Live to Tell

by Lisa Harrington

  We were both quiet after that. Him — still doing his puzzle. Me — thinking.

  “What did I have?” I asked suddenly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said we were starving. At Tim’s. What did I have?”

  “Ummm,” he scratched his head with the pencil. “Well, we both had a donut, a Boston cream. And … coffee. Yeah. We both had a coffee.”

  My stomach tightened. “A coffee,” I repeated. “You’re sure?”

  “Uh, you splashed some on your shirt when you peeled the sippy thing back. You had a little fit. You must remember that.”

  Stunned, all I could do was stare at him.

  “I’m thinkin’ maybe, at that point, you realized you’d had too much to drink, and figured a coffee might help. I didn’t tell the cops that, though,” he said, seeming all pleased with himself. Then he looked at me, saw the expression on my face. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  “M-my leg,” I stuttered. “I’ve had it down too long.”

  Cal rushed over and lifted my leg up to rest on the bed. “I should get going, anyway.”

  Tossing the pencil on the desk, he tore his puzzle from the magazine. “You get some rest. I have a bunch of stuff to do for my mom tomorrow, but if I finish early, I’ll check in. Maybe we’ll do something,” he said, crumpling the page into a tight ball.

  I jerked my head in an attempt to nod.

  He tried to kiss me, but I quickly turned away, pretending to cough, so he got my ear. On his way out, he chucked the wad of paper into the garbage can.

  He missed.

  For a few seconds I stared at the paper ball. I couldn’t explain it, but something made me limp over and pick it up. I pulled at the edges and smoothed it out. Every square was filled in, but with random letters. There wasn’t one real word.

  Chapter 18

  I grabbed my cell and dialled Kasey’s number. It rang and rang. She wasn’t picking up. I was sending her a text when I heard the ticking on my window. Oh, thank God. How did she always know when I needed her?

  Her head popped up and she waited for the all-clear. I hopped over to the window. “He said we went to Tim’s. He said I had a coffee.”

  She froze on the spot. “You’re kidding me, right?” I shook my head.

  “You don’t like to even go inside a Tim’s.” Her eyes narrowed. “He’s lying.”

  I felt the prick of hot tears. Was it really just this afternoon I’d been defending him, telling Kasey she had it all wrong? God, now who was the Idiot Supreme?

  “Libby!” Emma called. “Dinner!”

  Shit. “Coming!” I yelled back.

  “Okay. I’m outta here, but don’t worry,” Kasey said. “We’re going to figure this out.”

  “You can stay,” I offered.

  “No. I’ll come back later.”

  “Thanks, Kasey.”

  She nodded and disappeared into the darkness.

  Dinner was a quiet event. Everyone was too tired to pretend that they weren’t. It was like everything was in slow motion, but that could have been partly because I was desperate to be done and get back to my room to wait for Kasey.

  Emma seemed oblivious and talked non-stop about how someone at school broke Maddy’s glasses and they all had to stay in at recess until the person confessed.

  “Did they?” I asked.

  “Yup. But it was too late for us to go out. It sucked.”

  “Emma!” Mom snapped, looking horrified.

  She lowered her eyes and mumbled, “Sorry.”

  I watched her eat her macaroni and cheese one noodle at a time. “Did you know who it was?”

  “I knew,” she answered smugly.

  “How?”

  She squirted more ketchup on her macaroni in a happy face design. “I had a feeling.”

  “Wish I had your gift,” I whispered.

  After dinner, Emma begged me to watch High School Musical 3 with her. Mom had rented it and promised that since it was Friday night, she could stay up late and watch the whole thing. She said please about a hundred times. There was no way out. I had to say yes. Reluctantly, I sent Kasey a text to tell her about the change of plans and told her to come first thing in the morning.

  I snuggled up on the couch with Emma and pretended to be completely entranced, but all I could think about was Cal and what he’d said. If only I could remember what we did after we left the party. Was there any way he could have been mistaken? Or maybe he bought me a coffee and, not wanting to say no, I took it? The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. But then I thought about it some more.

