Lies You Never Told Me

by Jennifer Donaldson

  “Let’s think about it,” he says. “It’s a good place to get lost in the crowd, but it’s really expensive. We’ll have to be careful with our cash for a while, until we find our feet.”

  I lean across the table and take his hand. “Come on, we can make it work. I don’t really need anything but you to be happy, anyway.”

  He strokes my palm absentmindedly. “Which is why we don’t need to go to New York. We can be together anywhere.” He stands up and stretches. “I’m going to use the restroom before we hit the road again. We’re a few hours out from Missoula.”

  As soon as he leaves, the waitress comes back to refill the coffee. “Hey, hon. Your daddy need a to-go box?”

  “Oh, he’s not my dad,” I say. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  I’ve been so eager to say that out loud—to not have to hide anymore. But I know right away it’s a mistake. Her eyes narrow. She doesn’t answer for a moment. Then she puts the check facedown on the table.

  “My bad,” she says.

  She heads back to the counter with the coffeepot. I see her whisper something to another waitress, who then looks my way. My blood goes cold. I slap some cash down on the table, then get up to meet Aiden halfway from the bathroom. “We should go,” I whisper.

  He doesn’t ask any questions. He tips his hat a little at the waitress, and then follows me to the door. Outside I tell him what happened. He frowns.

  “The wig makes you look younger,” he says. “It’s probably fine. But we’ve got to be careful. Next time, just let them think what they want.”

  But I don’t want to have to hide what we are. The point of leaving was to be together, really together. But he’s already climbing back in the car.

  I don’t want to make this harder than it has to be. I get in after him, buckle my belt, and try to trust that we’re heading in the right direction.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Gabe

  By Monday I’m well enough to be back to school. My cough’s subsided, but all the aches and pains linger, and the palm of my hand—where I touched the wall in the house—is one big blister.

  When I walk onto campus in the morning it’s like I’m in a silent bubble. Crowds part around me. I wonder how word’s spread so quickly—if Sasha fomented something, or if everyone can smell the smoke that no amount of scrubbing seems to clear away. Or maybe the cops have already been making the rounds, asking about me.

  They came to my house on Saturday. They ransacked my room, took my computer, my cell phone SIM card. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to get them back at some point or if they’re just gone for good. Officers pawed through drawers and bins, leafed through my comics, my notebooks, my school stuff. My parents stood by and watched. The lawyer they hired told them they didn’t have much choice in the matter.

  Now I make my way to my locker, feeling bitter and fierce. I almost relish the unease I can sense rippling around me in the hall. Yeah, that’s Gabe Jiménez, the freak show that set a house on fire. Don’t mess with him, man, he’s loco. If everyone’s so eager to believe it, why not let them get out of my way?

  “Gabe. Gabe!”

  I’m so mired in my own sullen thoughts I don’t hear Caleb call my name for a moment. He has to grab me by the arm before I notice him. “Where the heck have you been, man? I’ve been texting you all weekend.”

  “The cops have my SIM card,” I say. “The phone’s bricked until I can get a new one.”

  He shakes his head. “Come on, we gotta talk.”

  He leads me down to the Lower Courtyard. I can barely keep up with him. My limbs feel heavy and dead. Irene’s already there, perched on the uneven picnic table, when we arrive. A few greasy-looking smokers stand off to one side; they pretend not to notice us, but I can feel their eyes following me.

  “What the hell is going on? Five-o was at my house last night. I didn’t know what to tell them. I didn’t want to make anything worse.” She picks at one of the holes in her jeans. “So I just said you were a living cream puff who’d never hurt anybody. I don’t think they liked that. They kept bringing up my rap sheet like it invalidated everything I said.”

  “Yeah, they wanted all my log-ins and text records and stuff,” Caleb says. “What happened?”

  I sit numbly down and tell them most of what happened—about the fire, and the cops, and Sasha’s edited video footage. I leave out what I saw through the window at Catherine’s house.

  When I’m done they’re both silent, staring at me. Caleb looks like he’s about to be sick. Irene’s pale with fury.

