Free The Cake is a Lie by mcdavis3 Page A

three times a day.
    “ There’s nothing to
tell.”
    Brandon’s patented no-big-deal act
didn’t give away anything more than a slight grin, but I felt the
ultra-smugness he must have been feeling. I was livid. Kane staring
at Able. And he was standing there with that superior look, like he
did it all on his own. If it wasn’t for me, Brandon would have
never in a million years even met his girlfriend.
    We’d met her at an Einstein girls’
volleyball game. We’d gone to ogle the players.
    That’s when we saw her–a blond
angel–playing for the visitors, the Meadowdale Vikings. She was a 1
in 10,000 beauty. The type of beauty that makes you want to kill
yourself. After listening to everyone comment about how perfect she
was for the first set, in a moment of hormone driven genius and
total discontentment towards god, I’d started heckling her for
laughs.
    “ Hey number 4. What’s
up?”
    She’d totally ignored me at first. My
friends were in stitches though. Well, except for Devin, he’d hit
me in the leg, his bulging eyes urging me to be quiet.
    When she did something good I’d yell,
“Great form, number 4.” And when she’d mess up I’d yell, “It’s
alright 4, that one wasn’t your fault, you got it next time
girl.”
    Eventually she’d started cracking,
letting out reactions, smiles and bursts of laughter. She’d become
distracted, sneaking more and more glances at us—she was not doing
good. But it was clear that she really liked the attention and our
whole group started getting in on the fun. We’d cheer loudly when
she came in the game, and yell at the coach when he took her
out.
    “ What are you doing coach,
why in god’s name would you bench your best player?”
    There were like ten other people
scattered over the empty bleachers. We owned the room. She’d kept
looking and laughing and, by the end of the game, our group felt
comfortable enough to go talk to her. But Tysen, Brandon, and Devin
had some charisma themselves and once they had the green light they
were on it.
    I’d stood back. I didn’t try to fight
them for her attention. I couldn’t. I was hideous. There was just
no way. Somehow in the frenzy Brandon got her number. Her name was
Sarah Faith Hall.
    “ Her parents have a no
closed doors policy,” Brandon’smile now had a hint of disgust,
“They even have MTV blocked.” I knew the story he’s telling. I was
there. I was there on all their dates. I was the comic relief, the
awkward silence patrol–well me and Avi Miller.
    I was slowly integrating Avi
into the group and it was going well, even though it was an
incredibly delicate feat. I wasn’t like Jonsen. I didn’t just leave
my best friends behind. I loved Avi. He could remember an inside
joke after everyone had forgotten, then bring down the house months
later with a well-placed, “Forgetting about my cat-like reflexes
was your first mistake.”
    So while Brandon and Sarah were
adoringly staring into each other’s eyes and making out in the
theater, Avi and I were next to them snorting pixie sticks, making
endless drug jokes and laughing our loudest at ourselves. “I gotta
get my stick fix.”
    Sarah was the real deal, personality
wise she had “it.” She talked to you as if you were best friends.
Her light freckles, perfect teeth, and maddening us of MTV slang
words like “tight” and “crib” were just the icing on the cake. I
felt like it was fate that I had met her. If there was a god,
someday we would be together.
    There was another reason Avi and I were
always around–Sarah’s mom didn’t like Brandon. Brandon didn’t care
if parents liked him, he was quiet, cold, acted entitled around
them. Parents had to pry to get him to say a word. But Avi and I
might have been the best mom-sucker-uppers in the world. We
couldn’t help ourselves. That’s just what we did.
    “ Thank you so much for the
cookies Mrs. Hall. How was your day Mrs. Hall? You’re so cool Mrs.
Hall.”
    “ How did you know where