  “Do they ever sing like that at your school, Lib?” Emma asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you guys ever sing songs together?”

  A vision of the Halifax West cafeteria with everyone breaking into song popped into my head. It was hard to keep a straight face. “Uh, no, Em. Nobody at my school sings like that.”

  “Oh.” Her face fell. “I don’t think I want to go to high school then.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  The movie ended, and we both went to bed at the same time. Why was I so tired? It’s not like I ever did anything.

  I turned out my light, and though my body was exhausted, my brain wouldn’t shut off. I kept trying to come up with a possible defence for Cal. I didn’t want to believe Kasey, that he was lying. I wasn’t ready to give up hope that there was some kind of explanation. But then there was the crossword puzzle. How weird was that?

  I must have finally drifted off, because the next thing I knew sunlight was streaming in my window. Checking the clock, it was already after eight-thirty. I pulled a sweatshirt on over my PJs and twisted my hair into a clip.

  Mom came to my door. “Want some breakfast?”

  “No thanks. I’m good.” I didn’t want to leave my room in case Kasey showed up, but Mom didn’t need to know that. I knew the less mention I made of Kasey the better. At least for now.

  “What are your big plans today?”

  I shrugged and looked around at the four walls of my room. “More of the same, I guess.”

  “There are leftover pancakes you can nuke when you’re hungry. I’m going to make a run to the Superstore.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t get hungry much anymore. That was one more thing I figured Mom didn’t need to know.

  When I came back from brushing my teeth, Kasey’s face was in the window.

  “I saw your mom leave,” she huffed, crawling over the ledge.

  “And you didn’t use the door because …?”

  She shrugged and pulled off her jacket. “Old habits.”

  We stretched out on the bed, her feet next to my head and vice versa. I gave her the rundown of Cal’s visit.

  “I’ve known you forever,” Kasey said. “If you were starving in the middle of the night, there’s no way you’d be going for some donut when Hala’s Donair was two doors down. And if you were trying to sober up? You’d be grabbin’ yourself a Red Bull, not a coffee, not in a million years. He’s totally lying.”

  “I don’t know if I’d eat a donair in front of a guy I just met.”

  “You were drunk. You wouldn’t care.”

  “Well, could I have been so drunk I actually had one? A coffee, I mean?”

  She laughed out loud. “No. Not an option.”

  It was impossible to win an argument with Kasey. “Maybe he’s remembering wrong or something,” I offered weakly.

  She sat up. “Are you out of your friggin’ mind? He’s full of shit, Libby.”

  I buried my face in my pillow instead of answering.

  “And where’s the puzzle?” she demanded. “I wanna see it.”

  Rolling over, I opened my drawer, grabbed the wrinkled piece of paper and held it up.

  She looked at it closely. “That’s creepy.”

  “Yup,” I said, making a popping sound on the p. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t explain away that puzzle. I let out a giant sigh. “What’s
wrong with me? Do I have an L tattooed on my forehead?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you!” she snorted.

  “Guess losers attract losers,” I said sadly.

  “Oh. Now wait a minute, let’s see here,” she peered at my forehead, “you do have an L there. No, wait … It’s a scar.”

  “Ha ha. Not funny,” I snapped and smoothed down my bangs. “Time to get over yourself,” she bossed. “The question is why is he lying? What’s he hiding?”

  I glanced down at the crossword puzzle and shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “What time did everyone say you left the party?”

  “Around 11:30.”

  “So, there’s what — a half hour from when you left Tori’s and the accident? If you weren’t at Tim’s, then what were you guys doing?”

  “I don’t know that either … What could we be doing?” All of a sudden I felt my eyes grow huge and my heart stop.

  I sat up. So did Kasey.

  She turned towards me, a strange expression on her face. I had a funny feeling it mirrored my own. “You don’t think he took you somewhere,” she said, “and you guys … you know … he, um …” My mouth fell open, and for a moment I stayed perfectly still.

