Lies You Never Told Me

by Jennifer Donaldson

  I cross my arms over my chest and stare defiantly back at her. “You don’t even know him.”

  She snorts. “He’s twice your age. That’s all I need to know.”

  “Why does that even matter?” I ask. The dread of a moment ago has been replaced with a slowly mounting anger.

  Her nostrils flare. “What does it matter? You’re a kid, Elyse. He’s taking advantage of you.”

  “I’m not stupid. And I haven’t been a kid in a long time,” I hiss. “I’ve been taking care of myself since I was six, Mom. Six. I’ve been feeding myself, paying my own bills, getting to and from school. Getting you to rehab, how many times now? I never had the luxury of being a kid. So forgive me if I find your sudden concern a little hypocritical.”

  Brynn cowers on the couch as Mom and I inch toward each other.

  “Yeah, I’ve been a shitty mom. Why do you think this makes me so mad? You want to turn out like me? Stuck in a dead-end job, in a cheap little apartment, pregnant at seventeen? I’m trying to keep you from the same bad decisions I made,” she says.

  “There’s no way I’ll turn out like you, because I’m not a fucking junkie!” I shout. I’m beyond caring if I hurt her. I stare up at her, the world red-tinged, my hands balled into fists.

  She swells up, and I think she’s about to hit me. She’s never hit me before. My body goes rigid in anticipation. But she just takes a deep breath. When she speaks again, her voice is softer.

  “You’re not to see him again, Elyse,” she says.

  I laugh scornfully. “Who’s going to stop me?”

  “I will.” She puts her hands on her hips, then lets them fall to her sides self-consciously. “If you go back to him, I’ll tell the school. He’ll be done.”

  I suck in my breath. “You can’t.”

  “I will.” She’s shaking with the effort of staying calm. “Even if it destroys our relationship. Even if you hate me forever. I’ll do it to save you.”

  A scream rises in my chest. I force it down. My body’s rigid with fury. I stalk to my bedroom and pause in the doorway.

  “We don’t have a relationship.” I turn to look at Brynn. For the first time in her life, she’s trying to be invisible. “And you. We’re done. I never want to see you again.”

  I turn away from them both, and slam the door behind me.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Gabe

  “I can’t believe Sasha’s gonna get away with this,” Caleb says in a choked voice, after exhaling a long stream of smoke. He leans back and hands me the joint with the other.

  “She always does,” I say, my voice flat. I take a deep drag. I can feel the smoke moving through my chest, loosening the tight, anxious knots.

  It’s Friday, four days after the breakup. I’ve been drifting, numb. Going through the motions. Caleb, Irene, and I are sitting under one of the abandoned off-ramps that no longer connects to the highway, our skateboards at our sides. They dragged me here after school, trying to wake me out of my funk, but I mostly just watched them glide up and down the concrete. It was hard to imagine my body, heavy and slow, moving that effortlessly through space. Now it’s getting dark, a chill cutting into the air.

  “You hear from Catherine at all?” Irene asks, barely looking up from the sketchbook on her knee—she’s planning a new midnight installment, something with a pin-up girl in a helmet straddling a rocket ship.

  “Nope.” I try to sound brisk, but my voice cracks. Catherine hasn’t been at school since Tuesday. I feel her absence everywhere, a weird gap in the crowds, a dense and heavy feeling to the air in certain hallways. I’ve texted her half a dozen times, trying to find out if she’s okay.

  Hey, I’m not trying to harass you but I’m worried, you ok? Just answer y or n and I’ll leave you alone.

  Your dad hasn’t hurt you, has he?

  I miss you so much.

  She never answers me.

  Irene shakes her head. “We should do something. Figure out some way to get back at Sasha.”

  “No,” I say quickly. “It’s over, okay? She’s already ruined everything. And I don’t want to escalate shit any more. Someone’s gonna get hurt.”

  She grimaces. “That’s exactly why we should take her down.”

  I rest my forehead against my knees. I would love nothing better than to plan some elaborate comeuppance—to expose her, to show the world Sasha’s true face. But I keep thinking about Catherine’s terrified expression; about Vivi, trustingly following Sasha wherever she goes. I can’t risk it.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Caleb says. “I really liked Catherine. She’s a sweet girl.”

