Lies We Tell Ourselves

by Amy Matayo

  But I have. I’ve always wanted the chance.

  Here I am, faced with yet another choice.

  Stay or soar.

  Stay or soar.

  And just like that, I know.

  This is the exact moment. The moment I’m certain that everything has changed. Me. Micah. Us. I’ve known him inside and out, backwards and forwards, past and future. But I’ve never known him to be this open. This vulnerable. Nothing about him is guarded. Nothing is demanding. It’s almost like God is saying Well, here’s a clean slate. Here’s a second chance. Here’s what you’ve prayed for. You’ve waited four years. Now what are you going to do with it?

  I set down the chalk. “You love me?”

  He looks straight at me. There’s no fear in his eyes, not even a little. “I love you.”

  I blink at him. “That scares me.”

  “It scares me too.”

  “You don’t look scared.”

  He links his fingers together, the pink chalk tunneled in his palms. “I’m scared to death. Mostly that you’ll tell me to leave and never come back.”

  “I might.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you.”

  All I want to do is wrap my arms around his neck and tell him everything I feel, but I’m terrified. It’s been almost four years. Months and months of loss and heartbreak. Years of silence and separation. I’m not quite ready to make things easy for him.

  “So you just show up here now and tell me you love me? And I’m just supposed to jump into your arms and take you back? Is that what you expect?” I throw my arms in the air and look around. “I live in Philadelphia now, Micah. Philadelphia!” I’m not sure why I yell the last word, but I do. “I have a job and a life and new friends and a…life!”

  He doesn’t flinch. Instead, he smiles.

  “I know you live here. I’ve known it for a while. Over a year, actually.” He looks over my shoulder, pretending to think. “It’s kind of a weird coincidence that I live in New York now, isn’t it? It’s almost like I planned it that way.” I swallow, feeling my pulse ratchet up at what he’s implying. Surely he didn’t move there for me. “You know what else is interesting?” he continues. “There’s a train that runs from New York to Philadelphia every afternoon. You just hop on at Grand Central Station, and poof—less than two hours later you wind up in downtown Philly. Isn’t that crazy?”

  Everything stops. My heart. My brain. The earth spinning on its axis. I can’t believe he did this. Micah didn’t move to New York just because it was a great job opportunity.

  He moved to New York for me.

  He loves me. Even better? I love him back, more now than I ever have.

  That’s saying a lot, considering I’ve always loved him so much.

  Even when he hurt me. Even when he used me. Even when we were kids and he walked across the street that very first day. Even before I knew his name. Even when I kicked him out and told myself he had used up all his chances. We’ve done that a lot—lied to ourselves. Micah and I tell ourselves lies all the time. We don’t care. We’re over it. We’ll move on. It’s no big deal. It didn’t hurt. Maybe lying to yourself—and to each other—is the only way for some people to get through a painful life. The truth hurts. It just does. Sometimes lies lessen the blow.

  Lies aren’t lessening anything right now.

  I feel everything, and it’s hitting me hard.

  Micah never used up all his chances, not with me. He’s damaged. We both are. But in my gut, looking at him now, I know we’re finished taking it out on each other.

  “Are you trying to imply that you moved here on purpose? Some sort of plan to accidently run into me someday?” I have an overactive imagination and need to know for sure.

  He laughs and stands up. “I’m not implying anything. I’m stating it as fact.”

  I glare up at him, squinting in the sunlight. I don’t like him looming over me like that, so I clamor to my feet. He takes a step toward me. I step back and right into the hood of someone else’s car. My knees buckle and I sit, then push on his waist, but he doesn’t move. “Back up. You’re invading my personal space.”

  He takes a step back, and my heart skips a beat. The old Micah would have ignored me kept moving. It’s a small thing, but I like this new version of him. Suddenly he’s too far away.

  “I was only kidding.” I glance at his lips and curse myself. There’s no reason to look at his lips, even though they’re right there and if I leaned forward just a little bit…

  He takes a slow step forward. “What are you staring at?”

