Don't Ask by Hilary Freeman Read Free Book Online Page A

embellishment. The key to telling a good lie, someone once
told me, is to make it as close to the truth as possible, so your stories ring true and you’re less likely to slip up, or forget what you’ve said. Laura was ninety-nine per cent me; she
talked like me and she thought like me. The differences were just fine print, the tiny type at the bottom of the page that no one reads when they download a ringtone or enter a competition.
    When it came to Jared, on the other hand, the fictional boyfriend of my alter ego, I could be as inventive as I liked. The less he was like Jack, the better. Jared, I decided, was dark and
skinny, and he was the bass player in a band. Part of the reason for this lie was that Jack is tone deaf, so I thought it would throw Alex off the scent, if she ever grew suspicious. Plus,
I’ve always kind of liked the idea of having a boyfriend who played in a band.
    What surprised me most about the whole charade was how natural it felt to chat to Alex; it was like getting to know any new friend. Although, if I’m honest, I probably made more effort
with her than I would usually make with a person I didn’t know that well, especially someone I met on Topfriendz. If she didn’t write for a while, I wouldn’t let things drift, or
start getting paranoid wondering what I’d done to offend her: my typical responses. I’d just send her another message.
    I think growing a friendship is a bit like looking after a goldfish. For a while, it’s perfectly happy to swim around in a bowl on its own, eating the crumbs you throw its way. But, if you
forget to feed it for a while, or don’t change the water, one day you come home from school and it’s just floating on the top. Dead.
    I’ve always been fantastic at making new friends, but not so good at keeping them. (I’m rubbish at keeping goldfish too; Dad banned me from having any more.) Staying in touch with
people I meet and then don’t see regularly is such an effort. When I was younger, the friendships I made at summer camps usually only lasted until I returned to school in September. Life just
gets in the way and, after a few months, unless you keep chatting, you go right back to being strangers. It’s hard enough keeping up with your best mates, let alone people you’ve met
once or twice, or have shared a couple of weeks’ holiday with.
    Making the effort with Alex was different because it was a means to an end, a project. At least, that’s how it started. Sometimes, when we were chatting, I almost forgot about what
I’d set out to do. The truth is, I hadn’t expected to like her as much as I did, or to enjoy the process of getting to know her. I’d intended to steam in, take the information I
was after and get straight out, but I couldn’t do that. Alex was sweet and funny and kind. When I told her Jared had trapped his hand in a car door (a story I made up to curtail his bass
playing for a while, after she started asking too many questions about his band’s gigs), she remembered to keep asking how he was recovering, when his bandages were coming off, and so on. She
was always thoughtful, even though her life seemed so much fuller than mine. As well as college and her football, she did drama and she even volunteered at an old people’s home. I felt so
boring in comparison, with my dearth of hobbies, that I told her I played the violin (I had a few lessons when I was eleven) and had once been selected to represent the county at gymnastics (yeah,
right).
    The only difficult part of chatting to Alex was negotiating the subject of football without slipping up. God, it was boring. I’d sold myself as an expert – a former player as well as
a fan – but I was as ignorant about football as I am about brain surgery. This is the sum total of what I knew about it: a bunch of fit men in shorts run around a pitch for an incredibly long
time kicking a ball into a net. Some of them have nice legs and stupid haircuts. Some of them