Building on Lies Read online

  Contents

  Kindle Edition

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  A lie never lives to be old.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  T. BANNY

  Kindle Edition

  Kindle Edition

  Building on Lies Copyright 2015 by T. Banny

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

  For information regarding permission, write to:

  T. Banny-Permissions

  [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  BUILDING ON LIES

  Kindle Edition

  Dedication

  A lie never lives to be old

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Dedication

  For Diana, Mimi, Jaime and Peyton

  A lie never lives to be old.

  SOPHOCLES

  Chapter 1

  There are thousands of romantic and exciting ways to meet the boy of your dreams, right? I won't go into them all, but I always thought I’d meet my dream guy in such a romantic way, I’d write about in my diary, and then re-read it every night, just to recall the initial passion and lightning bolt feeling.

  However, being the completely unlucky and weird girl I am, I met the guy of my dreams in the most embarrassing way ever. I mean, I cringe every time I think about it, and we met over three months ago, at the start of the school year. You’d think the humiliation of the moment would have faded away by now, but no. It was such a horrible experience I think I’ll probably get an icky feeling in my stomach when I’m a senior citizen being spoon fed in a nursing home.

  And yeah, I guess the important thing is having met my dream guy at all and we’re together now. Still, I wish I could invent a time machine to propel me back into a more romantic setting. I’d place us in the mall, at the beach, heck even in a two hour long line at the DMV. Anywhere but where we actually met, which was at his house. In his storage closet, to be exact.

  First, there is nothing in the least bit romantic about a storage closet, but couples have met in stranger places, and still have pretty decent stories to tell.

  This storage closet had a spider in it. And I just happen to have the worst case of arachnophobia ever. Ever. It’s so bad I can’t even look at pictures of spiders without hyperventilating. I keep several cans of Raid under my bed, in my closet, in my car, even in my book bag…just in case a spider makes an appearance. I avoid situations where I think spiders might be lurking, and you can imagine how difficult this makes life for me, because spiders are just about everywhere.

  What I usually do when I’m in a place in which I’m not sure of the spider status is stand perfectly still, scan the ceilings and floors for cobwebs and other evidence of spider activity. Most of the time, I don’t see any spiders, and I can relax and breathe easy.

  But if I do see one? And it gets anywhere near me? Forget about it. I freak out in the worst way. I shriek, slap at my hands and my hair, because it feels to me as if spiders are crawling all over me, trying to get into my mouth and my ears. I hyperventilate, and my heart races so fast it feels like I’m dying. Sometimes, I can’t even move or talk, I just freeze. It takes a while for me to get back to normal, even when someone comes along and gets rid of the spider. I learned that my reaction is called a panic attack, and it’s harmless, but it feels terrible while it’s happening.

  My mother tried to get me to see a therapist to help me with my arachnophobia, but I read the only way to stop the phobia is by a process called desensitizing. This means they’ll make me look at pictures of spiders, or place me next to a fake spider until I get so used to seeing spiders I won’t fear them anymore. Just the thought of it, seeing spiders in pictures, even fake ones, makes me break out in a prickly sweat, so I’ve never gone to therapy. I’ve tried to manage my phobia with my trusty can of insect spray.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not entirely consumed by spiders. I’ve managed to live a pretty normal, panic free life. Most people don’t know about my arachnophobia, except my family and my best friend, Ro. And well, yeah, now my boyfriend knows considering he was there when I went into a full panic mode in his storage closet after seeing a huge yellow spider drop down in front of me.

  So, how did I end up meeting my guy in his storage closet?

  My mother installs window dressings for a living. Curtains, drapes, automatic blinds, things like that. She owns her own company, Daisy’s Curtains. She does a good business, and sometimes she gets so busy she has me go along with her. I help her in small ways, like ironing drapes, unpacking the blinds or gathering all her tools.

  She was hired by a wealthy family to install some automatic blinds for their entertainment room, and she asked me along to help.

  “Hey, Nellie. You want to come help me out at the Sutton's? It’s a big project, and Giselle is supposed to meet me there. But we could use an extra hand," my mother said to me on that horrible day.

  “Sure!" I said eagerly, because I was really curious to see the inside of the Sutton house. The Sutton’s were a wealthy family that lived in the neighboring town, Ardsley Park. I went to school with their twin sons, Ty and Channing Sutton. Both twins were super hot and super popular. My best friend Ro would die of jealousy once she found out I’d gotten the chance to take a look inside their house, even if it was just their entertainment room.

  We drove in my mom’s van to Ardsley Park, and trust me when I say it that the Sutton house didn’t look like the type of place that would harbor spiders. It was a huge gray stone house, with a circular driveway, velvet green lawns and elegant hedges. There was an electric fence with an intercom we had to use before they opened up to let us in. A housekeeper came out and directed us toward the back of the house, through a service entrance. That’s the type of house this was, and the last thing I thought would be that the place was crawling with spiders.

