The Lying Woods

by Ashley Elston

  I can’t say I blame Gus, though. I’ve had my fair share of do-gooders try to “save” me over the years. Ones that would pull up in nice cars and tiptoe across the dirty sidewalk and crouch down in front of where I was sitting with my friends, careful not to touch anything around them. Acting like they understood how we ended up on the street. Making it sound like it was easy to change our circumstances.

  They had no idea.

  “It’ll be fun, Noah!” She’s pushing hard for me to come into town. Pushing me to hang out with her friends. But I know it won’t end well. Her daddy will get wind of me, probably even look into my background if he’s smart, and he won’t like what he finds. My past isn’t pretty.

  I wish I could pull Maggie into the bubble Gus has created for him and Abby and me and none of us would ever have to leave.

  I dunk us under the water and she comes up laughing. Her hands run through my hair, moving it out of my face.

  “I need a haircut,” I say. Can’t remember the last time I cut it. Can’t remember the last time I cared what it looked like.

  “See, come to town. We’ll get you a haircut, eat some pizza, maybe go to a movie. It’ll be fun.”

  “You keep saying that,” I say, pulling her even closer. As much as I want to stay here with her, it’s not fair to her. If she wants to go to town, hang out with her friends, eat pizza…then that’s what we’ll do.

  I shake my head, water droplets flying off of me and she lets out a surprised yell. She leans forward, pulling my face close to hers, and kisses me.

  And I kiss her right back. Kissing Maggie is my new favorite thing to do. My hands slide up her back and she locks her ankles, pulling my hips right against hers.

  We’re moving into dangerous territory. Her wet clothes leave little to the imagination and it’s impossible for either of us to ignore how turned on I am right now.

  “You’re killing me,” I say between kisses.

  “Good,” she mumbles back. “You’re killing me, too.”

  I move my hands to her face, pulling her back a few inches. “We need to stop before we do something we can’t undo.”

  “I don’t want to stop,” she says, bending her head to kiss the side of my neck, then working her way up to my mouth. “Let’s not stop.”

  Still holding her around me, I walk out of the river and up to the small house I call home.

  9

  JACK: Where are you

  It’s the third text from Jack asking where I am. I managed to get through school without an altercation. The snide remarks were whispers instead of shouts so I didn’t feel the burning need to defend myself. But mainly because I couldn’t quit thinking about David’s words, which made me look at the face behind every jab and wonder what they gave up by saving rather than spending.

  JACK: We’re here. In town. Where are you

  Shit. I should have seen this coming. I should have guessed Jack wouldn’t let me hole up here and ignore him.

  I push the last pile of debris onto the burn pile with the blade on the front of the tractor. I’m almost done raking the orchard and now I’m burning the sticks and leaves I’ve collected from underneath the trees.

  They’re here. In town. Driving through these streets trying to find me.

  I send Jack my location before I can stop myself. It wouldn’t be hard for them to stumble onto the news vans and I’d rather he come here than Aunt Lucinda’s house.

  I pull the truck around after I tell Gus I’m leaving and wait at the end of the driveway for my friends.

  They must not have been too far away because it only takes another five minutes or so before I see Jack’s Tahoe. He’s one of the few that gets to keep a car on campus even though he rarely uses it. I wonder how they got a pass for Friday night since there’s no way they’ll make curfew.

  He pulls the Tahoe next to Gus’s old beat-up truck, and it’s not hard to read his expression.

  “Only gone a week and you already look the part of farm boy,” Jack says.

  Wait until he sees my stained Levi’s and dirty work boots.

  Ray’s in the passenger seat and Sai is in the back but leaning forward enough that I can see his head poking out from between the first two seats.

  “What are y’all doing here?” I ask.

  “Came to see you, dumbass,” Ray says.

  “If you wouldn’t have ignored us, we wouldn’t have had to drive four damn hours to check on you,” Sai adds.

  I lean my head back against the headrest. I don’t want anyone going out of their way for me. “You should go back. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Tough shit. We’re here,” Jack says. “Is this where you’re staying?”

  I shake my head. “No. This is where I work.”

  “Are you done? Anywhere we can find a beer around here? I’m ready to get out of this car,” Sai yells from the backseat.

  I don’t know where anyone hangs out here. I don’t know where the parties are. I wouldn’t know which store looks the other way when a minor drops a twelve-pack on the counter or who has the best weed in town. And there’s no one to call, no one to ask.

  Jack must see all of this and more on my face because he throws me a sympathetic look and says, “I’m starving. Nearest pizza place?”

  That I can do.

  “Follow me.”

  I realize my mistake the second I pull into the parking lot of the local pizza place. I should have chosen one of the chains out near the highway but I haven’t been to Joey’s since I’ve been back, and the minute Jack said pizza, this was the only pizza I could think about.

  The place is packed.

  Jack and the others pile out of his car and head to the door before I can shut off my engine. I can’t stop looking at the people inside, filling every table, all dressed in the school’s blue and silver colors.

  It’s Friday night.

  During football season.

  Of course Joey’s is packed. I’ve been away from here a long time, but some things don’t change. Everyone will eat a few slices at Joey’s then head to the stadium about a mile from here, where they’ll cheer and scream for the home team.

