Ten Thousand Lies by Kelli Jean Page B

so I’ll tell you I’m good, and you’ll say that’s cool, and leave it at that.”
    He laughed. “I will?”
    “Well, it’s what I’m hoping you’ll do.”
    “What if I want to know what’s bothering you?”
    “I’ll tell you nothing and ask how you’re doing.”
    “Ah, that’s how it goes?”
    In spite of my present mood, I smiled. “It’s what I’ve been told.”
    “You could just forget all that shite society has taught you and tell me what’s really bothering you.”
    “Or,” I countered, “you can tell me what you’ve been up to just to distract me from my own life for a little while, which will no doubt make me feel better.”
    “I suppose I could,” he said, his British accent heavy as cream. “Ronen and I are finally being kicked out of the Locals’ housing and getting ready to move into our house. Then, we need to find a location for a shop.”
    “Cool. You guys tattoo, right?”
    “Yeah. Ronen thinks another year of apprenticing, and I’ll be good to be on my own. I haven’t been able to practice as much as I should, what with…you know.”
    “That’s freaking awesome,” I told him, feeling excited for them. “Are you looking forward to it?”
    He laughed. “Very much so.” He told me about how he’d been drawing and painting for as long as he could remember.
    “I wish I had that sort of fire in me. That passion for something,” I said.
    “You do,” he replied. “You know what you need to be doing.”
    “But not like you do. You…you’ve got that outside of…everything.”
    “I see what you mean.”
    “Xanthe has her writing, you know? Rex…well, Rex is just naturally good at everything he does, so maybe he just has a passion for being awesome. But me…I can’t seem to find that secret something within me that makes me who I am. No talent beyond what can be seen…and it sounds kind of bratty, now that I say it out loud.”
    Ricki laughed, making me tingle in all the weirdest, most wonderful ways. “You do, Jaime. Maybe it’s just taking a little longer for you to find it, but it’s in you.”
    “I hope so.” I stifled a yawn.
    “What time is it over there?” he asked.
    “Um…one thirty.”
    “Damn. I didn’t mean to talk your ear off.”
    Smiling sleepily, I said without thinking, “I like your voice. You can talk my ear off anytime you like.”
    Ricki breathed deeply. “I’ll let you go then.”
    Embarrassment burned through me, and in the darkness of my room, I could imagine my face glowing with it. “Oh, um…yeah.”
    “Jaime?”
    “Hmm?”
    “I like your voice, too.”
    Then, the line went dead, and I was left staring at the fan blades spinning in the white streetlight coming through the window until sleep took over.

Jaime
    On the last day of spring break, Xanthe called to tell me Ulla had passed away. It wasn’t like it was a surprise, but I supposed that I should have been prepared for the pain such news would cause.
    I wasn’t.
    Together, Xanthe and I broke down and wept over the phone for a good hour.
    “She was happy though,” Xanthe choked. “Her last months were spent with Aunt Ellen, and she was free.”
    “She was sick and in pain!” I wailed.
    “But she was loved . Aunt Ellen told me—” A loud wet snort blasted my ear. “She told me Ulla made her read all of our letters out loud to her as she lay there, dying, and then she hugged each one afterward. She said she felt loved, and she would die happy for it.”
    “Oh God…” I was breaking apart inside.
    It was all so wrong, so fucking wrong , that anyone should suffer as Ulla had. That she’d had our love at the very end of her life wasn’t enough for me. She’d deserved to be loved her whole life. She had deserved to live a whole life .
    “Don’t…don’t give up, Jaime. I don’t think I can do this without you.”
    “I’m not.”
    “A part of me wonders why we should even bother, that there are too many of them, that we’ll never be enough. But you