Lies You Never Told Me

by Jennifer Donaldson

  A rattling groan escapes from his chest. It scares me for a second, until I realize he’s had the wind knocked out of him. He’s trying to find his breath.

  “Shhhhh,” I whisper, resting a hand on his cheek. “Don’t move.”

  His eyes roll around frantically. I pull out my phone and type in 911. “I need to report an accident. Hit-and-run. There’s a … a boy. He’s hurt. It’s at Merritt and Bantam. Please hurry.”

  I hang up before they can ask any questions.

  My stomach churns. I should have been paying attention. I shouldn’t have fiddled with the radio. I shouldn’t have taken the car out just before a rainstorm. I should … but the list of what I should or shouldn’t have done goes back and back for what feels like forever. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, and when I open them again, my hands are steady. I don’t want to leave him here in the middle of the street, in the rain, but I have to go before the police get here. If Aiden finds out I talked to the cops he’ll lose his mind.

  The boy’s eyes sink closed. I watch him for a moment. There’s something about his face that I don’t know how to describe—something gentle. Though maybe that’s just because he’s in repose. Maybe everyone looks kind in their sleep. For a fleeting moment, I wish I could stay. I want to hold my umbrella over him, keep him from the rain. But the faint echo of sirens cuts through the night. I have to go. I jump up and run back to the car.

  *

  • • •

  Back home I let myself in the front door as quietly as I can. I’m still jittery with adrenaline, but I keep my movements careful and controlled.

  “Where’ve you been?” The question pounces on me the moment I open the door. Aiden glowers from the kitchen doorway, holding a mug of tea.

  He’s traded in the mustache for a full beard, and he highlights it with silver every few weeks. It does a reasonable job of making him look even older than he is. He’s taken out his contacts for the night, so I can see the gleaming hazel of his eyes, like coins under water.

  I put down my umbrella and bend to untie my shoes.

  “I wanted ice cream,” I say.

  His eyes narrow.

  “Where is it?”

  “Oh, I just got a bar. I ate it on the way.” I give him what’s left of my smile. It’s a ragged, paltry little thing now, but I try to make it convincing.

  He disappears back into the hall and comes back with one of our thin thrift-store towels. Instead of handing it to me, he wraps it around my shoulders.

  “Don’t go out like that without telling me,” he says. He rubs my hair a little too roughly with the towel. I flinch.

  “I should’ve left a note. I’m sorry,” I say.

  He looks down into my face and finally smiles. “It’s okay. I just worry,” he says. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” The words are automatic. I don’t even think about them anymore. Like many things, it’s easier that way.

  When he kisses me I fight the urge to pull away. I close my eyes. The image of the skater floats back up to my mind, and I imagine what it’d be like to be with someone like that. Someone my age. Someone I’m not scared of.

  But it’s useless to imagine something like that. I made my choice a long time ago. I’m stuck here, and there’s no way out.

  “Let’s get you out of those wet things,” Aiden says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Gabe

  It’s a forty-five-minute drive to the Hill Country Motel, just outside Austin. I put Caleb’s jeep through its paces, stepping on the gas all the way. The roads are narrow and rough; scrubby ranchland alternates with shaggy cedar and mesquite trees. As dusk comes, I see more and more deer bounding along the side of the road. I send up a silent prayer to whatever saint looks out for deer that they stay out of my way. I don’t want to hit Bambi—but I’m not about to slow down.

  Please hurry.

  I don’t know what “hurry” means to her—don’t know what the timetable is, don’t know what might be happening even now. I texted her before starting out but I haven’t heard another word. Is she in trouble? Is she hurt? Every second feels like a fully encapsulated panic attack. My fingers are tight on the wheel, and I rattle over potholes and cracked pavement without slowing down.

  The sun slips behind the curtain of trees and leaves a bloody smear along the horizon as I catch sight of the sign nestled against the forest’s canopy. Hill Country Motel. It’s a long, low building, paint peeling away in strips. The parking lot is gravel. Trees fringe the little clearing. There’s nothing else around.

