her because a smile crept across her face, but then I realized somebody stood right behind me. I didn’t turn around – I knew who it was. He took a step closer and I could feel his warmth. Over my shoulder, he softly said into my ear, “You should go to the party.”
    I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Dalton was gone.
    “Jesus Christ, that was hot,” Luiz said. “Man, I want to jump the new kid’s bones, but he has eyes for you.”
    “It’s not like that.”
    “He intimately whispered in your ear,” Caroline said.
    “He doesn’t respect personal space.”
    “I think it’s just your personal space. He seems to want all up in it,” Caroline said, smiling and throwing her arm around my shoulder.
    “So does that mean you’re coming to the party?” Luiz asked.
    “Fine, I’ll be there – but not because of Dalton Reyes.”
    “You keep telling yourself that,” Caroline said, squeezing me a bit tighter in her grip.
    I thought about Dalton’s lips, his eyes – all of him – for the rest of the day, and then wondered why. Yes, I usually thought of him, but not to that extent. Even as I got out my supplies to create a brand new Enzo fashion that night, I thought about those eyes.
    When I created my new fashions, I really didn’t need my grandma’s help much anymore. She used to do the bulk of the sewing, but now, she offered sewing guidance only on occasion. I had become Enzo. I might have been more unbalanced than I thought.
    I knew a lot of my uniqueness stemmed from that day – that one particular day Dalton Reyes visited his lola and lolo. That one day where he finally gathered the courage and came next door, to my house.
    I invited him in, and for hours, we played a dancing revolution game on my Mbox. It was the best and worst day of my life. We decided to sit down and drink some pop because we were both getting pretty sweaty, and he was worried he started to smell. The front door to the house burst open. We never finished drinking our pop. We never finished playing our game. That was the day we were both involved in a botched drug raid.
    ***
    “Grandma!” I yelled when I emerged from my room mid-afternoon on Saturday.
    “Kitchen!” she yelled back.
    I walked into the kitchen, threw my latest dress on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. I put my chin in my hands and said, “Grandma, I’m going out tonight.” That was normal for a sixteen-year-old to say on a Saturday night, but not for me. I was usually too busy meeting dignitaries from other countries or attending soirées at some