Believing Lies

by Elizabeth, Anne

  “Should we go pick up a pizza?” Mom asked Dad. He nodded and grabbed the keys. Before they left, Dad ruffled my hair like I was a little kid. I pushed him away, hurting my arm in the process. I wasn’t sure why, but it was sore.

  Probably from you pushing Nick.

  I shook the thought from my head, mad at myself for even thinking it. I got up to go sit in the living room, but when I walked into the doorway, I fell face first. I held my hands out to catch me and my right arm got the brunt of the fall, but my face still landed on the floor. My eye had a stinging, stabbing ache when I got my breath back. I turned around to see what made me fall.

  Henry’s bag.

  Bet he left it here on purpose.

  I looked toward Henry’s room and noticed the music was on and playing. He wasn’t watching me fall just to laugh at me. I stood up and grabbed the bag, about to throw it at him, when I noticed something. It was shiny and reflecting one of the lights in our hallway. I reached into the bag and fumbled around a bit. My hand grazed against something sharp, and it brought stinging pain to my palm. I yanked it out of the bag and stared in awe.

  Dark, warm blood dripped from my hand. The blood kept getting darker the more I stared at it. It dripped onto the floor, creating a pool of blood.

  A lot of people think that blood is bright red—but it’s more of a purple-red shade. That’s what Nick’s blood looked like.

  The cut was deep and bleeding a lot. I stared into the bag and noticed the shining object again. This time, I carefully reached into the bag to pull it out. It was a knife, dripping with blood.

  Henry had a knife in his bag. I dropped it, the metal creating a sharp and loud noise. I started to back away from it, bringing my bloody hand with me. I tried to be careful enough not to drip blood onto the floor.

  “Ahhhhh!” I giggled, running around the kitchen. I was about five or six at the time. Henry and I were playing monsters. He, of course, was the monster.

  “Boys! Be careful!” Mom warned. She was sitting in the living room with Dad, talking about some surgery she did.

  I remember because he kept saying, “That’s nice, dear.”

  I found an empty cabinet to hide in, thinking he wouldn’t look in there. I got the door to close, and he crept into the kitchen. I knew he had a grin on his face because there was a crack in the wood where Henry chipped it. I watched as he looked around the kitchen before looking at my cabinet. I couldn’t help laughing at him.

  He tore the cabinet door open and screamed, “Got you!” He grabbed me by the waist and brought me to the ground. He tickled me until I was breathless. We sat on the floor for a few moments before Henry decided to make the game more fun. “Let’s give the monster a tool to use to find you,” he added.

  “Oo, like what?” I asked.

  Henry walked over to the knife block sitting on the counter. He stared at it for a bit before looking back at me, wiggling his eyebrows. At first, I thought he was joking. But he kept his stare on me, waiting for my response.

  “No!” I screamed. “That’s dangerous!”

  He laughed at me before arguing. “No! I’ll be safe. It’s just to make the game more fun!” He turned around and reached for a knife. I felt my heart beating in my throat. I watched as he slowly slid the sharp object out of its holder and held it in his hand.

  I think that was the moment I realized Henry lost his mind.

  I stood there, thinking back to that moment. I peered into the bag again. I reached my hand in there and felt around. I felt another object too. It was cold, and it felt like metal. I wrapped my hand around the end of it, and I realized I was touching a cold barrel.

  Is that a gun?

  The sound of a car pulling into our driveway pulled my attention from Henry’s bag. My parents were home. I hid the knife back in the bag and left it where it was. I grabbed a towel and quickly cleaned up the blood. There were a few spots left, but they weren’t going to notice. I ran into the bathroom to scrub my hands clean of blood.

  Reminds me of another night I was cleaning off blood.

  “Kyle! Henry! We’re home!”

  I wish they weren’t.

  We ate dinner in silence that night. Henry didn’t join us; he stayed in his room. He came upstairs for a minute to grab his bag and gave me a cold glare. Other than that, it was an uneventful meal. Afterward, when my parents went upstairs to bed, the phone rang. I figured it was one of their co-workers, but I answered it anyway. I held the phone in my hands, feeling the chilled metal in my grasp.