  “Yeah,” Irene says. “This sucks.”

  I sigh, biting back a snarky reply. Understatement of the year, guys.

  Suddenly, I can’t stand it anymore. I pick up my skateboard. “I gotta get home. I promised Vivi we’d play board games tonight, and I gotta clear my head before I can manage that.”

  “Dude, the only way to play Candy Land is while stoned,” Irene says.

  “Oh man. Remember that crush I used to have on Queen Frostine?” Caleb says, his eyes vague.

  Irene starts to laugh. “Uh, no. I think that must have been a personal thought you kept to yourself. But thank you for sharing.”

  I kick off on my board, the two of them still squabbling behind me. For a moment I feel wobbly. I haven’t moved much for a few days; I’ve been splayed out on my bed, watching cartoons on my laptop and feeling like shit. But there’s a new energy in my limbs. A new urgency pushing me forward.

  I’ll just skate by her house. I won’t knock. I won’t bother her. I’ll just skate by to see if she’s still there—to see if there are lights on, a car in the driveway. There’s no law against that. But even as I approach her house I feel my skin crawl, as if I’m being watched. I step off my board a few blocks from her house and walk the rest of the way.

  It’s dark now. I slip in and out of the pools of light from the streetlamps. Acorns and dead leaves crunch under my feet as I make my way back toward the little cottage. The wind is cold. I pull up my hood. Then I put it down again, afraid it makes me look somehow suspicious.

  The house’s front windows are covered with thick blackout curtains. A tiny sliver of light escapes, but it’s impossible to see anything through that. I glance up and down the street. A few blocks away someone’s out walking a large dog. Otherwise, there’s no movement in the neighborhood. Nothing stirring. Before I can talk myself out of it, I dart to the cottage’s side yard, moving around to the back of the house.

  I’m officially a creeper, I think, adrenaline soaring through my veins. But I can’t stop now. She’s in there. I have to see her. I have to make sure she’s okay.

  The backyard smells like fresh-cut grass, and a little like gasoline. Mr. Barstow must have been mowing. A square of light spills across the patio from a large window. Their kitchen. I can see scuffed wooden cabinets, outdated paneling along the walls.

  And there, at the sink in front of the window, is Catherine.

  She’s doing dishes. I can just make out the rubber gloves at her elbows. She’s wearing a frayed plaid shirt I’ve seen her in a hundred times; her eyes are cast down toward the sink. My chest feels tight at the sight of her. I stare up at the glowing square of the window. It might as well be a vision of another dimension, it’s so far away.

  There’s movement behind her. Mr. Barstow comes into the kitchen. I sink down behind an Adirondack chair. The gasoline smell is worse over here, almost choking. I hold my breath.

  Mr. Barstow lifts a handful of Catherine’s hair behind her head, tugging it like a ponytail. I can see the slender line of her throat, the hard line of her clavicle. My blood sours suddenly, the adrenaline twisting inside of me. There’s something wrong with this. Something about how he touches her …

  I feel my body turn to liquid as her father leans down to kiss her neck.

  Catherine stares woodenly out the window. Her expression doesn’t change. She’s far away, somew
here else.

  Move. You have to move. You have to stop him, somehow. But I can’t move. I’m weak against the chair, trembling. The image replays again and again in my head, even as it’s playing out in front of my eyes. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get up, to move my arms and legs, when my brain is choking on this knowledge—when it’s fighting off the understanding of what’s happening there, in the window, with all its might.

  Then I see flames, licking along the base of the house, dark red and hungry.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Elyse

  Monday morning, Brynn’s waiting at my locker. I don’t look at her as I spin the dial; I try to pretend she’s not even there. But when I open the door it’s with a jerk that makes the metal shudder on the hinges.

  She doesn’t say anything for a long time. I put my books away and hang my coat. I spend an inordinate amount of time folding a sweater and putting it neatly on the shelf. I look in the little magnetic mirror and fix my hair. I do everything I can to avoid her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” she finally asks.