  I could hear him as though he was right beside me. “What d’ya say we blow this popsicle stand and spend a little time, say … getting to know each other?”

  “Uh —”

  “I think we need some alone time,” he whispered in my ear. “We could go sit in your car, listen to some tunes.”

  Alone time. I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know what he meant by that.

  “Libby? You okay?”

  “No. No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’d know. Wouldn’t I? Somehow I’d be able to tell.”

  “I don’t know, Libby. I mean, you were all banged up and stuff. You had surgery, and then you were unconscious forever. I don’t know if you’d be able to tell, and they probably didn’t check …”

  Wrapping my arms around my middle, I hunched over and squeezed tight. “But I’d feel different. I know I would. Everyone feels different after — after their first time. Isn’t there some kind of test or something?”

  “You mean like a pregnancy test?”

  My head jerked up. “I never even thought of that.”

  “Sorry.” Kasey looked like she was about to cry.

  Panicked, I searched my memory. When was my last period? I couldn’t remember. Not since the accident … “Oh my God. Do you think I let him?” I whispered. “Or do you think he forced me?”

  “Libby. We don’t even know if anything happened!”

  She was trying to be calm and reasonable, but I wasn’t listening. “Can I charge him with something?”

  Kasey slid over closer to me on the bed. “Let’s settle down for a second. I’m the first one to stick it to Cal, but this is only a theory, and we kinda spun it to the worst possible extreme.”

  “But it all makes sense.”

  “But it’s still only a theory,” she said. “We can’t freak out yet.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. “You’re right. Deep breaths.” It was true; I felt different, like a different person, but not in that way. Part of me truly believed that somehow I’d know if that had happened to me. At least that’s what I told myself.

  “I want you to know, though.” Kasey pointed her finger at me. “If we find out he did do this, he’s not going to get away with it.”

  Sniffing back some tears, I nodded.

  She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Maybe he’s got it all screwed up because he was drunk too and doesn’t remember.”

  The tiniest spark of hope ignited deep inside me. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “The Frank article makes him out to be some kind of superhero for saving your life. Might tarnish his rep a bit if it comes out that he was trashed too — no movie or book deals for him,” she pointed out.

  “But he said he only had a couple drinks, then straight Coke.”

  “He could have lied.”

  I mulled that over for a second. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “Yeah. Yeah I guess he could have.”

  “We need a plan. How much did you pick up in drama class?”

  “Uh …”

  “You gotta fake it with Cal.”

  “What?!”

  “Until we figure out our next move, get a handle on what he’s hiding, don’t let on you suspect anything. We don’t want to scare him away.”

  I felt the bile inching up my throat. “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “It’s called acting.”

  Chapter 19

  I stared out the window, scraping some frost off the glass with my fingernail. What would today bring? Would Cal call? Or just show up at some point? He didn’t “check in,” as he put it, yesterday, so I figured it was only a matter of time. But I hadn’t heard from Kasey about any kind of plan, and I was starting to get anxious.

  How quickly things changed. Only a couple of days ago, I had that fluttery butterfly feeling in my stomach at the idea of seeing Cal. Now the complete opposite — a stomach full of worms and spiders. The very thought of him made my skin crawl. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pretend that it didn’t.

  I knew I had to calm myself down. Kasey had a point. We really didn’t know what happened yet, didn’t know if it was that, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. And if the possibility was there, even a tiny bit, how was I supposed to ignore it?

  The phone rang in the kitchen.

  I froze and listened. It might be Diane with news from the hospital. I heard Mom say, “Take it to your sister.”

  A moment later, Emma appeared with the phone. “I think it’s a boy,” she mouthed. “I’ve got skating lessons. You have to tell me about it when I get back.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Em.” I took the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Hey, babe.” It was Cal.

  My heart sped up, but for all the wrong reasons. “Hey.”

  “Sorry I didn’t get in touch the other day. I —”

  “That’s okay.” It really was.