  “I knew she was a bitch, but I didn’t know she was evil,” she says. She slaps her palm on the table. “We’ve got to figure out some way to show them what she’s like. Like, a sting, or something. Get her on tape acting like a psycho. See how she likes a little creative editing.”

  “No.” I shake my head.

  Irene stares at me. “But …”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “It’s over, Irene.”

  I don’t have the energy to explain—to make them see. Sasha started that fire—I know it in my gut. And if she’s willing to do that, she’s willing to do anything.

  There’s no way to win.

  I get up off the table. “I have to get to class, you guys. Thanks … thanks for listening. I’m sorry you got pulled into this.”

  Caleb rubs his palms against his knees, frowning. “Come on, man, let’s just blow off school today. It’s gonna be ugly up there. You know that.”

  “He’s right. It’s going to be a shitshow,” Irene says. “People’ve been going nuts about this. I got about twenty texts from people I don’t even know asking if you’re a psycho or a drug addict or what.”

  I shrug. “Yeah, I figured. But it’ll just get worse if I hide.” I pull my backpack on. “I’ll see you guys at lunch, okay?”

  I don’t give them a chance to respond. I head back inside, braced for the onslaught.

  Except I’m not going to class. Instead, I head for the dance studio.

  The Mustang Sallys have an early morning rehearsal before school, and usually, Sasha and her friends hang out there, gossiping and listening to music until the last bell rings. What I’m about to do is beyond stupid. My lawyer, a sharp-faced woman with a pristine crease in her pantsuit, warned me not to go anywhere near Sasha. “Don’t talk to her. Don’t text her. Don’t go to her house. Don’t go within ten blocks of her house. Don’t even look at her, Gabriel,” she’d said, her jawline tight. “You can’t afford any more run-ins with this girl.”

  But the lawyer doesn’t understand Sasha the way I do. I can’t afford to avoid her.

  It takes me a moment to find her in the crowded studio. It’s still surreal to see her with Catherine’s dark hair hanging limply around her shoulders. She’s not wearing makeup, which is unusual for her. And instead of her form-fitting dance gear, she’s in a sagging pair of sweats and a too-big T-shirt. She’s stretching on the barre, surrounded by her friends, but she seems somehow smaller than usual, more subdued.

  My feet won’t move. The sight of her makes my throat seize up; my breath goes hot and panicked in my chest, and for just a heartbeat it feels like I’m back in the burning house. Every muscle in my body is tensed to bolt.

  But I have no choice. Because I know now. She won’t stop. She’ll kill someone. Me. My sister, my parents, my friends. Catherine.

  I’m the only one who can end it.

  Everyone else seems to see me before she does. Silence sweeps over the room as I make my way toward her. Sasha never looks my way as I approach, but it’s an act. I know she’s tracking my movements in the mirror.

  “I need to talk to you,” I say softly, when I’m right in front of her.

  My heart constricts painfully. The way she lowers her lashes and peers up through them; the way her hair falls like a curtain around her face. It’s almost exactly Catherine’s affect. She’s been studying for this. She’s been practicing.

  “Okay,” she says.

  S
he leads me into the little storage area off the main studio, stacked with yoga balls, spare uniforms, and random props. My eyes dart around the room, and I realize that I’m looking for things that could be used as a weapon, just in case. I take a deep breath and force myself to stay calm.

  Sasha sits down on an upturned bucket. Even the way she sits is pure Catherine—ankles crossed, shoulders hunched slightly forward. It sends a ribbon of ice down my spine. How long has she planned all this? Has she put on Catherine’s personality piece by piece, without my noticing it? Or did she do it all at once?

  She looks demurely up at me. “I heard what happened this weekend. It was … so brave of you, Gabe. To save those people like that.”

  “Stop it,” I say. I keep my voice low; everyone in the dance studio is probably trying to overhear us. “What do you want?”

  She blinks. “You’re the one who wanted to talk to me.”

  “You know what I mean,” I say. “I want to end this. Tell me what it’ll take. Tell me what you want.”

