Chapter 1
Toni has always hated liars. Gray areas, white lies—any color of deception really—or lies told in avoidance, they’re all the same in her book.
Toni has been lied to for most of her life by every single person on the planet who has ever tried to care about her. Her mother promised she would come back for her but never did. Not for good anyway. Countless social workers have promised that they had her best interest at heart but they always left her with foster families who didn’t give a fuck about anything but a steady check.
Toni started dating Regan halfway through the tenth grade and now, seven months later, they’re wildly happy together. Regan is chill and Regan has a great ass and Regan is honest, therefore Toni’s happy.
Regan believes that Toni is her soulmate and Toni has never disagreed. Sometimes, she thinks about the difference between love and need. She’s not sure if she loves Regan the way she’s supposed to, or if she just clings to her because she’s steady, because she’s there. The thought makes her stomach twist—because what if she’s just lying to herself? Toni has manners so she doesn’t say anything about it.
A week into junior year and already two couples had "discovered" they were soulmates. Statistically, that was laughable. Toni had crunched the numbers last spring when Regan first called her “The One.” But hey, let people believe what they want. No one ever listens to statistics when love is involved.
Toni tries not to worry about the soulmate thing too much and plans to go into the new school year focusing on the fact that she has a sexy girlfriend and honest friends. Regan cares about soulmates, though. Regan cares a lot.
For their six month anniversary in August, Regan bought them each matching bracelets. One said ‘soul’ and one said ‘mate’. Toni hates that she’s the one stuck wearing the ‘mate’ one because it looks ridiculous when she’s by herself. She’s never said anything about it though, because she was raised right.
At first Toni wondered if pretending she likes the stupid bracelets counts as a lie, but she has since decided that a lie by omission doesn’t count as a real lie. She’s done her reading on soulmates, and a lie in a soulmate context is direct verbal or written lies that the liar knows full well is untrue.
The idea that you can still lie to your soulmate if you believe the lie to be true is a part of the whole soulmate thing that Toni can never quite wrap her mind around. She has always believed in objective truths. Water is wet, dogs are better than people, scissoring isn’t real, nobody reads the terms and conditions, Taylor Allison Swift is the best singer-songwriter of all time. Objective truths. So if a lie can somehow also be a truth, where does that leave her neat, quantitative, analysis of the world?
Ultimately, like most people who are faced with concepts that question their worldview, Toni has decided not to think too hard about it. The soulmate thing? Not worth worrying about. Going into her junior year of high school, Toni has resolved to focus on basketball, Regan, basketball, and school, in that order.
Toni throws on a pair of jeans that lift her ass and show off her muscular glutes, a crisp white t-shirt that even she has to admit makes her look like a tall James Dean, and her letterman jacket even though it covers up her fit biceps. She’s determined to get back on the team this year, mostly because Regan is in the band and they always go to away games together.
“You’re a sexy fucking beast,” Toni says, looking in the mirror. It’s true, she really is. She takes some pride in having chosen Regan from a pretty competitive pool, not that she would ever say that out loud. She doesn’t want to seem conceited. She broke off her on again, off again situationship with Fatin when she started dating Regan.
Soon she hears Regan’s car pull into her driveway and she runs to meet her, giving a quick “bye” to her foster parents on the way out of the house.
“I missed you,” Toni breathes, kissing Regan desperately on the neck as she gets into the passenger seat and buckles up because she cares about road safety. It’s the only thing she doesn’t have in common with James Dean actually.
“It’s been like three days,” Regan barely manages to say past Toni’s tongue between her face lips.
“It feels so much longer,” Toni moans. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Toni’s hands wander to the front of Regan’s jeans as she forgets her plans for school and makes new filthier ones.
“You two are so cute.” A voice from the backseat almost makes Toni jump out of her skin. She turns around and sees Martha smiling back at her.
“Jesus, Marty B,” Toni says. “Fuck, that scared me. Sorry, I forgot you’re carpooling with us this year.”
Martha laughs. “No worries, I don’t want to cramp your style. Pretend I’m not even here.”
Regan smiles over at Toni and Martha fills them in on the first day of school gossip. “There’s a new girl.”
“Uh oh,” Toni says, smirking. “So we’re getting tour guide Marty today?”
“Big time,” Martha says.
Toni cranes her neck to see her best friend, second only to Fatin. Martha’s beaming, pointing at her ‘student ambassador’ pin on her shirt like a child showing off some shitty macaroni art.
“What’s the new kid’s deal?” Regan asks, swatting away Toni’s wandering hand to signal a turn.
“Shelby Goodkind. She’s in the eleventh grade like us,” Martha reads off her phone. “Originally from Fort Travis, Texas, but moved here a few weeks ago. She was involved in student government back home and she’d like to be here as well. That’s all Klein said in her email.”
“Great intel, Martha,” Regan grins, before grabbing Toni’s hand.
Toni smiles back at her and forgets all about this Shelly chick. Toni has enough friends and she doesn’t care about meeting anyone new, especially someone who sounds like such a keener who is definitely not in her league.
“I love that you two are so in love,” Martha says.
Martha has always been deeply bought into the idea of soulmates. When they were kids, Martha would tell obvious lies to everyone she met just to see if they were ‘the one.’ She stopped doing that after Toni threatened to stop hanging out with her in public, but Toni suspects that she still has the urge to. Martha has always been a romantic at heart.
While she still wants to believe in soulmates, it isn’t on her mind much anymore. Not today at least. She’s happy with Regan, she’s found a family in the Blackburns and her six best friends, and she’s planning on getting her panty-dropper spot back on the basketball team. She walks into school with Regan on her arm feeling like she can conquer the world.
Then she meets the new girl.