Tell me to Lie

by Charlotte Byrd

  “Many writers won’t agree with me but I believe anyone can learn to write.”

  “Really?”

  She nods.

  “It’s all about paying attention to details. The events and the plot points are one thing but what makes someone a writer is how they tell the story. You and I would tell the story in two completely different ways because the details that I would pay attention to and include are different from those you would include.”

  I tilt my head to one side, not really understanding what she’s getting at.

  Aren’t all the details the same?

  Like events in a sequence?

  When I ask her about it, she laughs and shakes her head.

  “No, not at all. Even the way you told me the story of what happened since you left my house, you included all of these descriptions about what you went through and how you felt about everything that was going on. You described what the motel looked like where you found Solly. You practically showed me the forest where Nicholas was camping and the way the water glistened in the sunlight.”

  I sit back against the upholstered chair.

  Is she really serious or had she just had too much to drink?

  “All of those things tell me that you have the mind to be a really good writer. And what’s more, you have the perfect story to tell.”

  I bite the inside of my lip, thinking over what she had just said. She knows most of what happened now, except what occurred before.

  She doesn’t know how I met Nicholas; the debt, the obligation, the promise to spend a year with him.

  All of that seems like it happened a million years ago and yet just yesterday at the same time.

  “Anyway, I don’t want to pressure you, of course. I just wanted to encourage you to think about it. Writing is really, really hard but it gives you this enormous sense of purpose and accomplishment. You create a world and these people who didn’t exist before and you bring them all into existence.”

  “But that’s just with novels, not a memoir, right?” I ask.

  “You would think so but no, it’s the same with all writing. With a memoir, you are somewhat limited to facts and things that actually happened but, like I said before, two different people will have two different experiences of what happened because of how they view the world and themselves. Their stories will inevitably be different. So, in writing a memoir or a true story, you would have to do the same thing as you do in fiction. You have to create the character who experienced those struggles. It may have been you at one time, but it’s likely not the you that you are today.”

  24

  Olive

  When I go to see him…

  Josephine drives me to the jail where Owen is being held. It’s a nondescript looking building that looks more like an office or some sort of administrative structure than a jail. There’s no barbed wire or guards with guns like the ones guarding the prison where I picked Owen up.

  “Olive, I know that you are doing this for the right reasons but if you feel afraid, more afraid than you do now, or like you’re in danger, then don’t do it. It’s not worth it,” she says.

  I give her a nod and a brave smile. Josephine is saying that to be encouraging and to give me permission to fail but I can’t give myself that permission. If this doesn’t work or if I am too fearful of facing Owen again, even in this protective environment, then Nicholas is going to go away for a very long time. No, whatever fears I have, I have to put them aside.

  After I get out of her car, I give her a wave and promise to text as soon as I’m done so that she can come and pick me up.

  I walk up to the guard behind a thick wall of plexiglass and tell him my reason before being here. He asks for my identification and then lets me walk through the metal detector.

  To prepare for this visit, I’ve read through all of the requirements and scheduled the appointment yesterday as stated. I look down at my phone and check the time.

  Visitor check-in begins twenty minutes before the scheduled visit time. Check-in is terminated ten minutes before the scheduled visit time and each visit is scheduled to be forty-five minutes in duration.

  They have a cubby system for leaving cell phones and I check one out and pay the one-dollar fee to use it.

  The guard shows me to the bench where other women are seated. I am the only one here without a child or a baby in tow.

  I think back to Josephine’s children in her beautiful house overlooking the valley and the crammed apartments that these children probably live in and my heart breaks for them.

  How is it that some people have so much while others have so little?

  Without my phone to entertain me, time passes like molasses. I arrived right on time and I should only wait twenty minutes but it feels like it has been hours.

  Finally, they show all of us into a large room with round tables and chairs bolted to the floor. There are small windows near the ceiling along each of the four walls but otherwise it looks a lot like the cafeteria where I ate lunch for four years at my pubic high school.

  The inmates are already sitting at various tables, and I scan the room for Owen. Initially, there’s a rush of excitement as the children run into their fathers’ arms.

  The guards watch carefully as we are only allowed a small hug and a peck on the cheek, no excessive displays of affection.

  That’s not going to be an issue in my case.

  I spot him sitting at the far table, near the entrance where he probably came through. His head is hanging low but he is searching the room with his eyes, eventually laser pointing onto mine.

  I relax my clenched fists and put my chin in the air. I will not show him that I’m afraid. I will not show him that I’m intimidated.

  Owen doesn’t say a word when I walk up to him.