  I pull into the parking lot and turn off the truck. Then I sit there for a moment.

  I have no idea what I’m about to walk into.

  But I didn’t drive all this way to sit in my car. So I climb out, legs stiff, and take stock of my surroundings. There aren’t many cars in the lot. It’s the off season, and while it’s not cold enough here to deter all travelers, it’s definitely not outdoor-recreation weather. Most of the windows in the motel are dark. The trees crowd in around the property.

  Almost by habit I pick Orion out from the stars above. Over to the east I see Andromeda. I remember the myth we learned about in astronomy last year—Andromeda, the princess chained to the rock. Sacrifice to a monster. The thought steels me. I start toward the motel—and then turn around. I get the tire iron out of the back.

  The window for room eleven is brightly lit. I pause outside, trying to listen for sounds from within. I can hear the mutter of a TV inside. I rest a palm lightly against the door …

  … and jump backward as it swings inward.

  Open, all along.

  “Hello?” I crane my neck to see around the door. The lights are all blazing. There’s an old black-and-white movie I don’t recognize on the TV. There’s no luggage, save a sooty bag propped on the floor next to a dresser. I recognize it right away; it’s the bag Mr. Barstow went back for in the fire.

  “Hello?” I hold my breath and listen for any sign of life. “Catherine?”

  Nothing. I step into the room and shut the door gently behind me. I peek in the bathroom. There’s a bunch of dirty towels lumped on the counter, but no one’s there.

  I grab the messenger bag.

  Inside is a thick bundle of paperwork. I frown, leafing through, trying to see what was so important that he’d risk his life for it. At first glance it just looks like a bunch of legal documents. It’s not until I find a bundle of cards, held together with a rubber band, that I understand.

  There are four different driver’s licenses, all with Catherine’s face—all with different names. Catherine Barstow. Sarah White. Emily Woods. Olivia Roberts.

  I turn quickly through the other pages. Passports, birth certificates, social security cards. All in different names, but with the same pictures. Identities for her father, too—he’s gone by Louis, James, Mark. My pulse pounds in my ears; the pages trickle from my fingers and scatter across the threadbare carpet.

  Who are these people?

  Then I notice something that makes my breath catch in my throat.

  There’s a faint red smear on the doorjamb.

  I walk back to the door, almost in a trance. My fingers clench and unclench. The red is bright against the white paint. Closer up I can see the swirls and whorls of the handprint, too small to be a man’s. The blood is fresh.

  My hand feels far away as it pushes the door open again. I float out into the dark parking lot, my eyes darting right and left, my breath coming quick. I look for some sign. I pray, desperate, for some sign. Out beyond the motel’s yellow lights it’s dark; the moon is hidden behind pale clouds. There’s no way for me to know where they went if I don’t have a sign.

  I stand frozen for a long time. Then I see it; there, on the edge of the ice machine. Twenty feet to the right. Another smear of blood.

  The tire iron is a comforting weight in my hands. I follow the trail: flecks of red along the siding, on a windowpane. It ta
kes me around the side of the motel—to the woods, black and fathomless in the moonless night.

  For just a moment I hesitate. Then I turn on the LED flashlight on my phone and push my way into the thicket.

  The woods are dense and dark. She could be anywhere. “Catherine!” I shout. “Catherine!” My voice echoes back to me, eerie and warped. I can hear the Pedernales murmuring on the other side of the trees. Something rustles behind me, and I spin around in time to see an armadillo waddling away into the underbrush. I take a quick, gulping breath, my fingers tightening around the tire iron.

  “Fuck,” I hiss.

  Then, in the flashlight’s bleached-out glow, I see something else. A scrap of cloth—green plaid. Caught on a branch. One of Catherine’s shirts. Beyond, I can just barely make out the ghost of her path: broken branches, compressed grass.

  “Catherine!” I shout.

  I hear rustling again. I move the flashlight’s beam left to right, trying to pinpoint where the sound is coming from.