  “Hello?” I croaked through the phone. I coughed to clear my voice, irritating my swollen throat. I didn’t realize the burning until I talked just then. It was like someone had a lighter in my throat.

  “Hey, Kyle, it’s Noelle.” Noelle breathed through the phone. “Can we talk?”

  Soon, it felt like inchworms were crawling up and down my throat. “Sure.” I coughed.

  “I tried to call your cell phone, but it didn’t seem to go through.”

  “Oh yeah—” I paused to keep my voice from straining out. “It broke.” My stomach started to get the same burning feeling from my throat. It was as if someone decided to set fire to my whole body.

  “Oh well, I wanted to talk about Nick,” she stated.

  Of course you do.

  I hummed in response because, at that point, I couldn’t breathe. Something was stopping my lungs from working. It felt like someone grabbed my throat and was choking me, squeezing tighter with each second that passed.

  “I’m sure you know that he’s missing.” She started to cry. My heart started to ache; not because of anything physical. But because she was crying, because of something I did. I wanted to reach out to her and hold her, but I couldn’t. “I just want you to know I had nothing to do with it. I was the last person to be with him, but I swear. I had nothing to do with this.”

  My head started spinning like a bicycle, which made me want to vomit. I looked down at my arms and saw that a strange rash appeared. My dinner was trying to crawl out of my throat, but I kept it down for Noelle.

  “They just kept questioning me.” Noelle sobbed. “Asking what we did, and I was like, ‘Trust me, officers, you don’t want me to go into detail about what we did.’ But they wouldn’t stop!”

  My heart was ripped from my chest, and I watched it fall to the floor. Broken in a million pieces. “What?” I gulped. I didn’t want her to say it again.

  “Oh, well, you know, what most couples do when they are together. If I knew what was going to happen after, then I would have—”

  My heart stopped. The phone fell out of my hands and dangled inches above the floor. I could hear a faint, concerned voice before I passed out completely.

  “Hello? Kyle, are you there?”

  4

  Day Two

  My head was throbbing. Lights above me were shining in my eyes, and I could see it even with them closed. There were faint whispers around me and the sound of a heart monitor going off. It started to beep louder as my brain jumbled and footsteps shuffled in the room. I tried to look around, to even open my eyes, but I was stuck. I couldn’t do it. I was too weak. I was trapped in my mind with my taunting thoughts. I took a breath in, building the strength I needed.

  I blinked open to find myself in bed. The room was white. Two windows sat behind a counter, letting sunlight in through the slightly opened shutters. It cast a shadow on everything in the room. I wanted to test my shadow. To make sure I still controlled it, but I was too tired to even lift my hand.

  I turned to the left, where there were two chairs. My parents sat, whispering to each other. To my right were machines; one had a line going up and down with numbers. There was a pole that sort of looked like a coat rack, and it had an IV bag hanging on it.

  I’m in a hospital?

  Was I sleeping the whole time?

  Is Nick alive?

  A doctor walked into the room, and I wanted to growl at him. He had a stethoscope around his neck and a beard that wen
t from his nose to the end of his chin. He carried a clipboard with him and was writing when he walked into the room. His head slowly went up to look at me.

  “Hello.” The doctor smiled. “Glad to see you are awake.”

  Mom shifted in her seat to face me, smoothing down her skirt. Dad just turned his head and gave me a nod. I was sitting in a hospital bed, in pain, and all I got from the man was a nod. The dizziness made me feel claustrophobic as the doctor started poking at my chart.

  “Alright, kid, do you know where you are?” the doctor quizzed. A loud alarm went off at that moment. My head swung to the side of the room where the loud sound was coming from. Pain shot up from my shoulder blade to the top of my neck. The doctor didn’t seem concerned with this, and neither did Mom. Dad furrowed his eyebrows together, but he wasn’t scared of the noise. The doctor was standing still. I watched as he stared at the ceiling, waiting for it to stop. “New security set. Sets off when someone enters the building through an exit door. Nurses come and go through that door, so it’s okay.”