  Suddenly, there are more lines on his face and his skin has a yellow tint to it, making it look sallow and tired.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” I say, sitting down across the table from him.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a vending machine full of chocolate bars and chips and a huge plastic container of drinking water with small cups underneath.

  Unlike the snacks, the water is free. The majority of the inmates are already stuffing their faces with one thing or another, but Owen simply folds his hands in front of him and interlocks his fingers.

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  There’s hostility in his voice.

  I’m tempted to bite my lower lip but I don’t. I knew that this wasn’t going to be easy but I can’t let him see me waiver.

  “I wanted to talk to you about what happened,” I say after a moment.

  “Oh, yeah? Why is that?” His eyes narrow from anger.

  I was hoping that he would be a lot more receptive to seeing me again, especially since it’s a surprise, but now I realize that I have to make an effort to get through to him.

  Right now, he is all ice.

  But what we once had was a real relationship.

  If I want him to relax and to get through to him, I can’t be ice myself. I need to be vulnerable.

  I glance down at the table and then slowly bring my eyes up to his. For a moment, I see the man I used to love like a brother and a friend.

  “I just want to understand what happened,” I say after a moment. “How things went so wrong.”

  He shakes his head.

  “You don’t want to tell me?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Why…Why did you…why did you follow me and attack me?” I ask.

  His eyes focus on mine and I see a tenderness there that I hadn’t seen in a long time. But then he blinks, and it vanishes.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Olive,” he says.

  His voice is dead and stoic.

  “Why are you being like this?” I mumble.

  “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “
No.”

  “Then why do you fucking treat me like I am?”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “I know what you’re doing here, Olive. I’m not a fucking moron!”

  My blood runs cold.

  Shivers race down my spine as every muscle within me freezes.

  He knows why I’m here?

  How?

  “Everything we say is being recorded. I’m not going to talk to you about what happened or didn’t happen so you can make your shitty case against me better. You know what you did, Olive. You know that everything in that police report is a lie. You and I both know that.”

  The first breath is the hardest but once the air fills my lungs, the others come much faster and smoother. He was so confident and self-assured that he scared me when he said he knew why I was here. But now that I know he thinks that it’s all about his attack, I have the upper hand.

  “We don’t have to talk about that,” I say quietly, pretending to give him ground.

  “What do you want to talk about then?”

  “Us.”

  He narrows his eyes, trying to read me.

  I relax my face and sit back.

  I have nothing to hide because in reality I do want to talk about us.

  “What happened to us?” I ask. “I really cared about you as my brother. All of those letters you wrote to me in prison, were they just lies?”

  His shoulders slope down as he adjusts his seat. Talk to me, I say silently to myself over and over again. Just talk to me.

  “Of course not. Everything I said was nothing but the truth.”

  “What about your plans for when you got out? When we got to California, you just seemed to let them go.”

  He shrugs.

  “Doesn’t matter now, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I broke my parole.”

  “So, you’ll do a little more time but then you’ll get out and you’ll still have to figure out what it is that you want to do with yourself.”

  He rubs his temple with his index fingers. Then he brushes his hands through his hair and looks at me. This is the Owen I once loved. The one I thought I could talk to. The one I thought I understood.

  “I’m going to get something to drink, you want anything?” I ask.

  “No thanks.”

  My throat clenches up but I don’t let it show. I walk over to the water station and pour myself a little cup.

  I didn’t wait long enough.

  I should’ve waited longer.

  That way we could’ve talked more and his mouth would have gotten drier.

  But it’s too late now.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  “Actually, yes, can you pour one?” Owen yells over at me.

  My heart skips a beat and my hands start to shake as I open the spigot and watch the water fill up the flimsy paper cup.

  “Why are you here, Olive?” Owen asks when I hand it to him.

  I watch him bring it to his lips and take it all down in one long gulp.

  “I don't know,” I say quietly, looking away from him. “There was a time when I thought you were my best friend and I guess I miss that. More than I’d care to admit.”

  Owen smiles out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” he says.

  The guard makes an announcement that we all have one minute left. As I stare into his eyes, I don’t know what else to say to him. A part of me does miss him. Even after everything that he has done and put me through, I can’t help but mourn the man that I used to think he was.

  When a guard approaches us, Owen rises to his feet. “Will you visit me again?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I lie.

  He opens his arms and I force myself to make a move closer to him and let him embrace me.

  I feel his heartbeat through his jail-issued uniform and I wonder at how normal it sounds, almost as if it belongs to a regular person.

  After he pulls away, I wait for him to walk away so that I can take his cup.

  But much to my shock and surprise, he wraps his fingers around the cup and takes it with him.

  Unable to stop him or do much of anything, I start to exist in suspended animation.

