Lie to Me

by Kaitlin Ward

  “I feel … I’m so afraid that they—whoever they are—that they’ll come back for me.” I sit heavily on the bottom step of the stairwell and pull off my glasses to wipe my eyes. “And I want to know … why? What did I do that would make someone want to hurt me?”

  “Maybe it’s nothing to do with you at all.” Liam sits beside me, slings an arm around my shoulders. I wonder if this new death makes this all too real for him. “You can’t know why a person would do something like that. Maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I don’t want to have been. I don’t want any of this to have happened. This could have been my family grieving. They don’t deserve this. Lydia’s family doesn’t deserve this.”

  A door opens, and someone starts down the stairwell. I try to look less upset, shove my glasses back on to hide my red, puffy eyes.

  But it doesn’t matter, because it’s Hunter.

  He takes us both in, then sits on the other side of me. “I was looking for you. Can we talk alone for a sec?”

  “Sure.” I squeeze Liam’s hand.

  “I should stay,” he says. “You’re too upset. I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Are you trying to imply something, Liam?” Hunter snaps, eyes narrowed.

  “Hunter, don’t,” I intercede. “Liam, please just give us a minute.”

  I can tell he doesn’t want to. He hesitates for a long time, frowning at my brother. But he relents.

  “I’ll be just outside,” he says.

  Hunter rolls his eyes.

  “I’m going to take you home,” he says as soon as the door’s closed. “I called Mom and told her everything’s fine but we need to talk to her. I hope that’s okay. This has just—I know you didn’t want to talk about this with her or Dad, but I think we need to now. I think there’ve been too many similar incidents, and now apparently things are officially suspicious, and maybe it’s time to get their advice on whether there’s something we should do to protect you? I mean … I don’t know, Amelia, what do you think?”

  “I think …” I sigh, shakily. “You’re right. It’s time to tell Mom. I was feeling like I wanted to talk to her anyway. But don’t you think it can wait till the end of the school day?”

  “No, we should go home now. This is too important, and I don’t even like the thought of you walking around school like normal for the rest of the day. I know that’s overprotective, and I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel. You’ve already been hurt, and I thought—” His voice catches and he swallows hard. “I’m not going to be the guy who loses his sister. I’m just not.”

  “Okay,” I say softly. “Okay, we’ll go now. We’ll go talk to Mom.”

  It scares me to imagine talking about this with an adult. Scares me because it makes it real. It turns this into more than me trying desperately to believe that something less embarrassing happened to me than an accidental fall. This isn’t the kind of less-embarrassing I want. It’s the kind of less-embarrassing that keeps you awake at night, that slithers into your darkest dreams. But I want to be safe and I’m so afraid. Afraid that staying away from rivers isn’t good enough. That whoever’s doing this will be back for me.

  And I don’t want Hunter to be the guy who loses his sister, either.

  * * *

  Mom’s sitting on the couch when we get home, scrolling on her phone. When she sees us, she shuts off her screen and moves to the kitchen. She gestures for us to sit at the island.

  “Should I prepare myself to be mad? I couldn’t tell from Hunter’s call.”

  “No,” I say quickly. “We didn’t do anything. It’s just—”

  I look to Hunter, who nods and smiles encouragingly.

  “Another girl died—Lydia Kormel, her brother’s on Hunter’s soccer team. They found her body in the Connecticut, and the headmaster said that foul play is suspected, and that now there are other incidents considered suspicious.” I take a deep breath before continuing. It’s one thing conjecturing to my brother and Liam and Sky and Grace. It’s something else entirely to tell my mom. What if she doesn’t believe me? What if she thinks I’m just projecting? “That’s the third girl in two months, Mom.”

  “Counting you.” Her words are steady, but she presses her phone tight between her hands.

  “Counting me. I feel … scared.”

  Mom comes around the island and wraps her arms around me. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Mom, what do you think?” Hunter asks, his brow furrowed.

