Lie Again! Chapter 60

<Chapter 60. Collapsing (3)> 

 

No matter how she felt, no matter the situation, each day passed by regardless. 

 

She sat in the familiar seat of the familiar classroom. The teacher hadn’t changed, the textbook was the same, and the faces were much the same.

 

The only difference from last semester was Ruth’s presence. Evan Ruth had thrown in the towel on the final exam and had fled from Spanish. 

 

This time, Emily Gwen wasn’t there either. Unlike Ruth, her Spanish skills were excellent, so she had expected Emily to be present. 

 

And another person..

 

She shook her head to break off the thought and found a seat near the corner by the wall. Having prepared herself to take this semester’s Spanish II class alone, she soon looked up at the tap-tap of fingers on her desk.

 

“Hello, Lee.”

 

It was Cameron Johnson.

 

Although they had never exchanged a word, it was a familiar face from last semester’s Spanish class. In other words, the kind of acquaintance where she knew only the name and the face. 

 

“Hello, Johnson.”

 

“Oh, you know me. So you’re not taking the class with Evan Ruth this time?”

 

Johnson brightened at her reply and quickly claimed the seat next to her. He even pulled over the desk from a row away to ask the question, and Jin slowly nodded in response. A faint weariness washed over her. 

 

“Aha.” 

 

But that seemed to be all Johnson was curious about; the seemingly intrusive boy didn’t speak any further and turned his gaze forward. Jin stole a glance at him as he flipped through his textbook, quietly whistling.

 

An awkward greeting, an awkward choice of seat, an awkward question. On top of that, Johnson always seemed to cluster with his friends during class.

 

Jin wondered about the reason he, someone she had no friendship with, suddenly started talking to her.

 

‘…What does it matter?’

 

Then she scattered her thoughts. She no longer had the energy to be on guard against anyone. All she wanted was to finish class quickly and get home as fast as possible.

 

She turned her attention from the seat beside her and focused on Mrs. Hyde, who was entering the classroom with a gloomy expression. 

 

“Hey, can I call you Jin? You can call me Cameron.”

 

He spoke again after class had ended. Jin, tidying her textbook, looked up in surprise at Johnson lingering beside her.

 

It was a question she had never heard before. Johnson was the first person to ask for permission to call her by her name at Crawford. Everyone else had simply called her by her name as if it were natural.

 

Jin gave an unexpected look at the question she had never even heard from her friends.

 

He might be a little distracting, but maybe he’s not as bad as she thought. 

 

‘He’s not bad on the outside, but he’s a little annoying.’

 

Jin recalled a lunchtime when Joey had talked about Johnson. It had been a negative assessment, but not full of harsh words, and she had added the small remark that, on the surface, he wasn’t bad.

 

If Johnson had been a hopeless case, that reaction wouldn’t have come out. Thinking that far, Jin nodded.

 

“Yeah, Cameron.”

 

Cameron lifted the corner of his mouth at Jin’s reply. A faint dimple appeared on his pale cheek. The dimple on his left cheek was so subtle that it could be easily missed if not looked at closely.

 

“See you tomorrow, Jin.”

 

“…Mhm. See you tomorrow.”

 

Staring intently at that trace, Jin responded a beat late to Cameron’s greeting. After taking her eyes off him as he left the classroom, she glanced at the corner of her desk for a moment before slowly moving her hands to pack up her things.

 

* * *

 

“Jin, we’re having a party at my place this Friday. Do you want to come?”

 

About a week later, Cameron invited Jin to a party.

 

“Party?”

 

“Mhm. A huge pile of assignments will hit soon anyway, so this is before that. Just a way to relieve stress in advance—should be fun.” 

 

She wasn’t particularly interested in the typical American-style parties she had grown tired of, but she hesitated, finding it awkward to refuse to his face.

 

“Can I come with my friends? Dustin or Ruth.”

 

Instead of refusing his invitation, she deliberately brought up the names of her male friends, thinking that if he objected to a male companion, she wouldn’t go.

 

Over the week, Cameron turned out to be a little different from what she had expected. During class, he diligently did what Mrs. Hyde asked—though he dozed off a little—and didn’t speak unnecessarily. 

