I cannot tell a Lie

Chapter 1

I can't not stop thinking about him.

Life has already been too hard over the past couple of months, and now my best friend is presumed dead.

As I walk around the campus, I see everyone giving me looks of pity and sadness. Or I'll hear them whispering shit like, I can't imagine what he's going through, He looks like he needs a hug, or the classic He probably had something to do with it.

I've been hearing all that and more over the past week.

Sorry, I should probably explain what happened.

My name is Cameron Live. And my best friend, Calvin... is presumed Dead.

It was the last day of Junior Year when shit went sideways, end of the year party at a frat's house was going strong like they normally would. But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off with him as we drove there.

"You okay bud?" I ask as we continue driving.

He continued to stare out the window.

"Calvin, I said are you good?" I repeat myself.

It almost like he gets a jumpscare and then he turns to talk to me. "Oh, yeah I'm fine. Just been thinking a lot about Senior Year and stuff."

"Oh don't worry about that. We have the whole summer to worry about the future, tonight the only thing we are supposed to be worried about is how hungover we're gonna be tomorrow." I chuckle.

It was always like him to underestimate himself, I never knew quite why considering we only met Freshman Year. But always figured it was confidence issues stemming from childhood. He never liked it when I tried to use psychology to decode his past, he just always preferred to keep his college life and his home life as two separate things.

Calvin chuckled slightly, "I guess your right. I just wanna not have to worry about school, or being an adult, or grades. I just wanna be done with all that." He sighed as he stared out the window.

While still looking at the road, I put my hand on his shoulder, "Me too buddy, but it's only one year, we are on our correct paths and ready to see what the world has to offer once we graduate."

"Indeed, my goodsir."

I never told anybody how frightened I was when he said that, normally in the movies whenever a character starts saying shit like that... something bad happens to them. And that's exactly what happened.

Unfortunately I can't recall most the events after we got there and we started drinking. He was drinking a little extra that night, I was trying to keep up with him because that's what one of us does when the other wasn't feeling to happy, so we could both be lit together and wake up and be hungover together.

The next morning I woke up confused in our dorm room by the sound of Calvin's phone alarm.

"Calvinn..." I groan. "Why is your class alarm on if it's the weekend?"

I opened my eyes to his empty bed.

Confused even more, I get up to inspect his area. I end up finding his phone in his bed but not him.

"The fuck." I mumble to myself before I hear an alarming knock on my door.

I open it to find my other friends Raya and his girlfriend Izzy at the door, but they both look like they had seem something terrible.

"What's wrong, and why are you guys crying?" I ask them.

They both look at each other with fear and sadness in their eyes as a cop came up behind them.

He informed me that they had reason to believe my best friend had fallen into a river while drunk last night, and that they needed to question everyone he was with.

"... including you." I heard the cop say as I turned back into the world.

He then walked all three of us into the squad car and took us to the station for questioning. Only it wasn't much of a questioning because I never stopped crying after what the cop told me for hours.

They never even found his body. To this day, all they found was his hat and flannel by then River. Along with his shoe in the river

They ended clearing me as a suspect because apparently someone gave a alibi report for me, no one ever told me who that was though.

And that's it, the cops never figured out what happened, and I'm willing to bet money the university paid them off to say that he's presumed to be dead cause they don't want their precious frat house. And me along with Izzy, Raya, and the rest of his family never got any type of answer.

Now... it's three months later, and almost everyone has moved on with their life's it seems.

Well I haven't.

Even though we normally spent our summers apart cause our families live on the complete opposite sides of the US, with mine in California and his in New Jersey, it's been hell not having my best friend around to text and FaceTime. Like a void in my life is right where he used to be.

"Calvin!" I hear as I'm writing in my journal at one of our school's coffee shops. I look up to see Raya, the only light in all of this. "I've been calling your name for like two minutes."

I get a mini jumps scare, bringing me back to the cruel world we live in as I wrote in my journal. "Oh yeah, I'm sorry I've just been thinking."

She put her hand on mine, "I miss him too."

I sighed as I pulled my hand away, "We shouldn't have to miss him, he should be right here in that third seat with us."

"Yeah, I know. But he wouldn't want you here feeling like how you've been feeling all summer, he would want you to continue living your life." She explained to me.

But it's all going through one ear and out the other.

"No," I say as I start to get her my belongings off the table. "He would want me to find out what happened to him."

"Cameron..."

I cut her off, "Which is exactly what I'm going to do..." I begin as I lean closer. "I am gonna find out, what happened to Calvin... even if it kills me."