  Mom sighs and kisses my hair. “The police have probably already made the connection at this point, but I’ll give them a call. To be honest, I considered this fleetingly after I heard about poor Maria, but I thought I was just being a paranoid mother. But now … I don’t want to scare you, Amelia, but I think maybe when you—”

  She cuts herself off abruptly and hugs me tight again. I want to tell her that it doesn’t scare me more than I am already, that I’m relieved she agrees with me, that she’s taking me seriously. But I can’t, because as glad as I am that she’s listening, I am terrified.

  So much for feeling like a normal girl again. That’s all over, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get it back. It feels so unfair. I know people don’t get murdered—or almost murdered—only if they deserve it, but I don’t understand what I’ve done that would even make someone want to. I stick mostly to my friends. I love gossip as much as the next person, but I don’t spread it, only listen to it. I don’t have any exes creepily pining for me, that I know of.

  “Why me, Mom?” I ask, and then I start to cry.

  I feel like a baby, crying while my mom hugs me and my brother sets a hand uncomfortably on my shoulder. I want to stop, but I can’t. I’m already raw from crying earlier, and even more raw from admitting that I’m scared. The deepness of the emotions in my heart feel like mourning. I’m grieving for the person I was before, the person who’s lost now, who was replaced by someone who knows that even here in my small corner of the world, things are not always safe. I miss not holding my breath every morning when Hunter drives us across the bridge into Vermont for school. I miss my nonchalance about the water and the dams and anywhere I might be able to fall. My feeling that because I took swimming lessons from the time I was a toddler till I was in eighth grade, water can’t hurt me. That arrogant ignorance, it was beautiful.

  And now it’s gone, gone, gone.

  Mom calls the police as soon as I calm down, and she tells me I’m not going to school the next day. Hunter, either. Dad gets home tomorrow morning, and then we’ll go talk to the St. Elm police in person, and the whole thing is starting to make me feel really panicked.

  Sky and Liam come over after school. I’m not in the mood for either of them to be here, but I don’t know why or how to tell them that, so I let them stay. Sky decides that we should hang out as a foursome and lets herself into Hunter’s room to retrieve him. The familiar sounds of Fortnite blast from his open door and disappear when she shuts it behind her. I take Liam’s hand and lead him into my room, because I have the feeling it’ll be a little bit before Sky coaxes Hunter out of there.

  “Hey, I found you something,” Liam says.

  He reaches into his coat pocket with an involuntary curl of his nose and pulls out a neatly folded tissue containing a diamond-shaped bug that’s all black except its thorax, which is pale yellow surrounding a black splotch.

  “Oh, an American carrion beetle! I don’t actually have one in my collection yet.”

  A dead insect might seem like a super unromantic gift, but honestly he couldn’t have given me anything better.

  “I’m glad you like it.” He kisses me. “But, um, I’m going to go wash my hands. Bugs are … well, you know.”

  He kisses me once more and slips out of my room.

  While I pin the carrion bug carefully beside a green-striped grasshopper in my insect display, I think about how adorable it is that Liam’s grossed out by bugs. I carefully orient the bug, turn, and am so startled I nearly
trip over my own feet. Liam stands a couple of feet away, watching me with a weird smile.

  “I still think the bug thing is pretty weird,” he says. “But I also really love how much you love them.”

  Before I can respond, he’s kissing me. His lips are a gentle pressure on mine. I slide a hand to the back of his head, kissing him more deeply. I twist my fingers in his hair, and let everything else about this crappy day fall aside.

  “I’m so glad,” he says, “that you finally decided to give me a chance.”

  “Me too.” I wrap my arms tight around his neck, rest my chin on his shoulder. “And I’m glad you decided to like me even though you think my brother is a jerk.”

  I find myself looking deep into his bottomless ocean eyes and completely lose my breath. He kisses me again, and I don’t care that my door is open and that my brother is probably coming in here any minute. I just want to absorb everything about this. I throw myself fully into this kiss, let myself feel everything about it a thousand times more intensely than I need to. Liam is so handsome and nice and thoughtful, I can hardly believe he belongs to me. I want everything else to be this easy, this right.

  I want—

  “Amelia!”