  My mother’s assistant, Giselle, was already waiting for us in the entertainment room. The room had huge floor to ceiling windows, with a great view of a gorgeous rock pool. If it were my home, I’d never want to install anything that would obstruct such an awesome view.

  Giselle had a ladder and measuring tape and was busy prepping the windows for installation. My mother had her toolbox, and was about to open the enormous boxes the blinds were in. I wasn’t sure what they wanted me to help with, so I just wandered around the room, being nosy.

  The room had every conceivable gadget invented to keep human beings entertained. From a pool table, to vintage stand up arcade games ( Pac-man, cool!) and a pinball machine. There was a complicated looking stereo system, and the biggest flat screen TV I’d ever seen. It took up most of the wall, and in front of it, on a coffee table, was an array of remote controls. There were built in shelves with rows and rows of DVDs and Cd’s. It seemed like the Sutton's owned every movie ever made, and it would take years to go through all
of the music Cd’s.

  “Impressive, right?"Giselle called out to me from atop the ladder.

  “You think?” I said, shaking my head.

  “Puts a whole new spin on home entertainment,” Giselle agreed.

  There were awesome leather chairs scattered around the room, and a full stocked bar. I could imagine the fun parties the Sutton twins could have in a room like this, because even though it had the pool table and entertainment systems, it was spacious enough to hold at least thirty people.

  Against a wall was a shelf filled with framed photographs, and I wandered over to look at them. I let out a long exaggerated sigh as I got a closer look at some of the pictures of the Sutton twins.

  My mom and Giselle chuckled from across the room.

  “Those boys make me wish I was twenty years younger!" my mom said, pretending to fan herself.

  “Gross, Mom!" I said, rolling my eyes, but I couldn’t blame her. The Sutton twins were hot. There wasn’t a girl in my high school who didn’t find the twins gorgeous. They both looked like male models, straight out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog.

  I picked up one of the framed pictures from off the shelf. It was a photograph of the twins at a beach. Even though it was obviously a normal photograph, taken probably by a friend or family member, the twins were so good-looking it looked like a professional shot.

  The twins were not identical, and one of the biggest questions among us girls was which who was the better looking twin. It was a hard call. Both were handsome in their own way.

  Ty Sutton had blond hair, blue eyes and a mischievous, dimpled smile. He was the more outgoing one. He was known around Lexington High for his practical jokes, like looping the school intercom system to play loud rap music tunes all day, or placing blow up sex dolls in the school stair wells. Everyone loved Ty Sutton…even the teacher’s had a soft spot for him, and his impish grin.

  Channing Sutton was the dark haired twin. He had brilliant green eyes that were such a pretty color, it was hard to stop staring at them. Channing sat across from me in my Sociology class, and there were plenty of times were I found myself gazing so intently at his green eyes my best friend, who sat beside me, would have to nudge me in the ribs to break the spell.

  “Stop staring at him, Nellie!" Ro would whisper in my ear, but I just couldn’t help it. Channing’s eyes were mesmerizing.

  The rest of him was pretty mesmerizing as well. Beside the green eyes, he had gorgeous thick brown hair, a tall athletic build, and a crooked grin a bit more mysterious than his brother’s. He wasn’t as outgoing as Ty, but he was just as popular.

  Personally, I thought Channing was the better looking twin, but Ro thought Ty was the cuter one.

  I was about to pick up another picture to look at when I heard my mom let out a curse from across the room.

  “What’s up, Daisy?"Giselle asked, looking down at my mom from her ladder.

  “I’ve got to get these boxes opened, but I forgot my industrial box cutter. There’s no way I can get them opened without them," my mother said, sighing in frustration. “ They wrap these boxes up tighter than Fort Knox!”

  “Check my toolbox, Nellie. I probably have a box cutter in there,"Giselle said to me.

  I walked over to her big metal toolbox, and looked through it for a box cutter. She didn’t have one either.

  “ Want me to drive back home and find one?" I asked.

  My mom bit her lip. “I guess you’re going to have to. We have to get the blinds installed by six, though. Mrs. Sutton is entertaining tonight, and she wanted us to be done before evening time.”

  “ Why don’t you ask the housekeeper if she has any box cutters or a big knife, Nellie?" Giselle suggested. “In a house this big, I’m sure they’ve got to have something we can open those boxes with”.

  “Oh, good idea!" my mother agreed. “She told she’d be in the kitchen if we needed her for anything. Do you remember your way to the kitchen?”

  I nodded. “But if she doesn’t have one, do you still want me to go home?”

  “ Yeah, you’re going to have to,” my mother said, with a sigh.

  I was kind of nervous to find the housekeeper. I had no idea if the twins were at home. It wasn’t likely. It was the weekend, so they were probably off doing whatever it was rich Ardsley Park kids did on weekends. They probably never had to help their parents out with work.