  The question blindsides me. Of all the things to ask me. Of all the things to say. I shut the door, more gently this time, and finally look at her.

  She’s muted today—hair in a chunky braid, wearing a pair of jeans and an oversized Wicked sweatshirt. She hangs back a little, uncertain, uncharacteristically sober.

  “Oh, I’m great, thanks for asking.” The sarcasm feels curved and metallic, sharp as a dagger. “What a great way to finish my weekend.”

  She bites the corner of her lip. “Did you get in trouble?”

  I smirk. “Well, honestly, there’s not a whole lot Mom can do. It’s not like she can ground me. She’s got a new job—she’s working the night desk at the Super Eight. So she’s not around to bother me too much.”

  It wasn’t entirely true that there wasn’t anything she could do, though. She’d taken my phone away the night before.

  “I’m the one that bought it,” I’d snarled. “With my money, that I earned. You were busy snorting Oxy, so you probably don’t remember.”

  Mom winced at that, but she didn’t back down. She stood in the doorway to my room after Brynn left, looking around like she didn’t even recognize the place. Well, she probably didn’t; everything in the room was mine and mine alone. I’d bought the bedspread, the books on the shelves, the curtains. I’d had the playbills framed; I’d bought all the clothes in the closet. I didn’t owe her for any of it.

  “You’ll give me your phone, or I’ll go to the cops,” she said. Her voice was hoarse with emotion, her hands crossed over her chest. “I’ll tell them all about your teacher.”

  I drew in my breath. “You can’t.”

  “I will,” she said. “God knows I should do that anyway. But I don’t want to put you through that kind of humiliation. So we’re just going to put it behind us. But that means you can’t talk to him. You can’t text him, can’t e-mail him …”

  “But I’m in the play. We’ve got one more weekend,” I protested.

  “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to quit,” she said. Her eyes were heavy and sad, dark shadows beneath them. “I know how much you love it, but …”

  “If you go to the cops I’ll tell them you’ve been neglecting me.” It was pathetic and desperate, but it was all I could think of. She shrugged.

  “I’ll take that chance if it means keeping you safe.” She held out her hand.

  I didn’t have a choice. I gave her my phone.

  Now, Brynn lingers next to my open locker door. “I’m really sorry,” she says.

  I laugh. “A little late for that, don’t you think? Especially after you got what you wanted all along. I’m out of the play. You’ll probably get to do Juliet next week, since you know all the lines by heart. Congratulations.”

  She looks at me like I’m crazy. “I’m not going back to that theater. I’m done. I e-mailed Hunter last night that I quit.”

  I do a double take in spite of myself. “What?”

  “You really think I’d do something like this to, what, steal your role?” For a second she looks hurt. Then she looks pissed. “I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble. I was freaking out. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “So you went to my mom?” I snort.

  “I wasn’t going to. But she caught me in your lie.” She points at my chest. “I didn’t know you were going to tell her you were with me. That’s on you. And I can’t believe you’d think I would do this to try to sabotage you. I thought you knew me better than that.”

  I grit my teeth. It stings that she’s partly right—that it’s my own fault that I got caught, using her as a cover when we’d been fighting. “All I know is that you’ve been jealous of me since I got this role. You can’t stand it that someone thinks I’m better than you.”

  She gives me a pitying look and shakes her head.

  “He doesn’t think you’re better,” she says. “Just easier. You stupid, stupid girl.”

  I let out my breath with a sharp puff. Then I slam the locker door, twist on my heel, and walk away without looking back.

  *

  • • •

  It’s surreal to be at school. Especially because suddenly, everyone knows who I am. Half of them saw me on stage this weekend. People I’ve never talked to say hi as they pass me in the hallway. In English Ms. Cowan recites my lines back at me, dreamy-eyed. “Beautiful work, Elyse,” she tells me.

  It all makes me even angrier. I should be enjoying this—basking in the attention for the first time in my life. But Brynn and my mother have managed to ruin it for me. When word gets out that I’m quitting, what will that do to my reputation? Will people think I’m a prima donna, that I’m throwing some kind of hissy fit? The thought makes me so anxious I can’t breathe.

