Free 0577651001373397368 ls 00.7- ta by babe

Chapter 1
    I don’t know much, I fully admit that. I’m only seventeen after all. But there is one thing I do know with utter and complete certainty: Everybody is a liar.
    Not just politicians and lawyers and criminals. Doctors, little old ladies and policemen too. Even nuns. Seriously.
    The girl in the fitting room who tells you it’s just your colour. The waitress who smiles and says it’s no bother to bring you a menu. The best friend who swears blind your bum doesn’t look big in those jeans. Honestly.
    Boys are the worst. Believe me, every word that falls from a boy’s lips after his voice breaks should be treated as thought it’s coated in Anthrax --- with extreme caution and never, under any circumstances, be absorbed.
    ‘That magazine you’re reading is full of lies,’ I tell Nancy, stabbing my finger onto a photograph of an anorexic-looking celebrity. ‘Do you honestly believe her when she says all she eats is ice-cream and doughnuts?’
    Nancy glances up at me over her copy of Seventeen, pushes her retro fake Raybans up her nose and blows a bubble that for a second eclipses her face like a pale pink moon. She lets it pop then gathers the elastic goo with the tip of her tongue. ‘Your problem, Amber,’ she says, ‘is that you’re too cynical to even appreciate gossip. And that is a tragedy.’
    ‘I’m not cynical,’ I sigh.
    I just know for a fact when someone is lying. I can see it.
    The colour of their aura changes like they’re standing beneath a disco ball. If I happen to be touching them at the same time (which isn’t often, because I make it a rule never to touch people) then I feel it, too. Try telling people that, though. It’s not enough to earn you a trip to a state-appointed psychiatrist.
    I’ve been seeing auras since I was a toddler. At first I wandered around with an awed smile, gazing at the multi-coloured lights dancing over everybody’s heads. I figured, with astute small-child reasoning, that these were halos, and that therefore everyone, myself included, was an angel.
    My mom figured out pretty fast what was going on because her mom --- my grandma --- was a reader too. That’s the word they use for it: reader. As though it’s as fun as reading a book. My mom dumped me on my grandma’s stoop one day and had her explain it all to me.
    It was pretty devastating --- up there with discovering my grandpa and not an elf was filling my Christmas stocking
    --- to find out that people were as far away from being angels as was possible. That those mesmerizing lights actually meant something other than oooh, pretty. That they signified sadness, pain, joy, jealousy, hope, anger, happiness and loss. Everyone’s soul was laid bare, worn on their sleeve (or their head if you want to get literal). Bile green for jealousy, indigo blue for fear, blood red for anger, dark carnelian for rage, shiny topaz for friendship, mustard yellow for sickness, obsidian black for pain and grief and evil. Because, yes, evil does exist in the world. Hate to break it to you.
    And let’s not forget white. Pristine, glowing, bridal white.
    For death.
    Nancy slams down the magazine. ‘Right, we need to make like Tom and cruise,’ she announces. And with that she hops the counter and flies down the aisle of the Exchange Thrift Store, throwing random items over her arm as though she’s been given sixty seconds to save all the contents of the store from a raging blaze.
    She reaches the scarf/hat/sunglasses stand and spins it, pulling off a blue beret, a pink feather boa and a pair of 1950s-style sunglasses. With arms cascading clothes, feathers and other random items she rushes back to the counter where I’m busy closing up the till.
    She kicks out the last loiterers --- two teenage boys giggling over a battered Anais Nin novel --- and we get to business.
    On a scale of one to ten I’m hovering around minus three on going to The Majestic tonight. I only agreed because Nancy’s favourite band are playing and