  I want to run after him, tackle him, and take that cup from his fist but I know that the guards would stop me and never let me take it.

  I wish more than anything that I could turn back time but instead I’m simply forced to stand here impotently and watch as Nicholas’ fate is sealed away for good.

  But then, a glimmer of hope!

  Before he walks out of the door, Owen tosses the cup into the garbage can near the vending machine.

  “Do you mind if I get some M&M’s before I go?” I turn to the guard standing near my table. “I haven’t had anything to eat today.”

  “Hurry up,” he mumbles and walks over to another table with a screaming toddler who doesn’t understand why his daddy has to leave.

  I stick four quarters into the machine and press the numbers for the peanut ones.

  Once I retrieve it from the bottom compartment, I rip it open at the top and toss the ripped piece into the garbage can next to Owen’s cup.

  After a quick glance at the room, I grab his discarded cup, careful not to touch the rim, and bury it in the arm of my oversized sweater.

  With both of my hands showing, I pour some M&M’s into my palm and walk out of the visiting area.

  25

  Olive

  The results…

  Walking around Boston Common on my daily two-mile walk, I zip up my jacket all of the way to the top to try to keep the wind from chilling me to the bone.

  It’s hard to imagine that only last week, I was submerged in the warm turquoise water of my mother’s pool watching the palm trees sway in the breeze.

  I glance down at my phone at what feels like the fiftieth time today.

  I’m expecting a call from Meredith with the news about the DNA test. I had sent the cup to them overnight in a Ziploc bag and it has now been almost ten days.

  With official investigations, it can take a year or more but Meredith has assured me that we can get the results in less than two weeks.

  These are, of course, not official results.

  She has a friend at the lab who has access to all of the samples that have been collected.

  There are blood samples from the motel room where Nina went missing (her body has never been found) and there are samples from the scene where David was found.

  Of course, it is highly illegal to mess with the data collected from crime scenes but Meredith assures me that her friend can use a small amount just to run the comparison test and leave the rest to be tested by an official decree.

  I pick up the pace as I pray that he finds a match. In addition to being negative, the results can also be inconclusive and those will pretty much leave us exactly where we are right now.

  The only hope that Nicholas has is if the DNA comes back a match to Owen.

  My phone starts to vibrate and I answer even before it starts to ring. “Meredith?” I say.

  There’s a long pause.

  This isn’t good.

  I shake my head and say her name again.

  “It’s a match!” she yells. “He did it! Owen killed both of them!”

  I start to jump up and down, beaming and smiling from ear to ear.

  I keep asking her if she’s sure and not believing her when she says she is. She’s still at work and won’t be able to come over until the evening.

  I run back home, excited to tell Sydney but she’s not there either.

  It takes me almost half an hour to calm down and as soon as Josephine answers the phone, my excitement explodes out of me.

  “Oh my God,” she says. “I can’t believe he killed both of them. You are so lucky.”

  I pause. She’s right. I hadn’t thought about it like this before but Josephine is absolutely correct about Owen.


  He killed Nina and David and he tried to rape me. If he had succeeded, he probably would’ve tried to kill me, too.

  Goose bumps run up and down my arms and I rub them trying to make them go away.

  We talk for a while and celebrate but then Josephine has to go and wanting to have someone else to talk to, I call Meredith back and ask about the next step in the process.

  “The thing is that now we have to tell the district attorney,” Meredith says.

  “Do you think it’s going to be hard?” I ask.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” she says with a sigh. “The thing is that I can’t tell him that we already did the test because then my lab tech and I will definitely get fired and possibly face criminal charges for tampering with evidence.”

  Wow, I had no idea that what we did was that illegal.

  “So, what do we do?”

  “We have to somehow convince them to run the DNA without telling them what we know,” Meredith says.

  My mouth drops open.

  I was certain that if we got the DNA match, we could share it with the world.

  And now? Now, we have to keep it secret?

  “That’s not what you told me before,” I say quietly.

  She doesn’t respond.

  “I know, I’m really sorry. But we tampered with evidence. We can’t let anyone know, otherwise they’re going to press charges. The only way to do it is to just try to convince the DA that Owen is the right guy.”

  She keeps repeating herself over and over again as if that’s somehow going to change her story.

  I let out a long sigh and watch my breath as it collides with the cold air and makes a large pouf as if it were made of smoke.

  The following morning, I go back to Nancy Leider’s office. She’s Nicholas’ lawyer and this time, I’m going to make her listen.

  I didn’t fight hard enough for him before but now that I know the truth and I know that he is one hundred percent innocent, I have to make her understand.

  Her assistant shows me into her office and brings me a cup of tea with an assortment of tea bags.