  She looks down again. “All I’ve ever wanted was to make you happy,” she says in a halting whisper. The impression is good—eerily good—but it’s not quite Catherine. There’s something cloying about Sasha’s voice, something almost sickly sweet. Or maybe I’m only hearing it like that because I know that she is poison.

  “I know you set that fire,” I say, almost conversationally.

  She frowns slightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Right. So my question is—was that enough for you? Now that Catherine and I are broken up, now that everyone thinks I’m a maniac, now that you’ve driven her out of her house and made her dad take her out of school—are you done?”

  Her eyes glisten in the dim light.

  “I just want us to be together,” she says.

  I close my eyes.

  All of this blood and fire and pain, all of this rage and madness—all of it just to keep me on my leash. A tiny voice still speaks up from the back of my mind, telling me this is crazy, telling me I can’t be thinking of doing this. Asking how I think this can possibly end. But I can’t fight anymore. I’ve already lost Catherine. At least this way I might be able to protect her.

  “And if we’re together, all of this insanity is done? You won’t … you won’t hurt anyone?” I ask. “You’ll leave Catherine alone? And my friends, and my family?”

  “Gabe, I …” Her eyes are round, as if she’s wounded by the accusation. I shake my head.

  “Just answer the question,” I say.

  She looks at me for a long moment, her eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly.

  “I’d do anything you wanted, to be back with you,” she finally says.

  “I’ll take that as a promise.” My whole body feels like lead. I sit down next to her, still not touching her, numb and heavy.

  “You mean …” She turns toward me, straightening up a little.

  “I mean I’m yours,” I say dully. “I’m all yours.”

  She gives a breathy little sob and nestles up against my shoulder. “Oh Gabe, I’ve missed you so much.”

  The softness of her voice is suddenly intolerable. “One more condition, though,” I say. “Drop the Catherine act. Just be … yourself, okay?”

  She smiles up at me, the gentle, timid notes gone as suddenly as if a switch has been flipped.

  “I’ll be anyone you want me to be,” she says.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Elyse

  I’m lying on the motel bedspread staring blankly at the TV screen when Aiden comes in, looking sour. He locks the dead bolt behind him and throws his jacket on a chair.

  “We have to move again,” he says, scowling. “The woman at the front desk is starting to ask questions.”

  It’s been almost three weeks since we left Portland. Right now we’re just outside of Pahrump, Nevada, a bleached-looking desert town with a Walmart and a legal brothel and not a lot else. This is the fifth place we’ve stayed; we’ve been here a week. I was hoping we’d be on our way somewhere more interesting by now, somewhere we could go to plays and readings, where we could see art and hear music. But instead we’ve just drifted through ugly little towns and barren landscapes.

  I sit up and turn off the TV. “What’d she say?”

  He shakes his head. “Just wanted to know why my daughter wasn’t in school. I brushed her off, but she looked suspicious.”

  I don’t say anything, but my heart leaps a little. We can’t get out of this shithole fast enough for my taste.

  He sits down on the bed and rubs his face with both hands. Since leaving Portland he’s traded his glasses for colored contacts; they make his eyes a deep oaken brown. He’s grown a mustache, too, which I hate; it makes him look geeky, and it tickles when we kiss. But he doesn’t look like himself, which I suppose is the point.

  He pulls a battered road atlas out of his bag. It’s old and dog-eared, with notes scrawled in the margins. A few times it’s led us to look for landmarks or roads that just don’t exist anymore. Aiden doesn’t want to use a phone or a GPS; he says the cops will be able to track us that way.

  “We could try our luck in Arizona.” He flips through the atlas. “It’ll be warm enough through the winter that we could camp—stay off the beaten path.”

  “Arizona?” I make a face. “Can’t we go to a city?”

  “Not yet,” he says calmly. “There’s an AMBER Alert out for you, Elyse. Bigger cities mean more people who might recognize us from the news. We can’t have anyone calling the cops.”