  Ray and Sai are waiting just inside the restaurant but Jack stands at the door, holding it open, waiting for me to join them.

  With a deep breath, I get out of the truck and meet him at the door.

  “How bad is it?” Jack asks.

  He could be asking about Dad, he could be asking about the police or the IRS or the EPA, he could be asking about Mom. He could be asking about any of it. I don’t know. But the answer would be the same.

  “Worse than you could imagine.”

  We stand there a few seconds before a smile appears on his face. “Well, fuck ’em. I’m hungry.”

  The four of us wait at the hostess stand and most everyone in the room stares at us.

  In a town where everyone knows everyone, of course Jack, Ray, and Sai stand out. They are the unknown. But the icy stares are directed at us because they’re with me.

  I recognize most of the people here my age and about half of the adults. David and his group are in the back corner while Pippa is in a booth with Janie McWilliams and Catherine Reynolds.

  The room gets quiet when we slide into a booth that had just been vacated and cleaned off. It takes a few minutes but the volume in the room finally rises back to the level where it was before we got here.

  “Clearly, they were stunned by my good looks when we walked in,” Jack says.

  “More like speechless when they saw those Mr. Potato Head ears,” Ray says.

  “Or it could have been his abnormally large head on his abnormally small body,” Sai says.

  Jack laughs and flips them off.

  My friends are awesome. Seriously awesome.

  To my surprise, Reed Frazier is our waiter. Why is he here? I thought he was off at school. Pippa mentioned his sister, Sarah, when we spoke in the parking lot but she didn’t tell me Reed was in town. I should have figured I’d s
ee one of them before long. I should have had something ready to say. But I don’t.

  “Hey, Reed,” I say when he stops at our table.

  He doesn’t acknowledge my greeting. “What can I get y’all?” he asks, looking at my friends.

  They study the menu but I’m watching Reed. “Reed, I just want—”

  “Stop. Seriously. Don’t say anything to me other than what you want to order.”

  The others look up from their menu and glance between me and Reed, trying to gauge where this is going.

  I nod at Reed and place my order and my friends follow right behind me. Reed moves away from the table without another word.

  “What’s up with him?” Sai asks.

  I shake him off. No way I can talk about it here with everyone in the restaurant watching.

  Reed’s dad worked for mine and they had been friends for years. According to the news articles I’ve found, after Dad took off, they started looking closely at Mr. Frazier to see if he was involved, too. There seems to be some evidence he knew what Dad was doing and even benefited from it. Mr. Frazier spiraled out of control, and before the cops could determine what he knew, he was dead. The last time anyone saw him alive, he was having drinks in a bar downtown and ranting about Dad to anyone who would stop to listen, saying that Dad screwed up his life like he did everyone else’s. He was really drunk when he left and swerved into the lane of oncoming traffic, hitting an eighteen-wheeler head-on. He was killed instantly.

  Reed’s back at our table, passing out drinks, and I decide to try one more time to speak to him.

  “Reed, I’m sorry about your dad,” I say quickly before he can cut me off.

  He sets Jack’s drink down in front of him slowly and then turns to me. He’s got me at a disadvantage since I’m sitting and he’s hovering over me, but I don’t let on that I’m uncomfortable with the situation.

  Reed puts a hand on the back of my chair and his face comes close to mine. Almost all conversation in the restaurant drops to a low whisper and I can feel every eye on the two of us.

  “Where is he?” he asks. His voice is so quiet that I doubt my friends at the table much less anyone else in the restaurant can hear him. “No one believes you and your mom don’t know where he is. And no one believes she didn’t know what he was doing. You want to talk to me? Tell me where he is or shut the fuck up.”

  He hesitates only a few seconds before he walks away from the table and it’s hard for me to look at my friends.

  “You okay, O?” Jack asks.

  I nod and shake it off, not wanting to talk about how dirty I feel. Any thought that people will separate what Dad did and how they think about me or Mom is long gone. Part of me can’t blame Reed. His dad is dead because he was at that bar drinking. And it was because of what my dad did. Another part of me wonders if Reed is so pissed that he’s resorted to threatening Mom to get Dad’s location. And I can’t ignore that some of his first words to me were the same ones written on my truck window—where is he.

  A waitress who looks like she drew the short straw and got our order as punishment delivers our food. Truthfully, I’d be shocked if Reed comes back to our table at all. Ray and Sai flirt with her when she brings the check and she’s loosened up enough to invite us to a field party after the game. She got a jab in when she threw a look my way and muttered, “I guess you can bring him with you.”

  God, I have to get out of this town.

  We go to the game but sit on the visitors’ side because really, that’s all I am here. A visitor. An unwanted one at that.

  My school decimates the other team 48–0.

  We leave Gus’s truck in the stadium parking lot and ride in Jack’s Tahoe to a field a few miles outside of town. It’s not far from Gus’s but I don’t know the family who owns it.

  “So have any of us actually been to a party in a field before?” Ray asks.

  “I just hope there’s beer. I mean, we can tip some cows or kick some shit, too, as long as there’s beer,” Jack adds.