  Hunter’s disgusted voice really ruins the mood. Better him than Mom, though, I guess. Liam steps away from me with a sigh.

  “You’re dating my best friend” is the only retort I can come up with, even though Hunter is glaring at me with a strength he usually reserves for his computer screen if he thinks someone is cheating at Fortnite.

  Sky loops her arms around his waist. “Chill,” she tells him.

  If I’d said that, it would not work. It would opposite of work. But Sky clearly has power over him now, because he softens his scowl and sits quietly on the corner of my bed. Sky sits beside Hunter, and I move to my beanbag chair near the window. Liam leans against the sill, towering over me.

  “So, you wanna recap for us?” Sky asks.

  “Not really.” I feel like a wrung-out sponge, and knowing that I’ll have to talk to police tomorrow, I don’t want to get into everything now. The thought of it exhausts me to my marrow. “Did Hunter not already fill you in?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Well, there’s not much to say, I guess. The deaths are starting to seem suspicious and Mom agreed that it looks like my accident was suspicious, too, and so did the police when she called them. So tomorrow I get to recount exactly what happened to me. Maybe I’ll have to provide a list of my enemies.” I try to lighten it at the end because I can tell I sound sour.

  Liam frowns, but Sky gets it. “You’re going to have to ask for a lot of paper,” she teases.

  I stick out my tongue. “I don’t even think I have any true enemies, sadly. I need to join a sports team and form a rivalry.”

  “I don’t recommend it,” Hunter says dryly.

  Liam rests his hand on my head and opens his mouth to respond but gets distracted by something outside. “That creepy guy is staring in here.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Not surprised. But it’s nice to know he’s willing to stare at whoever stands in that window, even if it isn’t me.”

  “Ew, really?” Hunter scowls. “How often does he do that?”

  “I don’t know. Pretty often. I close my blinds a lot.”

  “When did this start?” Hunter moves to the window, his scowl intensified, and lowers my blinds.

  “Not that long ago.”

  “We should tell Mom.”

  “Hunter,” I groan. “I already know he’s a problem, but I feel like I talked to Mom about enough stuff already. I’m obviously going to mention him when I talk to the police.”

  Hunter tenses and looks to Sky for support. She shrugs. “Maybe there’s been enough for today, you think?”

  “You should be careful, though,” Liam says. “He seems like the sort of person who would—”

  “Yeah, I know.”’ It’s more snappish than I meant it to be. I take a deep breath to calm down. “Sorry. I do watch out for him. I know something’s not right there.”

  We lapse into a semi-comfortable silence, and I sort of wish Sky would lure Hunter back to his room so I can kiss Liam more. I’m about to subtly suggest it when Liam says, “Was that Fortnite I heard coming from your room earlier?”

  Hunter looks suspicious. “Yeah, why?”

  Liam shrugs. “Didn’t know you played.”

  “You play?” Hunter’s face is pure shock.

  “Aw, look at that.” I cannot contain my smugness. “Another hobby you have in common.”

  I can tell immediately that Hunter is going to seek revenge, and it’s already too late. “That’s true. And you want us to bond so badly, right? So maybe we should all go to my room and together, Liam and I can show you two how to play.”

  It’s not that I don’t like video games. I do. But I like them to have plot, and Fortnite … well, it doesn’t.

  “What have I done to deserve this suffering?” I ask, folding myself deeper into my beanbag chair.

  “Oh come on.” Liam reaches for my hand, tugs me up. “You did want us to become friends, you know.”

  “I changed my mind,” I mutter.

  Liam just laughs and drags me out of my room.

  * * *

  I don’t want to admit it, but the four of us playing Fortnite was actually pretty fun. This is a secret I will keep to myself eternally, though.

  I’m glad I didn’t tell Liam not to come earlier when I didn’t feel like seeing anyone, because it was nice having him here. My mom likes him; he was polite at dinnertime and helped with the dishes afterward, which is something I never do unless asked.

  Sky’s spending the night, but Liam left a little while ago, departing with a kiss so good it’ll probably keep me feeling blissful all the way through tomorrow.