  “You have peanut butter on your mouth.”

  “I didn’t eat peanut butter today.”

  “Then maybe it’s from yesterday. You really should learn to clean yourself better.”

  He laughs again, and there’s this little sense of doom that envelops me, because I think I’ve just lost the battle. The argument. My heart completely. All the other things that I used to pretend were mine just evaporated in a cloud of smoke. The smoke clears and Micah is still smiling at me. I can’t smile back, not yet. I’m still too afraid.

  “I’ll rip you apart if you hurt me again.” The words are a whisper, but loud enough to reveal my biggest fear.

  He rubs my arms up and down, up and down. I didn’t know until now how much they were shaking.

  “As you should. But I won’t.” His smile is completely gone, and my insides crash and slam into each other. Micah Leven is sincere. More sincere than I’ve ever seen him.

  Welcome back, friend.

  “I’m going to kiss you now,” he says. “I’m going to kiss you every day for the rest of my life.”

  “I didn’t give you permission.” Even I hear the wobble in my voice.

  He’s so close. The intensity is too much. I try to shake my head, but he places both hands on my thighs, and I can’t move. I don’t want to move. I want to stay here forever and ever and be safe. I’ve always wondered what it was like, safety. I think it might be a nice feeling. Foreign. It’s hard to open your heart to something that might destroy it when it’s already been trampled on so much.

  “I won’t hurt you again, Presley. I was an idiot back then. A broken and battered idiot who ran from everything good because I didn’t know how to handle it. Please believe me. You’re my best friend. The best person I’ve ever known. The only person who never gave up on me, not even when you pretended to. Nothing can ever replace that, and I’ll never forget it. Now, can I kiss you? I’m asking for permission.”

  I’m on a tightrope. I can stand in one place and hope that nothing bad will happen to me, or I can take a step and risk falling. I’ve spent my life falling. Hurting. Breaking. This is the first time in my life that someone is offering to catch me. I manage a nod. It’s all the permission he needs.

  When our mouths touch, it isn’t like all the other times. Before, I could feel his hesitation. It seeped through his pores and the tension in his muscles. I knew the spell would break the second a text came through or a knock sounded on the door. Back then, I knew I only had Micah on loan…that his heart was only mine to keep until something better came along.

  This time, he kisses me like he’s afraid I’ll be the one to leave. Like he can’t believe we’re here, can’t understand why I would choose him. He kisses me like he knows me, like he sees me, like every secret I try to keep is already his to own. And they are. I’ve always belonged to Micah, even when it hurt too much to admit.

  When I try to pull away, he presses me back. Since I’m still pinned on the car, I don’t have much choice but to let him kiss me longer.

  Hardship that it is.

  Finally he pulls back to look at me. Really look at me. It’s nice to finally be seen.

  “We need to talk about how we’re going to date. Because we are, starting now.”

  I pat his chest and smile. “The train ride is actually only an hour and a half if you take the express.” Speaking of secrets, I’ve already mapped it out a thousand times. No use
in pretending anymore.

  He smiles. “I’m aware. And just so you know, your weekends are completely tied up for the foreseeable future. Don’t make any plans.”

  “Okay.” I swallow, knowing I could have protested. I could have put up a fight and told him no one controls me. I could have pretended to check my calendar and claim I would need to pencil him in. I could have said a lot of things.

  But what’s the point?

  I’m his, and he knows it. On the weekdays. On the weekends. Every hour. Every second.

  No sense in lying about it.

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  Micah

  “I got something,” Presley calls out before the front door even closes behind her. Immediately my senses go on alert.

  It’s Friday night, and I’m in her kitchen spreading canned spaghetti sauce over bread dough because Presley said she wanted pizza and homemade pizza is the one dish I actually know how to make. Eggs I can do, if you like them either overcooked or slightly runny in the middle. Toast is safe, though it always pops up on the black side of brown. Macaroni and cheese is a safe bet if you don’t mind a few burned noodles. But pizza—that one I can manage. It’s the one dish that always garners compliments. And since I rather like occasionally being viewed as a professional chef, pizza it is.

