The Darkest Lie

by Pintip Dunn

  One minute passes, and then two.

  A full five minutes later, and it’s clear that no one’s coming. I let out a breath, too on edge to be relieved.

  Sam rises into a crouch. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  The best idea I’ve heard all day. Maybe even all year.

  Chapter 30

  “Call me anytime,” Sam says twenty minutes later. I pull into his driveway, and he laces his fingers through mine on top of the black, metal-edged box that’s been sitting between us the entire ride home. “If you need to talk. It’s not like I’ll be sleeping, anyway.”

  “Too busy working on your article?” It’s due on Tuesday, four days away. He’s only mentioned the due date once, and I didn’t write it down. But I don’t need to. The date’s ingrained in my mind. What are we going to find before the article’s due? And if we don’t find anything, what will Sam write the article about?

  “Nah. Too busy jumping at every car that backfires. I don’t need to lose sleep over the article. I’ve got some preliminary thoughts.” Before I can ask what those thoughts are, he brings my hand to his lips and kisses my fingertips. “Will you be okay?”

  “Sure. There’s not a bomb in this safe. Or a severed head. Or the chopped-off remains of her hair.”

  Oh god. Why did I say that? What if there is?

  We both look at the metal safe. It measures eighteen inches by twelve, and it could hold anything.

  “Call me,” he repeats. “Unless you want me there when you open it?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  I drive home. Dad’s nowhere to be seen, and Gram’s still at her poker night. Surprise, surprise. The way I come and go, you’d never guess I had two so-called guardians.

  I take the safe to my bedroom and sit cross-legged on my bed. I clench the silver key in my fist until it turns hot and slippery.

  My fingers itch for a quick sketch. Sam, in his midnight-robber gear, untangling my braid with his fingers. The moon shining down on us with its all-seeing gaze. The sawed-off padlock and the pools of cooled wax. I want to draw all this and more, although there’s no danger of me forgetting this night. But I know if I take pencil to paper now, I may never stop. I may never open the safe.

  What am I afraid of? Not finding the answers for which I’ve been searching? Or finding them?

  I pick up the snow globe, give it a shake, and set it beside me. The snow falls on the girl and her mother and her mother’s mother five times, and then another five, and I’m still not ready. No matter. I’m never going to be ready. I just have to do it.

  I take a deep breath and slide the key into the lock. Of course, it fits perfectly. Inside, I find not blood and gore, not hair, not brains, not any organic matter. Instead, a slim notebook lies at the bottom of the safe, a notebook with a leather cover and yellowed pages.

  No, not just a notebook. I flip through the pages and see my mom’s loopy handwriting, dates from over twenty years ago. A journal. From—I do the calculations on my fingers—my mom’s senior year.

  Why did she go through all this trouble to leave me her journal? Will I find out why she posed for those topless photos? Learn what happened to her a quarter of a century later?

  There’s only one way to find out. I lie against my pillows and begin reading.

  Sept. 10, 1990

  Dear Journal,

  It’s the first day of senior year, and Mr. Willoughby says we have to keep a journal. This is his first year as a teacher, and we’re his first class, so he’s brimming with all sorts of enthusiasm. He says it doesn’t matter how we fill it, so long as we express ourselves.

  Yeah, right. You’ll forgive me, won’t you, Journal, if I don’t “express” myself? I mean, we hardly know each other. You wouldn’t expect me to spill my secrets to a stranger, would you?

  Let’s see. What can I say? It’s going to be an amazing year. I can feel it in my well-sculpted bones. But don’t take my word for it. Take the word of the boy from my art class, who’s already asked if I would model for him. Apparently, I have the kind of bone structure that makes his muse weep, whatever that means.

  But I didn’t ask because I’m not supposed to be the kind of girl who needs compliments explained. I’m supposed to be beautiful and popular and confident, from my lipsticked mouth to my matching red toes.

  Nobody’s supposed to know that if the sun hits the mirror just right, I can blink and see the girl hiding behind my cascade of hair. It’s like those pictures with a million dots, where if you stand back and let your eyes unfocus, the true picture emerges.

  This girl has no resemblance to the one who glides through the hallways at school. Nobody sees her. And if I have my way, you won’t, either, Journal.