  The light doesn’t land on her until she’s two feet away from me.

  Her face is so caked in blood I barely recognize her. Her hair is damp and tangled with dirt and sticks. I drop the tire iron and run for her. My eyes scan her body, trying to see if she’s hurt.

  “You came,” she says. Tears streak down her face, cutting a path through the dirt and blood. “You came.”

  “Are you okay? Where are you hurt?” I’m afraid to touch her, not knowing where the blood has come from. But she throws her arms around my neck.

  “You came,” she sobs. So I pull her close. I rest my cheek against the top of her head. Even with everything that’s happened, she feels like she was made for my arms.

  “Of course I came,” I whisper.

  She suddenly pushes away from me. “We have to go. Right now, we have to get out of here. Did you bring a car?”

  “Yeah, of course, I …” I trail off.

  A man moves out of the shadows, quick and quiet. The first thing I see is the glint of the gun. Then I see a face I don’t know—white, clean-shaven, tight with anger. It’s not until he speaks that I recognize him.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” says Mr. Barstow.

  FORTY-TWO

  Elyse

  “Aiden, please,” I whisper. “Please, just let us leave.”

  His eyes are sharp and shining. The gun is steady, but his chest heaves with his quickened breath.

  “I already told you,” he says softly. “No one’s going anywhere.”

  That’s when I realize that his eyes aren’t glinting with rage; they’re bright with tears. And somehow, that scares me even more.

  The fight at the motel started small, like they always did. It’d been simmering for weeks, roiling behind every sullen glance, every passive-aggressive snarl. We’d been cooped up together all that time, both of us wondering how long we had before the police figured out who we were.

  This time, it got physical. He grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me back and forth. When he let go, the momentum took me forward. I tumbled off the bed. My head hit the corner of the dresser with a sickening crack. My field of vision went white, then sickly green, the pain shuddering along my bones.

  Something sticky and wet poured over my face. Blood. I couldn’t believe how much of it. Next to me I could sense more than see Aiden go very still, just a few feet from me.

  “Elyse … I didn’t mean …”

  I didn’t let him finish.

  The world spun around me as I shot to my feet, but I managed not to fall. I shoved him in the chest with all the strength I could muster.

  Then I ran.

  Now, he stands in front of us on the path, holding the gun with a taut, practiced posture. Next to me, Gabe’s heart bumps heavily against my hand. His T-shirt is damp with sweat, his curls matted against his head from the run through the woods. I can tell from the way he’s poised that he’s ready to push himself in front of me.

  I can’t let him do that. I can’t let this go any further.

  Slowly, gently, I disentangle myself from Gabe’s limbs. I hold my hands up above my shoulders. I fight to calm my breathing, to break out of the whirl of mud and blood and terror I’ve been tumbling through.

  “I just want a normal life,” I say. I fight to keep my voice calm. I have practice by now; I’ve been soothing and comforting him for months. “I won’t turn you in. I won’t tell anyone. I just … I don’t want to run anymore.”

  His face looks so pale without the beard. Back at the motel, when he’d first shaved it off, I’d felt a thin little pulse of attraction for the first time in a long time. Seeing his face uncovered was, for just a split second, like seeing him as he’d been when we first met, before everything went wrong. Before my mom died; before I lost Aiden to the paranoia and the possessiveness.

  “I threw everything away for you,” he says. “Everything. And this is how you’re going to pay me back? No. No, this isn’t how this ends.” He paces, two steps one way, two steps back, the gun still trained on me. “You told me we’d do this together.”

  I bite back the retort that springs to my mouth. How can we do this together when you won’t let me decide anything? How can we be together when you treat me like a child? Instead I take a halting step toward him. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You said you loved me.” His voice breaks. Once upon a time that would have destroyed me. Now I just feel numb.

  “I do. I always will,” I say. “But we can’t keep going like this.”