  Something tells me we should have eaten out. That way Presley couldn’t have brought in whatever she just dragged home with her.

  Before you judge my harshness, my suspicions are always valid. I’ve heard the “I got something” line a few dozen times in the last six months alone. So far, Presley’s I got something’s have resulted in a new yellow rain jacket for me—yellow? seriously? no thank you. I looked like a walking fire hydrant just begging to be pee’d on.

  Then she appeared with a literal trunk load of succulents that I had to carry inside two at a time so as not to break them while she cleared space on every windowsill in the living room. Two months later, only one remains alive. Who manages to kill a cactus, anyway? Black thumb isn’t close to describing her skill with houseplants. Presley’s thumb is at least a shade-and-a-half darker.

  Next came an antique chair she bought at a flea market that came complete with a spider’s nest under the bottom seat cushion. The little web of insects went completely undetected until the spiders hatched overnight. There’s nothing quite like flipping on the kitchen light to the sight of a swarm of baby spiders crawling all over the linoleum floor. I was late leaving New York—due at her apartment an hour before I arrived—and she called me in a panic. “Why aren’t you here yet?” By the time I arrived she was curled into a ball on the kitchen counter, a trail of tiny black-legged creatures inching up the cabinets well on their way to joining her.

  “What did you do now?” I say, topping the pizza with mozzarella cheese. Now I have a migraine, and I’ve never had a migraine in my life.

  “You don’t have to sound so excited on my account,” she says, knocking into something, followed by an, “Ouch! Dumb chair.”

  The chair getting scolded is the spider-infested one that she impulsively bought, but I don’t point that out.

  “Okay, I won’t.” I open the oven and slide the pizza inside, set the timer for twenty minutes, and slip an oven mitt off my hand.

  And then I hear a noise. Like a grunt. Or a snort. Or a patter. Or a whine.

  Oh dear God, why am I hearing a whine?

  “Presley, what did you—?”

  “Surprise!” she says, a giant smile filling her entire face.

  A tiny spotted puppy is licking her shoes.

  “You got a dog? Seriously?” I’m still holding the oven mitt. I think about tossing it at her for extra effect.

  Her smile disappears; it’s quickly chased by a glare. “Yes, I got a dog. I’ve wanted one for a long time, and I was passing by the Animal Shelter on the way home, and someone had them up for adoption outside and—”

  “You’ve never wanted a dog. If you have, you never mentioned it to me. Did you not learn your lesson with that nasty cat?”

  “Minka was not nasty.”

  “You sneezed all day and night the entire time you had her. What if you’re allergic to dogs too?”

  Her nose flares. She’s adorable when she’s angry. “I’m not allergic to them. Is that your only complaint? You got something against dogs?”

  I glance down at the thing wiggling around my feet, it’s skinny tail flapping back and forth as it pants and looks up at me with…well, a sad puppy dog face. It’s cute. Very cute. I have nothing against dogs. But I don’t let myself smile at it. Giving Presley a hard time is one of my favorite pastimes. If I let on now that I’ve always wanted a puppy—cautiously asked for one as a kid but was always told a flat no, no room for discussion—the game would be over.

  So I lie to her.

  One more time can’t hurt.

  “I hate dogs. Take it back to the shelter.”

  It was the exact wrong thing to say. I almost laugh, but I’m still playing a part here.

  “I will not. This is my apartment, not yours. And he needed a home. No one should have to live by themselves, especially not a poor defenseless puppy who just wanted someone to take him home and love him and teach him what it’s like to not be lonely all the time…”

  Her voice trails off. I don’t think she’s talking about the puppy any longer.

  My Presley. A rescuer of the lost and discarded. Once a lonely kid, and now still determined to save as many living things as she’s able from the same sad fate.