  I looked at my parents, and Mom confirmed this for me.

  “Every five hours it goes off. That’s the schedule change. Except at night, there are no changes at night,” she assured me.

  The doctor nodded along with her before focusing on me again, waiting for me to answer.

  “The hospital,” I muttered. It was clear where I was. The people dressed in scrubs walking past my door. The grunts I heard from behind my wall. The faint screams from dying people in the hallway. And the smell, the very obvious hospital smell. It’s a mix of medicine and death.

  I hate it here.

  “Good, now what is your name?” I groaned at the stupid questions. The doctor took note of my hesitation and disinterest. “I need to make sure you are fully responsive. Then I can explain what’s happened to you.”

  “Kyle Davis,” I grunted at him. He smiled, looking toward his clipboard. He flipped a couple of pages, making Mom concerned. She looked at him, impatiently waiting for him to tell us what happened to me.

  “Dr. Jones, if you don’t know your patient—” My mother started, standing up. She stared him in the eye before finishing. “—maybe you shouldn’t be on this case.”

  He looked up from the papers. He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. I watched as sweat formed on his face. I never saw Mom as an authority figure, or at least not a harsh one. Her tone shocked me. I was a little scared myself. Dr. Jones apologized before looking at me.

  “Kyle, you went through an anaphylactic allergic reaction. We think it was because of the bismuth subsalicylate that was in the stomach medicine you took.” He grabbed my arm and flicked the IV that was sticking out of my wrist. “We had to give you epinephrine to reduce your body’s reaction to the medicine and give you oxygen. Your levels seem stable now, but we would like to keep you overnight to keep an eye on it.”

  Before he left the room, he looked over to Mom as if he were asking her for permission to leave. She just smiled at him. He took it as a yes because he wandered out of the room, looking dazed. Dad followed him, saying something about getting coffee. I rolled my head, stretching my neck out, trying to ease the pain. I squinted with the sudden stabbing feeling in my skull.

  “They all act like that,” Mom whispered to me. My eyes flew open and looked at her. “Scared as if I am going to fire them.”

  “Where is Nick?” I asked. Mom was taken aback; it looked like she almost fell. Her eyes fluttered as she thought about what to say. He needs to be alive. All I wanted to hear was, “On his way.” That’s what I wanted from her. The next words that came out of her mouth were not the ones I wanted. They were the ones I expected.

  “Nick’s missing.”

  It was like a ton of bricks just fell on me. The weight of them held me down to my bed, and I couldn’t get up. I could feel the pressure building. My heart was slamming itself against my rib cage as if it were trying to break free. I tried to breathe in, but there was nothing. The deeper I breathed in, the harder my lungs had to work.

  So, he’s really gone.

  You did this to him.

  “But they will find him.” She tried to assure me. I didn’t want to talk about it any more; I got my answer. This wasn’t all a bad dream. This was real. The flashes of the forest and Nick’s dead body were real.

  It really happened.

  I am a murderer.

  ~

  Dad came back with coffee a few minutes later. He didn’t say much until he got a phone call. He walked out of the room, leaving the door open. We heard him groaning and growling. He came back livid. Mom and I both turned to look at him, waiting for an explanation.

  “My damn assistant mixed up the case files for today. I had her put some in my briefcase so I could stay here and work, but she put the wrong ones in,” he complained, snatching his bag. “I’ll be right back. I’m sorry.”

  He left in a hurry, pushing doctors out of the way. Mom just chuckled at him before turning to me. “He’s crazy.”

  “Where’s Henry?” I questioned. I felt bad for cutting her off, but I needed to know. If your brother is in the hospital, you go, right? I would go if it were him. Even after our fight, I thought he would’ve been there. I was lying in a hospital bed and had to be given oxygen because I couldn’t breathe. Yet Henry was nowhere to be seen.