  Still, it would be kind of awkward to run into them. They’re so good-looking most girls are rendered speechless around them, myself included. I had to stand in front of Ty Sutton on school picture day once, and he casually asked me if I was going to pick the red or olive green backdrop for my picture. It took me a full five minutes to squeak out the word “red”. He probably thought I was mentally challenged.

  I walked quickly down a beautifully decorated hallway back to the kitchen. The housekeeper, a pretty girl who looked a little too young to be a housekeeper, was sitting on a stool, chatting on her cell phone. She had a remote in her hand, and was flipping through channels on a TV hanging overhead.

  She smiled when she saw me, and told the person on the other end to hold on.

  “What’s up?" she asked, “Do you guys want something to drink or something?”

  I shook my head. “ Um, actually, my mom was wondering if you have a box cutter or a knife. She needs to open some boxes and she forgot her box cutter at home”.

  The girl looked around the kitchen in confusion. “ Hmmm…," she said, as if she wasn’t sure where anything was. She walked over to a drawer, and took out a small cutting knife.

  “ Will this do?" she asked.

  “ No, we’re going to need something bigger," I said. “ It’s pretty thick tape, so maybe something like a butcher knife?”

  “ Well, I really don’t know my way around this kitchen," the girl said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “ And I’m pretty sure the cook doesn’t want me to give you one of her precious knives to open up boxes. But there’s a storage closet next to the laundry room. Maybe you’ll find something in there?”

  “ OK, yeah," I said, surprised a housekeeper wouldn’t know her way around a kitchen.

  “ The laundry room is down this hall to your left. The storage closet is right next to it," she said, pointing toward another hallway leading out of the kitchen.

  I hesitated, thinking she was going to walk me to the closet, but she picked up her cell phone and started chatting again. She motioned with her finger the direction of the closet.

  “ Thanks," I mouthed, and she nodded.

  She failed to tell me the laundry room was actually off another hallway, and I had to backtrack to the kitchen and ask her again exactly where it was. She repeated her instructions with a friendly smile, but didn’t get off her stool to walk me there.

  I finally found it on my own, and opened the door. I flipped on the light switch, and was astounded to see the storage “closet” was bigger than my bedroom. There were shelves lined with boxes, paint cans, and other things, and I wondered how in the world I was going to find a box cutter in a room so large and filled with so many boxes.

  Did it occur to me to scan the closet for spiders? Not really. The Sutton house was a very luxurious place, and I guess that lulled me into a false sense of security. The storage closet was spotless, all the boxes lined neatly on the shelves, and there was a clean, pine scent that made me believe the room was cleaned regularly. So I just made my way inside, closing the door behind me, to search for a box cutter.

  I was poking through a toolbox was on the nearest shelf, and lucky for me, I found a box cutter inside. I was about to head back to the entertainment room, when it happened.

  A spider just dangled itself right in front of my face. A big, yellow spider with what seemed to be about a million legs instead of the usual eight, swung itself back and forth in front of my face, like a pendulum.

  Most of the time, I spot spiders in corners, or crawling along walls or floors. The last time a spider came so close to me w
as when I was a little girl at the park, and one crawled over my sneaker as I was making my way up a slide. I was so terrified I froze on the slide steps, all the other little kids yelling at me to keep going. My mother had to come and carry me off the steps.

  This was the first time in years a spider had come so near, and I screamed like I was being murdered. I backed away from it, and threw myself into a corner, shaking, and wondering how in the world I was going to get out of the closet.

  I’d closed the closet door, and my boyfriend told me later on all he’d heard was a whimpering sound. That’s what happens when you’re in an expensive, solidly built house. The walls are so thick a terrified scream sounds more like a whimper.

  It felt like I was in the closet forever, and I thought I was going to pee on myself, I was so scared. I’d lost sight of the spider, my eyes were blurred with tears, and that had me even more panicky. What if it were crawling on the floor toward me? What if there was another one about to drop on my head? What if all the boxes were just filled to their lids with spiders? I squeezed my eyes shut, and held the box cutter out in front of me, my hands shaking.

  It was then my boyfriend, Channing Anthony Sutton, opened the closet door, and saw his future girlfriend, Nellie Fernanda DePaola, curled up in a ball, eyes shut tight, a box cutter held out in front of her. He said I was shaking so bad he thought I was having a seizure.

  Very romantic, right?

  “ Hey, are you OK?" he asked me, concerned. I had my eyes closed, so I didn’t know it was Channing who was talking to me. I was so scared I didn’t care if it was the President himself who was talking to me.

  “ What’s wrong? How can I help?" he asked, taking the box cutter from my sweaty, shaking hands. “ Hey…open your eyes, sweetheart. Look at me. What’s wrong?”