There Will Be Lies Read Online Free Page A

…
    Although, there is another reason I love the library.
    There is the Boy too.
    I don’t see him at the desk as I come in, and my stomach clencheswith disappointment. I walk further into the library, not really aiming for anything in particular. At the rear, there’s a Native American section. It has a colourful rug on the floor, photos on the walls of people dancing, wearing masks. A drum sits on a shelf.
    I’ve never been in this part of the library, fiction is more my thing, but on the table in the middle, there’s an open book. I stroll over, meaning to pick it up and put it back on the shelf. When I get close, I glance down at the page. I see a line that says:
    If Coyote crosses your path, turn back and do not continue your journey. Something terrible will happen
–
    But just then I sense movement behind me and I turn. It’s the boy, Mark, and he reaches past me to snare the book, flips it shut with one hand – and smiles at me as he puts it back on the shelf. It says
Navajo Ceremonial Tales
on the cover.
    Hi, Shelby
, he says.
    Hey, I told you don’t do that
, I say, my heart racing.
Don’t sneak up on me like that
.
    Sorry
, he says.
My bad
.
    He’s from somewhere in South America, I think. He has an accent, a different cadence to the way he moves, a different rhythm to his hands. Not that I care: he’s pretty much the only person I’ve spoken to properly, apart from my mom, since I used to play with a girl in our old house in Albuquerque – the one other place I remember living – when I was five years old, giving tea parties to our dolls in the dust of the backyard. So he could speak entirely in curse words, and I wouldn’t mind.
    I mean, I love my mom. But she is pretty literally the only person I ever speak to. It’s nice to have a change.
    His name is Mark, but I suspect it isn’t, really. He looks like a cross between Tyler the werewolf from
The Vampire Diaries
and Bradley Cooper – he has this whole hot Latino thing going on, but with easygoing charm laid on top of it like smooth turf over bare earth.
    Mark leans against the shelves.
    Cue angelic music. Cue the end of Shelby Jane Cooper.
    Not literally, though. That comes later.
    Mark has this tattoo, I think it’s a dog, just above his collarbone, and when his top shirt button is undone as it is now, you can see it. It’s meant to make him look badass, obviously, but it’s kind of cute. And his neck muscles, I can’t even.
    I can’t. Even.
    I notice then that one of his hands is behind his back. He takes it out, and there’s a book in it.
    For you
, he says.
    I take the book.
Thanks
, I say.
You think I should read this one next?
    He looks uncomfortable.
It’s not the library’s. It’s a gift
, he says.
    I look at it.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
, in hardcover. It looks old.
    They’ll blow your mind
, says Mark.
    Wow
, I say.
Thank you. No one’s ever given me a book before. Apart from, like, my mom
. As soon as I say this, I think, Wow, super lame thing to say to a boy. At the same time, I’m thinking, Where am I going to hide this from Mom so she doesn’t know I’ve been talking to a boy?
I’m a bit old for fairy tales
, I say.
Don’t you think?
    No one is too old for fairy tales
, says Mark.
    Yeah, that’s what my mom says. She loves them. She’d still read them to me now if she could
.
    Mark smiles.
These are not like the fairy tales your mother told you
, he says.
They’re the originals. They’re dark
.
    DARK?
I ask.
What, like, Cinderella is a serial killer?
    No. Like her stepsisters cut off their heels and their toes, to try to make the slipper fit
.
    I raise my eyebrows. That was NOT in the version Mom told me.
Oh, OK, then
, I say.
    After that we talk for a bit about what I’ve been learning with Mom, and he tells me some books he thinks I should look at that relate to some of the topics. Says again that I should start thinking about college, about what I could major in. I ignore him. My mom doesn’t even like me to