A Terrible Liar
She’s tired.
It’s a kind of half-formed thought, stirring in the back of her mind and making the thinnest amount of something nauseous begin to stew in her gut. She’s tired. Which is a very bad sign.
It means that she’s close to being asleep. It means that she has to go to bed. It means that Chloe has to go to bed. It means that this conversation is nearly over.
And yet, Chloe hasn’t mentioned that it’s late. Her voice is still as steady and wonderful as ever.
Chloe has a perfect voice.
“Uh… dork? Buddy oh pal?”
She startles something awful, nearly dropping the phone. She secures it against her ear a little more tightly then is strictly necessary, and words spill out of her before thought can really arrive fully.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, I wasn’t even listening, my mind drifted - I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just-”
“Woah, woah! Calm down there, Max. Come on. Breathe.”
She forced herself to stop.
Took in a breath.
Out.
In.
...Out.
“...Sorry.” She repeated, voice weak and quiet again.
“I thought we banned that word?”
She couldn’t help but snort, though she managed to mostly repress the ugly sound.
“Right. Apologies, I mean.” She said, still quiet but with a bit of snark.
That’s the best part.
If she were talking to Chloe face to face-
(Her heart hitched at just the thought.)
-she wouldn’t be able to pull off a joke like that in a million years. She was never able to say something like that around Victoria, for example. But in a phone call, it was easy.
Well. Normally it wouldn’t be. A phone call with Victoria would never have her sassing any, either.
But talking with Chloe on the phone was easy, anyway. Especially with her newfound mantra.
Don’t think about this too much.
It was a phrase that bounced around in her head whenever Chloe said anything that made her pause, and begin to wonder.
Don’t think about this too much.
“Slippery, dearest dork. But not slippery enough.”
...Dearest?
Don’t think about this too much.
It really did work wonders.
“Any form of apology is banned, henceforth. Your slipperiness will not be tolerated.”
“Henceforth?” She answered. “Didn’t know you had a thesaurus on hand, Chloe - you certainly didn’t already know that word.”
And she slapped a hand over her mouth.
Because Christ, her voice was loud.
It was like her voice had slipped out of her grasp for a moment, and answered for her. She certainly hadn’t meant to say anything so rude - and she hadn’t meant to be that damn loud either.
She’ll hate you, she’ll be hurt, nobody likes being insulted like that, you’ve done it now - your first good friend since Victoria and you’ve already fucked it up, you barely even managed a conversation-
She was cut off by laughter.
Every thought left her.
Suddenly, the thought that it was good that she wasn’t talking with Chloe face-to-face seemed completely ridiculous - because she had never wanted to hear a sound unfiltered more then she did right now.
The laugh tapered off - and, for just a moment, she nearly asked Chloe to keep laughing, and God she had never been happier to have a filter then right now.
“Welp, you caught me. It’s on page two-hundred-and-three - a synonym for ‘from now on’. I wanted to use big girl words to impress you, so I cracked open a book for the first time in three weeks.”
It took a second for the words to register - but, when they did, she couldn’t help but laugh. Luckily, she managed to cut most of the awful sound off, but a little bit managed to escape her.
“Oh.”
She blinked.
That was… a weird tone of voice that she had yet to hear from Chloe.
“What’s up?” She said - tone quiet again, thank God.
“Nothing! I’m cool, I’m - I’m good. All good over here.”
Chloe’s voice cracked.
She sat up, worry beginning to stir in her gut.
“What? What’s wrong? Did I-”
She cut that thought off fast.
It was the laugh.
Of course it was the laugh - her laugh was ugly, incredibly so, she had always known that - loud and uncontrolled and just awful.
And Chloe was trying to spare her feelings.
“It was the laugh.” She whispered.
“W-what? What’re you talking about? What was the laugh?”
Oh gosh - Chloe was a horrible liar.
“I know, I’m sorry - I tried to hold it back, I won’t - I’ll hold it back next time. Promise.” She whispered - and though her voice came out weaker and more wavering then ever, the promise was firm.
“What?!”
She jumped a little, jerking the phone back.
She delicately put it to her ear again, just as Chloe started talking.
“Oh - oh God. You don’t - you don’t think your laugh is ugly? Surely not?”
She blinked.
...Okay, maybe Chloe was a better liar then she had given her credit for.
“You don’t - you can tell the truth, you don’t have to lie. It’s nice that you’re trying to spare my feelings, but…”
She hunched in on herself. Chloe really must think she was dumb if she wouldn’t drop it already.
She had promised to hold it back from now on - what was Chloe even looking to accomplish? She knew her laugh was awful already, it wasn’t like lying would help anything.
“S - spare your feelings?”
“...Uhm…”
Chloe sounded… weird.
“I - you’re… oh God, you’re serious.”
“...Yes?” She whispered.
This was really the oddest thing about this conversation yet.
“You’re laugh is magical.”
“W- what?”
The word came out both incredulous, and a little amused.
Just a little.
Because she had never heard a laugh described as magical outside of really crappy romance dime-store novels.
And then, anything funny about the situation leaked away - because if Chloe thought she was dumb enough to fall for that, then she must’ve really seemed like an idiot.
“...Uh… I - not that, you know - I just - it sounds good, alright? You have a nice laugh. Is all. So. Y’know.”
This was really weird.
One second, Chloe seemed to think she was dumb enough to fall for really obvious lies, but said them very firmly. Then, the next, she was stuttering over something that might have been believable (or at least, closer to believable), it if weren’t for the fact that her delivery of the lie was so obviously flustered and awkward.
...But there was no reason to not let her off the hook.
Besides, it wouldn’t be a problem if she just managed to keep the laugh in check next time.
I did promise, after all.
“...Okay.” She said.
She heard Chloe breath out a sigh of relief, and wondered how a troublemaker like her could be so terrible at lying.