  I don’t say anything for a minute. I know all about the AMBER Alert; we’ve been monitoring the news when we can. Aiden’s kind of paranoid about searching the Internet, but a few times now we’ve seen something on TV or in a newspaper. They always use my freshman-year school photo, which is stupid, because that picture barely looks like me anyway; I’ve lost weight since then, and my face is much more angular now.

  It never seems like a major search is being mounted, though, to be honest. Just a few little line items in the corner of a newspaper. I should feel relieved. It means we might stand a chance of evading them. But honestly, a part of me just feels forgotten. Why isn’t my mom out there hitting the talk show circuit, passing out flyers? Why aren’t my friends making sure my face stays front and center on the news?

  There are a few pictures they’ve used for Aiden. It’s surreal how different he looks in each image. Bearded, clean-shaven; glasses or none; hair blond, brown, red. Sometimes he looks like he’s barely out of college. Sometimes he looks fifty. Every time I see a new one, it makes something stir in the pit of my stomach. Which Aiden have I fallen in love with? Is it the real one? And how would I even know?

  Now I shake off all these thoughts. Everything would be okay if I could just talk him into trying a bigger town. Somewhere I won’t be stuck in a drab motel all day; somewhere I can stretch my legs, stride out into the world. Become the person I’ve always been meant to be.

  “No one ever called the cops in my old neighborhood,” I try. “But that’s because all my neighbors were cooking meth. We just need to find out where the drug dealers live.”

  He looks up at me. “That’s an idea.” He flips back to California. “Humboldt County, maybe. Redway, or Garberville. I could work odd jobs on one of the pot farms. It’s not the growing season, but they might still have something.”

  My heart sinks. “I meant finding a neighborhood in L.A., or Chicago or something.” I can’t quite keep a whiny note out of my voice. “I’m tired of living out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I never told you this’d be easy,” he snaps.

  We’ve been squabbling like this for a week or so. It’s never over anything big—but we’ve been short with each other, easily piqued. I mean, there are still moments that are wonderful. A few nights ago we drove out to Death Valley and looked at the stars, and I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life. In Idaho we played in the snow. But those moments are almost always o
vershadowed when some hotel clerk or waitress or person on the street looks at us a little too closely. It always puts him on edge.

  Which means I should tread carefully. But I’ve been cooped up in this motel for days now, and I can’t seem to hold back.

  “We’re in this together, Aiden. I should get a say in where we go next.” I cross my arms over my chest, then uncross them, feeling like a petulant child.

  “I thought you wanted to live off the land.” There’s a mean-spirited sneer on his lips; his voice goes shrill and mocking. “‘I’ll go anywhere, as long as I’m with you. And as long as it’s a major metropolitan center.’”

  “You know what?” I stand up off the bed. “Maybe you need a reminder. You’re not really my father. You’re not actually in charge of me.”

  “Then stop acting like a child,” he says. “Do you even understand what I’ve risked for you? If I get caught I will go to prison.” He overenunciates the word, as if I’m stupid. “Sex with a minor is third-degree rape in Oregon. Plus they’ll get me on kidnapping. The FBI could get involved, because we crossed state lines. This isn’t a game.”

  A hard laugh escapes from the back of my throat. “Oh, it isn’t? I didn’t realize. Because I’ve been having so much fun.”

  He slams the atlas shut. There’s a hard glint in his eyes that I’ve never seen there before.

  “Tell me, Elyse, what are you contributing to this situation, really? How are you helping us survive? Because the last I checked, I was doing everything. You talk a good game about how independent you are, but you’d be helpless without me. You’d starve to death in a fucking ditch.”

  Without another word I get up and go into the bathroom. I shut the door firmly and quietly and lock it.

  In the mirror my face is pale and drawn, my eyes cavernous. I’ve lost weight—not because I’m going hungry, but because I’ve been too stressed to eat. I pull my hair back off my neck and splash water on my face.

  A soft knock comes at the door.

  “Elyse, I’m sorry. Please, can you open the door so we can talk about this?” He waits for an answer, but I don’t give one. “I’m just scared. This has been hard for both of us.”