  Once he’s gone, I arrogantly point out to my brother that he didn’t seem to mind having Liam here so much, and then I steal Sky into my room to analyze every moment of it.

  “You know Roman was totally responsible for the two of you getting together, right?” she says while we paint each other’s toes. I’m so happy she’s here and I don’t have to share her with Hunter right now. “He’s been all about it ever since Liam started talking about you after your accident.”

  “I know, I know. I thought he was being totally nuts, but so far … it’s going really well. And don’t pretend you didn’t push for this, too, even though Hunter hates it.”

  “Oh, Hunter’s fine.” She brushes my comment aside. “He’ll come around. He’s just stubborn. And I pushed for it because I could tell you liked him and I thought Liam deserved someone nice, too.”

  “Since when do you have opinions on Liam, anyway?” I carefully press a line of pink to the tip of her big toe. “You never talked to him any more than I did.”

  “No, but actually my dad mentions him sometimes. He owns land over near Liam’s dad’s hunting camp, and he’s always thought Liam was nice and well-mannered and stuff. Not that he sees him often, but you know.”

  “And what does your dad think of Hunter?”

  “Oh God.” Sky rolls her eyes. “Well, he’s never thought of him as well-mannered, that’s for sure.”

  I laugh. “Good, because he’s not.”

  “Isn’t this adorable?” Sky waves her hand over my drying feet. “We’re both dating hot soccer players.”

  “Excuse me. One of us is dating a hot soccer player and the other is dating a weirdo who maybe gave her some kind of love potion.”

  She laughs. “Come on, you know your brother is hot.”

  I mime vomiting. “You’ve got to stop.”

  “Fine, fine. But honestly I’m glad to see you happy. I mean, I know you’re not happy with everything going on, but you’ve been kind of … Okay, correct me if I’m totally one thousand percent wrong or overstepping or whatever, but I’ve felt like maybe you’ve been pining for someone who seems to have been, like, oblivious to the pining? Maybe a friend o
f ours?” She is the embodiment of the grimacing emoji, and my stomach is one big wasp’s nest.

  “Which friend do you think I’ve been pining over?” I ask lightly. She can’t possibly know. She can’t.

  “Ummm, maybe … Grace?”

  She knows.

  I can’t believe this. First Tera brings it up at the craft fair, and now Sky, who’s been totally focused on her own relationship, can tell?

  “How did you … Did she say something? Or— God, was it super obvious?”

  “No! No, I just kinda … I don’t know. I picked up on it. Should I not have mentioned it?”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s good, actually.” I finish her toes and carefully cap the nail polish.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” She bites her lip. “I mean, not that you’re obligated to tell me anything, but … Ugh, I’m going about this all wrong, aren’t I? I’m supposed to wait till you said something to me; I’m not supposed to just ask.”

  She rakes fingers through her hair, looking anguished at how she’s unintentionally forced me to discuss this.

  “No, it’s totally fine. It’s easier this way.” I can’t quite look her in the eye. “I don’t know. I’m still figuring out … Like, what do I call myself, you know? And how am I only just realizing I feel this way, and why does my first real crush on a girl have to be one of my closest friends? I didn’t know how to even say what I’m feeling, and it’s been kind of on the back burner because of my accident and I’m with Liam, so does it even matter right now? I mean, maybe it matters. I don’t know. I think I’m bisexual, but I’m still figuring it out and as you can tell, I have zero answers.”

  “Well, you don’t have to have answers. You don’t owe me or anyone an analysis of your feelings and what you think you should be labeled until and unless you want to. I just want … I know I kept my relationship with Hunter a secret, but I want you to still trust me.”

  “Oh, Sky, I do! Of course I do. It was more … Grace is the person who could best help me figure out how I feel, but she’s also the person making me the most confused. So I … well, I talked to her about it and it was going fine, but then I told her I liked her and I got so embarrassed and I fled. And then I was even more embarrassed and we were so awkward and it finally has started to feel unawkward again, and I only kept it to myself so you wouldn’t get sucked into the awkwardness, too. Sometimes I’m a total moron, Sky; you know this.”