  I don’t tell her that she’ll never be alone again. I don’t tell her that by this time next year, either this apartment will belong to both of us or we’ll find a new place of our own in New York. The location doesn’t matter; I’ll make the commute. I don’t tell her that today I bought a ring, a two-carat teardrop-cut diamond with two pink sapphires on each side because when I saw the color it reminded me of her. Pink. The color I associate with all our best memories. An engagement ring. One currently burning a hole in my coat pocket, waiting for the question I’m going to deliver tonight.

  I don’t tell her that we’re getting married soon, or that I’m letting her pick the date just like I promised all those years ago. I don’t tell her that this dog won’t belong to her but to us, or that I won’t take no for an answer to any of it.

  No is no longer in my vocabulary, not where she’s concerned.

  Just like lies are no longer part of the game.

  I drop the mitt on the floor and scoop up the puppy, tucking it under my arm and giving it a kiss on the nose.

  “I love the dog. Couldn’t have asked for a more perfect one.”

  She bites her lower lip and studies me. “You really like it? It’s mostly Beagle, but part German Shepherd.”

  “That must have been an uncomfortable pairing for its parents.”

  She laughs, and I’ve won. Her laugh is my favorite sound in the world.

  I set the dog on the floor and move toward her, pulling her to me and settling my hands inside her back pockets. “I’ve always wanted a dog, and since you picked it out what’s not to like?”

  Her arms slide up my back, and I was right. I won. The girl. The love of my life. Everything I’ve ever wanted.

  “I thought maybe you’d be mad. Or that you might accuse me of needing to rescue things again. Like maybe you’d think I’ve gone backwards on the progress I’ve made.”

  I plant a kiss on her neck and breathe in. I could become addicted to this real fast. In fact, I already am. Forget news casting and ambition and goals. What goals? The only goal I have right now is kissing this girl senseless for the rest of the night. The way she shivers under my touch, I’m pretty sure she’ll let me.

  “You’ll never go back on the progress you’ve made, Presley. Neither one of us will.” I feel her shiver and smile into her skin. We’ve come too far to go back, so far that I’m no longer worried about it. “Besides, rescuing others isn’t always a bad thing. Where would I be if you hadn�
�t rescued me?”

  Her thumbs find the back of my earlobes, and a buzz starts underneath my skin. I’m so ridiculously in love with this woman, have been for much longer than I ever let myself admit.

  “Probably still under a porch listening to me sing that stupid Barney song. Either that or trying to decide whether to leave your crazy wife in prison or bail her out. I hear the price is pretty high for would-be attempted murder.”

  I pull back. “Do you have to bring up Mara right now?” I haven’t thought about her in months and certainly don’t want to think about her now. Last I heard, she was dating a medical student and living in New Jersey. At least the poor guy is in the right profession; he can keep Mara hyped up on medication for the duration of their relationship. And if not, at least he ought to know a good psych ward to put her in when the time comes.

  Presley grins, her thumbs gently guiding me back toward her. “You brought up Minka. All’s fair in ex-pets and ex-fiancés.” She kisses me then, slow and thorough. I almost forget what we’re talking about. I speak in between kisses.

  “From now on, the woman and the cat are both dead to us.”

  “Death is a harsh thing to wish on a cat.”

  “Okay, only one of them is dead.”

  “That’s better.” She smiles. “I love you, you love me?”

  “Now isn’t the time to bring up the purple dinosaur either.”

  “It’s always the right time to bring up Barney.”

  I laugh. There will never be a day when I stop wondering how I got so lucky or what took me so long to see it. But see it I did, and I’ll never let her go. I lean toward her ear and tell her as much.

  “I love you, you love me. Deal?”

  Her reply is a whisper in my ear. “Deal.”

  Then there’s nothing but silence as we seal our agreement. Her mouth touches my neck, my throat, my chest before she pushes me onto the sofa. This woman drives a hard bargain, one I won’t even try to argue with. I land with a thud and pull her onto my lap.

  Below us, a puppy jumps in between our feet, wanting to be included in the game. After a minute, he lies down on the carpet, giving up on us for now.

  This game is a two-person sport, after all.