Fortune Cookie

It starts with a fortune cookie. Her struggle, not her habit. From the age of four, Sutton has been a chronic liar.

It all started with a cookie jar.

Her mother had told her no dessert until after dinner. They'd be having porkchops and broccoli. She hated porkchops and broccoli, and knew she would never make it through dinner to the chocolate chunk cookies in the cookie jar.

"Is that chocolate on your face?"

"No mama. Dirt from playing outdoors."

Such an easy lie. One that her mother had believed. She'd ended up skipping dinner, telling her mother that she wasn't feeling well, and got toast instead of nasty porkchops. Unbuttered, but still better, all because of one little lie.

It was amazing what a lie could do.

Fourteen years later, and she's having Chinese takeout with her boyfriend in his apartment. The meal comes with fortune cookies, and dabbing the General Tso's off her face, she picks one up.

"It's time for you to explore new interests," he reads, snapping his own cookie. "Babe, you think that means I should finally buy myself that electric guitar?"

She half nods, not paying attention. Her own fortune is mocking her. She crumples it into her fist, and he pries back her fingers to retrieve it. Smoothing out the slip, he reads the offending six words.

'The truth will set you free.'

What even is truth anymore? She's crafted this bubble-verse of hers, presenting herself in a light that makes her all the more wanted in the world. One that makes her sound funny, and well traveled, and everything she knows she can't be.

"It's just a dumb cookie. Doesn't mean anything. Now lets go burn off some calories." She wiggles her eyebrows, hoping to breeze past the discussion that always follows their cookies. Usually she'll sit through his ponderances of the tiny slips, all collected in a journal he keeps by his bedside. He's hot, and that excuses a lot, but she doesn't need him trying to find her truth. She needs him bent on his knees, making her world spin in a different direction.

He brings the slips with him. They get tucked into the journal, and she can see two words peeking out at her.

'The truth.'

She closes her eyes and weaves her fingers through his hair. While she can't see him grin, she can feel his mouth change shape against her, and he abandons his mission to trace a trail of kisses up her torso. She's disappointed, but she moans, because it is easier than arguing about why his face has left its rightful spot when she knows she'll never return the favor.

That's another lie. She tells him that she has mild TMJ and that it isn't good for the safety of her jaw to go down on him as she heals. He buys it.

He climbs over her, and before she can stop her mouth from forming words, they're out her lips.

"Why'd you stop that? It's what you're best at." Her eyes widen, as he is substituting a different part for his tongue, and he laughs at her.

"Are you sure about that, babe?" He makes quick of his business, and she lies again, screaming his name as if they don't have neighbors.

Like she said, it's easier.

He finishes, and she collapses into the bed. "Told you I was good."

"Yes you did," she says, biting back the words that are crawling up her throat. "Good, not great."

Oh no, they escaped. 

Double oh no, his face.

Why is she telling the truth? There's no way that the cookie could have any sort of magical power, wheedling her to speak her mind. 

She should have picked the other cookie.

"I'm going to go take a shower." He hurries off to the bathroom and locks the door so she can't follow. The sound of running water drowns her voice out.

She's going to chalk it all up to a joke. A not funny joke that she shouldn't have made, and they're going to kiss to make up, once he brushes the taste of her out of his mouth.

When he exits the bathroom, she trails him back to the bedroom.

"Murphy, I'm sorry."

"No Sutton, I'm sorry, for not living up to your expectations." His voice is angry, she can tell, and his feet pound more than necessary across the floor as he collects his boxers.

"But you do," she says. It's a half truth, so the cookie can suck it. "Mostly. Sometimes."

Looks like she's the one sucking it.

"So you've been lying to me this entire time." 

"No. Yes. Only about the sex thing. And maybe a few other things. Most things. Everything?" The words keep tumbling out, and all he can do is stare, arms folded across his bare chest, boxers still dangling in his hand.

She takes them from his hand and drops them to the floor. Her hand remains down, reaching for his backside. He almost falls for it.

Almost.

"I think we need to talk."

She reaches out for him again. "Murph."

"What else have you lied about?"

What hasn't she lied about? He thinks she is five years younger than she really is, instead of two years his senior. He thinks that she earned the money for his Christmas gift working extra shifts at the diner, and not doing special favors for her boss. Ones that don't take place at the diner.

He thinks that she spent a year in Rome, Italy. Really she spent it in Rome, Georgia, with her cousins while her dad served for theft. Sad part was, it was a theft that she had committed, to cover up a lie about owning an expensive necklace, and he took the fall, because she was his little girl, and he wasn't going to ruin her record. 

He thinks that she loves his roasted pumpkin seeds, when really she hates them and scatters them in the park on her way to work to let the squirrels eat them.

"The truth will set you free," he quotes, picking his boxers up again. He snaps them around his waist and backs a safe distance away.

"Little things, I promise." She bites her lip until it bleeds, but it doesn't distract him from the words that follow. "Depending on your definition of little. I'm not a mass murder or anything. Just one, and that was in self defense."

His head is spinning, so he sits on the edge of the bed. "What?!"

"I only meant to maim him, I swear."

"Do I even know you at all?"

"Ye- no. Not really." She slapped her hand over her mouth. 

He presses his fingertips to his temples. "Should I even want to?"

She thinks she can force a nod, and finds herself wrong, swinging her neck to avoid shaking her head.

"You wouldn't like the real me."

"You never gave me a chance to. Maybe my cookie is right. Maybe it is time to find a new interest." He grabs his shirt from the lampshade and slides it over his head to avoid making eye contact. It works for all of thirty seconds.

"Baby, don't be like that. Give me a chance."

"I did, and you decided to lie. You can't take that back. You broke my trust."

"But I love you." She calls after him as he slips on his shorts and leads her to the door.

He opens it. "And I loved who I thought you were. Goodbye, Sutton."

"Murphy, please."

The door slams in her face.

Looks like the truth really did set her free.

Being free sucks.

Tears come down her face, and a boy stops to make sure that she is okay. They talk for a bit, until he has to leave.

"It was nice talking to you, uh-?"

"Mary."

No lies this time. No fake identities, or hidden secrets. This time she's doing it right.

"Nice to meet you Mary."