  His face crumples into raw, naked sobs, a child frightened in the night. “You’re right,” he says. And I think, It’s working; I’m getting through to him. He’s going to let us go.

  Then, before I have a chance to move, two loud pops tear through the night.

  Smoke drifts lazily from the end of the gun. My body goes rigid. For a second I wait for the pain to come. Then I realize that’s wrong—that I’d already feel it. I look down at my body. I’m a mess—clothes torn and dirty from hiding—but there’s no sign of fresh blood.

  From behind me, there’s a soft, strangled whimper.

  I turn to see Gabe, on his knees in the dirt. His mouth is a strained line. His eyes are wide and round. A small, dark stain is blooming across his shoulder, getting bigger and bigger.

  “No!” I turn to go to him, but Aiden stops me short with a little hiss.

  “Next one’s to his head,” he says.

  I draw in my breath hard.

  “Leave him alone,” I say. “Please, Aiden, I’m begging you.”

  Aiden bares his teeth. “This little bastard ruined everything. He took everything from me.”

  “No, Aiden. I’m still here. I’m still yours, if you want me. Just … please. Don’t do this.” His hands are shaking now, the gun unsteady. I take a tiny step forward, and my toe hits against something hard. I glance down. It’s Gabe’s tire iron; he dropped it when he came into the clearing. I look up quickly, fight to keep the discovery out of my face.

  He shakes his head, still staring at Gabe. “I can’t trust you anymore. He ruined that.”

  I fall to the ground, covering the tire iron with my body and pushing my forehead into the dirt so it looks like I’m begging. “Please,” I whimper. “Please, I’ll do anything.” Like all good acting it’s a little bit true. My fingers close around the cold, hard metal, and I think it again to myself. I’ll do anything. Anything I have to.

  “Too late,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “It’s too late.” He resets his stance, steadies his hand. His eyes are locked on Gabe.

  “No!” My body is stiff from the run through the woods, from hiding, but somehow I make it move faster than it’s ever moved before. I swing the tire iron upward with all my might. It connects with his arm, and the gun goes spinning out of his hand.

  “Fuck!” he screams, hunching over in pain. I don’t pause to think. I scramble on all fours for the gun. It glints darkly on the forest floor a few feet away.

  My fi
ngertips brush the handle. Then something slams into my torso. His boot. He kicks me again, harder this time. The dry snap of my rib cracking is almost, but not quite, too soft to hear. I fight the urge to curl into a little ball. I fight the urge to keep hiding.

  Another quarter-inch reach, and I have it. The gun is heavier than I expected. I don’t really know how to use it. I don’t even know if there are more bullets. But I roll onto my back and point it at his chest.

  His face warps into a monster grimace. He lunges down at me, fingers curled into claws.

  I pull the trigger. There’s heat, noise. Force pushing me into the dirt. There’s a spray of something hot and wet.

  And then, silence.

  I don’t know how long I lie there, staring up at the sky. Aiden is near my feet. He’s very still.

  And then the stars blink out. No—they’re obscured. Gabe’s form blocks them from view. He’s leaning over me. His breath is ragged but steady.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he whispers.

  I close my eyes. I feel like I’m floating. In this moment, before consequences, before explanations, I feel safe.

  “I know,” I say.

  FORTY-THREE

  Gabe

  We walk back toward the motel holding hands. I move gingerly, trying not to jostle my shoulder too much. The pain is getting steadily worse, roaring in like a rapidly approaching train. I focus on keeping my breath steady. There’s no way Catherine—or whatever her name is—can carry me if I pass out.

  My brain keeps flying back to the man in the clearing behind us. To the moment before he fell. It’s frozen in my mind: Catherine on the ground, pointing the gun up. The look on his face as he lunged for her. For some reason I’m stuck there, in the instant before she shot him. That last moment before a person died right in front of me. The thought makes my legs go soft for a second; I stumble, but catch myself. The motion sends a molten wave through the gunshot wound.

  “Gabe?” It’s too dark to read her expression, but she clutches my arm like it’s a life preserver.