  She looked guilty. She must’ve felt bad about Nick or not having Henry here. “You know how he gets in hospitals.” She stood up before announcing that she had to go. “I’ll be right back; I need to check in with some of the nurses.”

  I did remember Henry didn’t like hospitals, but no one does. I was still his brother, and he was still not here.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked, gazing up at the big man in a white coat. Mom was in scrubs because she was already at the hospital working when we arrived. She started yelling when she saw him, screaming that he was her baby. Other people had to come and hold her back. I watched Dad grab her and hold her. She let out loud sobs into his shirt, and he just rubbed her back.

  Tears slipped out of my eyes, but I wiped them away before anyone could see. I looked at the little boy in the bed, drained of color. I couldn’t understand what the doctor was saying. He mentioned water in his lungs and how it was too late. Mom bawled into her hands, kneeling by the bed. She lay her head onto the sheets, grabbing the hand of the dying kid in front of us.

  I heard a sniffle behind me, and I turned to see Dad. He was crying. I never saw Dad cry before, watching the tears slip down his face, turning his eyes puffy and red as he rubbed them away. I looked back to Mom, and I felt empty. Footsteps shuffled behind me, and the door slammed shut. I raced after him, grabbing his shoulder to pull him back.

  “Henry, wait!”

  He turned to face me, tears streaking down his face. His nose was all runny, and he wiped away everything he could from his face. Doctors passed us, walking with nurses, but no one paid attention to the eleven- and seven-year-olds in the middle of the hallway.

  “No! This is your fault!” he cried. He pushed my hand away, making me fall to the ground. “You did this to him!”

  I was on my hands and knees looking up to Henry. His tears kept falling. I faced the ground because I didn’t want to see him like that any more. I watched as my tears pooled on the floor. He grabbed me by the neck and pulled my ear to his mouth.

  “You killed Max! You’re a murderer! Never talk to me again.”

  With that, he ran down the hallway. My vision became blurry from the crying, so I couldn’t see much. His figure became smaller by the second; the lights were shining down on me in the very bare and white hallway. I could still hear the sobs from his hospital room. The crying that I caused.

  History does repeat itself, I guess.

  “Honey, I have a surprise for you,” Mom sang as she walked through the door. Luke appeared, grinning from ear to ear. The top of his black hair bouncing with each step he took. He was always so happy, never a sad moment with him. He and I w
ere complete opposites; I remember thinking we were never going to be friends.

  It was after Nick and I weren’t friends with Mark any more. Nick told me he found a new friend; he just moved to town. He used to be homeschooled but decided to go to public school for the rest of his high school years.

  He walked in wearing the biggest smile ever, hippie pants, and a T-shirt that said Peace for all. I wanted to slap him right then and there. One thing led to another, and we became close. I did have to teach him how to properly dress for high school, though.

  “Hey!” He beamed. “How are you feeling?” I gave him a slight smile as he made his way to me. He grabbed a chair and slid it across the floor, creating this awful sound. It felt as if he were trying to pierce my eardrums.

  “Oops, sorry.” He apologized, redness taking over his face. He always got embarrassed easily—must be the homeschool. “Anyways, you won’t believe what happened to Mark.” I sat up eagerly. For the first time in forty-eight hours, Nick wasn’t a thought in my head.

  “What?” I egged him on. I figured he got in trouble for what happened, considering the number of people that watched.

  “He got expelled,” Luke squealed. I wanted so badly to make fun of the way he squeaked when saying that, but the only thought on my mind was the fact that Mark was expelled. I didn’t want him to get into that much trouble. That would go on his permanent record. It would ruin his life.

  “But he only got into a fight,” I murmured. “It was one punch.”

  “Yeah, but I guess they had enough of his crap,” he said. His eyes widened as he turned to Mom. “Sorry for my language!”

  She just laughed and called him “wholesome” before leaving the room. I asked where she was going, and she said to get another surprise. I was confused, considering the only friend I had left alive was in the room.

  Oh god, Nick.

  Luke noticed my emotion change, and he knew immediately what I was thinking about.