Little White Lie
Chapter 3
By: Jenn
A/N – More reviews! Tell me if it sucks too because then I’ll stop writing. This is probably one of those things that was better in my mind than it is once it’s written. That happens. NP – ‘My Old Man’ by Good Charlotte.
CHAPTER THREE
We all stopped dead and stared at each other, not knowing how to respond. Dan looked at us from one to the next, waiting for an answer to his very simple question. The silence was just becoming awkward when I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.
“Uh… I think he’s on the bus already.”
The other guys all looked at me, but no one said anything. Dan shrugged, seeming to accept the answer, and continued walking towards the bus. I breathed a sigh of relief and followed, but could feel the eyes of my band mates burning into me. No one said anything until we were all in the back lounge of the bus, the door safely shut behind us.
“Paul. . .” Benji began.
“I know,” I cut in. “I don’t know why I said that.”
No one spoke for a long time. At last, Billy’s small voice broke the silence.
“What are we gonna do?” he asked, his big eyes looking at each of us in turn.
“We should have just told the truth,” Joel said, glaring at me.
“I know,” I said, flopping down heavily on the couch and resting my head in my hands, looking down. “I know I know I know.”
“It’s not too late, is it?” Billy asked hopefully. I looked up at him.
“I think it is, Bill,” Benji said, sitting next to Billy on the couch. “Think about it… how weird would it be to say, ‘oh, by the way, Aaron’s not on the bus. In fact, he drowned.”
Billy’s back stiffened at the words.
“So what . . . what do we do?” he asked. Silence again.
“We can’t cover this up,” Joel said, saying out loud what we all were thinking. “Unless...”
We all looked up at him, waiting for him to continue, but he didn’t. At last, a look of realization crossed Benji’s face as he read his twin’s thoughts.
“No way,” he said. Joel looked at him as if to ask ‘why not?’ “Joel, we can’t.”
“Can’t what?” Billy asked in his small voice.
“Can’t lie,” Benji said simply.
“We already have,” Joel said, glaring at me again. “Why not just one more?”
“Why? Why do we need to?” Benji asked.
“Because… Aaron’s dead, nothing can change that,” Joel said. Billy let out a small whimper. “But it was an accident, right? And we’re the only ones that know. Just us four. No one else. And we’re the only ones that will ever know. Like it or not we’re all in this now. Paul may have brought us into it –“
“Dude, shut up,” I protested. He glared at me again.
“Paul may have brought us into it,” Joel continued. “But none of us said anything. Technically we could all get murder chargers. Manslaughter at best. There’s no reason all four of us need to go down for a horrible accident. So nothing that happened today leaves this bus, ok? It’s between us four, and that’s it.”
“But how the hell are we supposed to keep this secret?” Benji asked. “People will know Aaron’s missing.”
“Not necessarily,” Joel said. Then, like a scene right from a movie, he gathered us all in a football-style huddle to explain his plan.