 

She felt that he wasn’t exactly someone she needed to keep on guard against…

 

But just in case.

 

“Of course you can.”

 

However, Cameron, instead of showing any hesitation, casually accepted the idea of her male friends accompanying her. 

 

Jin stared intently at the faint dimple that appeared on the left cheek of his smiling face, then nodded.

 

“I’ll think about it.”

 

And now, Jin stood alone in front of a two-story house, with blue light streaming out through the windows.

 

Dustin, Ruth, Amanda, and even Joey—no one was beside her. In a way, it was only natural. 

 

Over the past week, the only things she had said to the others were “I’ll go ahead” or “I’m skipping lunch today.”

 

After the fight with Amanda, she noticeably spoke less. She still ate at the same table with them and greeted them when they met, but that was all. 

 

Rather than showing her anger outwardly, she withdrew inwardly. Whenever Ruth happened to ask if she was okay, she would smile lightly and answer that she was fine. 

 

As she spoke, her face forced into a smile carried a certain weight that made it hard to say anything more, and in the end, even Ruth fell silent.

 

Jin began drawing boundaries that the other kids couldn’t even cross. It was the result of a mix of not wanting to burden them and the sting of disappointed expectations.

 

Jin didn’t have the courage to ask the other kids if they would go to the party with her, keeping her usual expression. A few days ago, she had only quietly brought it up to Joey, whom she had run into by the cabinet, but…

 

‘Ugh, what do I do, Jin? I had cheer practice at that time!’

 

Jin simply nodded quietly.

 

If it had been the usual Jin, she would have neatly set aside any thought of going to the party at that point. Especially knowing that her social skills weren’t that great.

 

What brought Jin this far was impulse.

 

Lately, Jin’s routine had been fairly simple. She faithfully followed the schedule set by the school, and when the bell rang, she either went to have lunch with the others or, on days she didn’t feel like it, bought a sandwich and hid away in a corner of the library. Occasionally, she would run into Pablo there.

 

When the short lunch period ended, she returned to class, and as soon as all her activities were over, she rode Riley’s truck back home.

 

The moment she got up to her room, she did her homework, and if there was anything she hadn’t understood in class, she reviewed it.

 

On days when even that didn’t exist, she did absolutely nothing.

 

She spent her time sitting quietly on the window seat, watching people pass by outside, or lying on her bed catching up on backlogged TV shows.

 

In both cases, it was as if she did nothing at all. Her eyes mechanically scanned the street or the laptop screen, but nothing entered her mind.

 

She consciously emptied her mind. Otherwise, the things she had buried deep inside would suddenly spring out, making her day gloomy.

 

That day was just one of those passing days. She sat on the window seat, watching the sun sink at a slanting angle. Up until that moment, she had no intention of going to the party.

 

She had planned to apologize to Cameron on Monday for not being able to go to the party and leave it at that. If he hadn’t known she wasn’t coming, she wouldn’t have even mentioned it.

 

Then, she suddenly remembered a party from another day—an old Halloween party. He’d unexpectedly barged into the closet and kissed her without warning.

 

Later, she heard from Joey that Evan had barged into the room as if he had something urgent to do. He pretended to smile casually, but she couldn’t hide how his chest was rising and falling rapidly. 

 

As if he had rushed over in a hurry.

 

Joey laughed secretly as she relayed the news.

 

‘You guys really have nothing? I was so sure back then.’

 

In response to the next question, she shook her head, but in truth, the corner of her heart hidden beneath her clothes couldn’t stay still and thumped wildly.

 

Did you really do that? Tell me. What were you feeling when you did it? Back then, did you even like me? Or were you still the same as before…?

 

By the time she reached that thought, Jin jumped up from her seat. She felt unsettled. To shake off the unwanted thoughts, she needed to do something—maybe run the vacuum, or play a board game with Evan.

 

‘It’ll just relieve stress, I guess. It’ll be fun.’

 

A low voice brushed through Jin’s mind as she anxiously searched for something to do.

 

Jin left the house without hesitation. She thought that being in a noisy place would keep her from dwelling on unwanted thoughts.