  “So I have to drop Mom at Zumba. She goes to that place up in Clayton Park. And since I’ll have almost an hour to kill … and I’m so close by …”

  “You want to come here,” I said.

  “You read my mind.”

  “What time?”

  “Around noon.”

  I frantically searched for an excuse. Nothing. “Um … sure. See ya then.”

  CAL ARRIVED RIGHT AT twelve. Mom showed him to my room and left the door open as far as it could go. As he bent down to kiss me, I quickly shot my hand up and covered my mouth, just as he was about to make contact. “I’ve been coughing all morning. I think I’m getting a cold,” I said.

  “I don’t care about stuff like that.” He pulled my hand away and kissed me anyway.

  I’d pressed my lips together and rolled them inward, trying to convince myself that his lips hadn’t really touched mine.

  He flaked out next to me on the bed. I immediately got up.

  “Where’re you going?” he asked.

  “Foot’s asleep.” I wandered over to my dresser and fiddled with the bristles on my hairbrush. Am I nuts? There’s no way I should have let him come over until Kasey and I had figured out what we were doing.

  Before I knew it, he was standing right behind me. I watched him in the mirror as he rested his chin on my shoulder. I tried not to flinch. He smiled at our reflection. “We look good together,” he said.

  It would have been so easy to ram my elbow into his ribs, but I made myself smile back.

  “Guess you don’t need this anymore,” he said, reaching up and pulling down the photo of Nate.

  “Right.” I took it from him and stuck it in my top drawer. “Hey. I thought of something … My first date with Nate was Tim Hortons,” I lied. “We went after work and shared some giant thing that looked like a figure eight. Kinda crazy that our first date — don’t know
if you can even call it that — was Tim’s too.”

  He nodded and continued checking out his profile in the mirror.

  “What did we have again?”

  Without missing a beat, he said, “Nothing as exciting as a figure eight thing. Plain ol’ coffee and donuts.”

  Moving away and turning to face him, I said, “I don’t drink coffee, you know. I don’t like it.”

  If he was surprised by my statement, he didn’t show it. Sticking out his bottom lip, he scratched his chin. “That’s weird … Don’t like coffee, huh?”

  “So when you say I drank one that night, well, it sort of doesn’t sound like something I’d do.”

  He shrugged. “Babe. We all do crazy things when we’re drinking.”

  “Yeah, but —”

  “You must like hot chocolate though. My little sis, Rach, says I make the best. It’s all about frothing the milk first. Why don’t I make you some?”

  He didn’t seem to be getting it — that I was suggesting he might be lying. “Right now?”

  “Sure.” He made for the door.

  “But —”

  “Don’t worry. I know my way around a kitchen.”

  I slumped onto my chair and drummed my fingers on the desk. This hour seemed to be lasting forever.

  Just then, a strange popping sound came from the foot of my bed, from Cal’s jacket. It took me a second to figure it out. My friend Tommy had the same ring tone — Bubble Wrap. It was Cal’s phone.

  Who comes up with this stuff? I rubbed my forehead, willing it to stop. It finally did. A minute later, it started again. Come on! I leaned forward, grabbed Cal’s jacket, and rifled through the pockets. My fingers closed around the phone and, resisting the urge to throw it against the wall, I started randomly pressing buttons in an attempt to turn off the ringer. It either stopped by itself or I managed to hit the right one. I couldn’t help notice the name of the caller — Gwen.

  “Gwen, huh?” I had a girlfriend. We only went out for a while. Broke up way back. I haven’t spoken to her for ages. I checked over my shoulder. “Let’s just see about that …” I muttered, and started scrolling down Cal’s recent calls screen. Jules … Home … Gwen … someone named Ry … and a bunch of private numbers. Haven’t spoken to her for ages, my ass. Gwen’s name was there the most, by a mile. By the look of all the little red arrows, Cal returned her calls. Just to be nosey, I scrolled back further. Gwen, Gwen, Gwen, it went on and on, never ending. Liar, liar, pants on fire.