  I’m the only small-town guy I know at Sutton’s but I’m no help here. I should be the one showing them a good time and it sucks I’m feeling as out of place as they are.

  We pull onto a gravel road and follow it a few miles until we come to a clearing where there are no less than thirty other vehicles.

  This is a bad idea. My friends got the message that I’m pretty much on my own and witnessed the utter hatred everyone feels for me, so I can’t imagine things will be any better here.

  I stay toward the back of the group as we make our way to where everyone is hanging out around a huge pile of wood bigger than the brush pile at Gus’s. And just like I did a few nights ago, there’s a guy named Daniel dribbling diesel along the edge of the pile. This fire is going to be huge when it catches.

  Country music blares from some speakers set up in the back of a truck and there’s a crowd in line to fill their red Solo cups with keg beer.

  Ray spots the keg and turns toward it as if he’s drawn to it like a magnet, stopping in front of the guy working the pump. I think his name is Jeff or James or something that starts with a J.

  Ray motions to the keg and the guy says, “Five bucks.” He hands him a twenty and says, “That should cover me and my friends.”

  The guy looks past him to me and says, “Not him.”

  Even though my friends know who he’s referring to, they still look back at me to make sure.

  Jack steps up between Ray and this guy and says, “C’mon, man. We don’t want to cause any trouble. Just looking to hang out. Meet some people. See what y’all got going on around here.”

  Jack Cooper is the politician. No matter the situation, he gets a read on what’s happening and starts working on how to make it swing his way.

  “I’m not trying to get in the way of your good time. Only his.”

  Jack keeps trying to smooth things over but I step away when I spot David on the other side of the huge pile of wood. He’s sitting on the tailgate of a truck and laughing at something a girl next to him says. You wouldn’t know by looking at him that his family lost everything. He’s here hanging out with his friends, having a good time.

  I pull on Jack’s arm and say, “Let it go, man. I’m good. And we need someone to drive anyway.” There’s no way I’m going to ruin anyone’s good time and be the cause of any trouble here tonight.

  Someone throws a match on the pile and the fire blazes. Even though it’s November, it’s not cold enough for a fire this size, so it’s not long before everyone starts backing up, trying to get a little distance from the heat.

  Sai spots the girl from Joey’s and we make our way over to where she’s sitting with a group of girls. They’re all smiles for my friends but ignore me completely. Even though it sucks for me here right now, I’m relieved to see they aren’t holding it against my friends.

  I lean up against the back of an old Toyota 4Runner nearby, happy to keep my distance and let the guys enjoy their night.

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” Pippa says. She must have come around from the front of the car because I didn’t see her when I scanned the group hanging on every word my friends were saying.

  “I’m surprised to be here,” I answer.

  She’s wearing an old pair of cutoffs, the denim frayed like it’s been washed a hundred times, and a plain white V-neck T-shirt. I haven’t given myself permission to check her out because it’s Pippa. But standing here, the front of her lit up by firelight, it’s hard not to. She looks good. More than good. Her hair is pulled back into a sloppy bun but half of it has fallen down around her shoulders. Her eyes look a little glazed over. Maybe that’s not her first cup of beer. And that’s probably the only reason she wandered over here to talk to me.

  “Your friends are a big hit,” she says, nodding toward them.

  “They’re good guys. It’s hard not to like them.”

  She moves closer, steps around me, and stops at the back window of the 4Runner, tracing her n
ame in the dust coating the glass. “You were a good guy once.”

  I laugh but it sounds hollow. It guts me that Pippa thinks of me like that. I was a good guy once.

  Then she starts tracing my name next to hers in the dust, circling the O so many times it looks more like a doughnut than a letter.

  “I’m not a bad guy,” I whisper to her. I don’t care what anyone else thinks about me except her.

  “I wouldn’t know. We’re strangers, remember.”

  I slide down the side of the car until I’m only a few feet from her.

  “Let’s play a game,” I say.

  “What game?”

  “The How well do I know Pippa game. I say a fact about you and if I’m right, I get a point. If I’m wrong, the point goes to you.”

  She rolls her eyes. “This is stupid.” Pippa has moved on from my name and is now drawing some sort of flower. “What does the winner get?”

  “Whatever the winner wants,” I answer.

  She side-eyes me. “That sounds dangerous.”

  “Scared?”

  She stands a little straighter. “How many points to win?”

  I have to think for a minute…strategize…because there’s no way I’m not winning this.

  “Three.”

  She bites her bottom lip. “Five.”

  “Done.”

  She holds a finger up. “Rules, though. Every fact has to be about something that’s happened since high school started. No pulling out something from our childhood.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Oh, shit. I’m going to regret this.”

  I laugh again but this time it feels good. Jack must hear me because he turns to face us, raises his eyebrows, and nods his head toward Pippa.

  “Are you too scared to start?” she asks.

  I look away from Jack and focus all my attention on Pippa. “Every college you applied to is at least a four-hour drive from here.”

  Her hands drop down by her sides and she leans against the 4Runner, facing me. I can tell by the smirk that I’m right.

  “One point to Owen,” she says.