  I make sure not to walk past the theater department. I can’t risk Brynn seeing me anywhere near Aiden. She may say she wasn’t trying to get me in trouble—but I don’t trust her not to go running straight to my mom. Or worse: the cops.

  At lunch I use one of the school computers to log into my private e-mail. I message him at the account he set up just for me.

  We need to talk tonight. Forest Park, Witch’s Castle. Ten pm.

  I hit Send just as the bell rings.

  *

  • • •

  Cold little needles of rain prick me all over when I get off the bus near the trailhead. In the dark, the trees loom in a shapeless shadowy mass. It took over an hour to get here on the bus, across the river and up into the hills on the west side of town, but I want to make absolutely sure no one sees us.

  It’s a short hike to the mossy pile of stones known as the Witch’s Castle, a burned-out structure that used to be a ranger station. People meet there to party in the summer. There are always broken bottles and cigarette butts all over the floor.

  Now, though, at the end of November, at almost ten P.M., the park is eerily quiet.

  I make my way down the trail with a flashlight. The ground is slick and muddy, and the rain rustles the leaves all around me. I pause where the trail crosses the creek. I keep thinking I hear footsteps behind me. The first time I thought it was Aiden—but when I paused to let him catch up, they went silent. It’s got to be my imagination. The sound of my pulse against my bones, maybe, or an echo. The dark is so absolute here—there aren’t any streetlamps to light the way. The clouds above reflect the city lights, a nauseous shade of purple, but beyond that there’s nothing to see by but the wavering little light of my flashlight.

  The quiet and the chill send shivers across my skin. And even though I’ve come down here plenty of times, there’s a moment of panic when I’m suddenly sure I’ve turned off on the wrong trail, that I’m lost.

  “Elyse?”

  His voice comes from my left. I spin toward the sound and the light lands on his face. His glasses are flecked with rain, his hair covered by a warm knit cap. Without thinking I run straight at him.

  My foot slips, and I fall
to my knees. The flashlight goes spinning off into the bushes. My hands splay out in the mud, burning with pain. I can’t see anything in the sudden dark. A strangled whimper escapes from my throat before I can stop it.

  Then his arms are around me, and he’s helping me to my feet. He snaps on a lantern hanging from his backpack, and its light sways and dances around us. I press my face into his chest and try to control my breathing.

  “They caught us,” I say, my voice muffled in his sweater. “Aiden, they caught us.”

  His body tenses. He puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me away so he can look down at me. “What do you mean?”

  I gulp at the cold air. I’m still shivering. My knees sting from the fall; I can feel the mud caked to my jeans.

  “Brynn saw us kissing in the theater Sunday night. She told my mom.”

  He takes a step away from me. I stagger a little without his support.

  “Shit.” I can’t see his face; the lantern sways just behind him and leaves his expression in shadow. “That’s why she quit. I thought you guys had just had a fight or something.”

  I walk over to the wreckage of the little cottage. In the dark it looks even spookier than during the day, a haunted husk of a building. I sit on the steps. They’re slick in the rain.

  “This is bad.” He’s pacing, his outline tense against the violet clouds. “We shouldn’t even be meeting here.”

  My whole body snaps backward at that. I didn’t necessarily expect a welcome with arms outstretched, but his tone is strange and sharp.

  “Has she called the cops yet?” He’s rummaging in his pocket, pulling something out. In the flutter of the lantern I see the burner he’s been using to text me. He wrenches it in half.

  Fear creeps up the back of my neck. The police have only been a vague, distant threat since Aiden and I got together. I’ve been more concerned with keeping my friends from finding out. But now all I can see are images of swirling police lights. I get a vision of Aiden in cuffs and it makes me want to fall to my knees.

  “No. She says she won’t, as long as I stay away from you. But Aiden, I … I can’t stay away from you.” I want to hear him say it back: that I’m worth the risk, that he can’t stand the idea of being apart from me. The naked fear in his voice is scaring me more than the threat of the cops. I think of the feel of sand whipping out from under my feet that day in Cannon Beach. The sense that the world wasn’t as solid as I thought.