  My best friend Audrey always says we can’t wait for life to happen. If we want the biggest slice of pie—the juiciest, the sweetest, the tastiest—we have to seize control and take it for ourselves. Well, this is me taking it. I’m going to have a good senior year. No, scratch that. I’m going to have the senior year to end all senior years!

  Last year, my life fell apart. A few pieces got swept into the drain, and a few more blew away in the wind, so there was no hope of putting me back together again. After the year I just had, I deserve to be happy.

  Don’t you agree, Journal?

  My chest feels tight, like I’ve forgotten how to breathe. I read the words of the first entry again. And then again. I want to savor them. No, more than that. I want to swallow my mother’s words, make them a part of me so I never have to let her go.

  So much hope in these lines. So much excitement. Sure, there’s an underlining cloud of sadness, but her overall energy and zest for life shines through.

  YES. You deserve to be happy, Mom. You deserve everything.

  Back then, the scandal with Tommy was an unfathomable speck in the distant future. Whatever her mistakes or failures, they had yet to occur. My mother was nothing but a girl—a girl who had lost her own mother the previous year. A girl very much like me.

  My fear disappears. The uncertainty, the anxiety, even the anger lift like the fog on a sunny morning. It doesn’t matter what I find in these pages. Because I now have something I haven’t had for the past six months. My mother, back again.

  I clutch the journal and keep reading.

  September 15, 1990

  Dear Journal,

  I’m afraid Mr. Willoughby knows what he’s doing. There’s something about writing on this blank page, which no one will read or judge, that is freeing. Because you won’t tell, will you, Journal? Whatever secrets I write will seep into your pages and disappear.

  Audrey’s pissed at me. She wants me to double-date with her and Cliff, and that’s not so bad in itself. But she wants me to go out with Cliff’s best friend, Brandon, and that’s not okay.

  Because I’ve gone out with Brandon before. All he wants is to pour drinks down my throat and get me in the backseat. If I say “no,” he’ll call me a cock tease. He’ll say I was asking for it because of my clothes, even if I’m wearing sweatpants and a ratty old sweater.

  I tried to explain this to Audrey, but she wouldn’t listen. She says Cliff will only go out with her if I agree to the double date, and she thinks I’m standing in the way of true love.

  What her finding a soul mate has to do with me getting felt up, I’m not sure. But Audrey says I’ve hooked up with lots of guys before. What’s one more?

  It’s enough to make me want to cut my hair and toss my makeup. But I won’t do it. Because my looks are my only ticket out of this town.

  Lakewood, Kansas, is like a black hole. Once you’re born here, it’s almost impossible to leave. You have to be really smart, really talented, or really pretty to get out. I’m not smart. I’m not good at much. But I am pretty. The mirror says so. And if I don’t unfocus my eyes, I can almost believe it.

  Was that too personal, Journal? I asked Audrey what she writes in her notebook. She says she keeps lists. Of everything she ate that day. The clot
hes she wore that week. The boys she’s kissed this year.

  She doesn’t mention any similar tug on her inner feelings. The danger a blank page poses to her true self.

  I have to wonder, dear Journal. Am I doing something wrong?

  September 18, 1990

  Dear Journal,

  Today was a good day. It’s what my mom would’ve called a “red-letter” day. I wish she were still with me now. We would’ve parked ourselves at the kitchen table and drank tea and laughed for hours. That’s the kind of mom she was. Sometimes, I miss her so much it feels like a switchblade puncturing my lungs.

  But I don’t want to think about that. All I’ve done in the past year, it seems, is miss her. And that’s not seizing control the way Audrey wants me to.

  I met someone today. Oh, I suppose I didn’t just meet him. I’ve known him for years, but I didn’t really know him, if you get what I mean.

  I can’t tell you his name. Even from you, Journal, I must keep his identity a secret. But that’s okay. His presence is so strong, his spirit so unique, he doesn’t need a name.

  Unlike everyone else, he sees the real me. He doesn’t have to unfocus his eyes. He doesn’t have to wait for a trick of the sun. He sees me as easily as he sees flowers or dew drops or rain.

  And he promises he’ll make the bad things go away. I’ll never have to climb into a backseat again. I’ll never have to pretend to be someone I’m not. I’ll never have to be alone, so long as he’s here.

  My insides buzz around like a hive of bees, and I can’t stop smiling. I’ll be in trig class and my hands will brush across my lips, and I’ll realize they’re curved. Imagine that. Me, smiling for absolutely no reason. Or, rather, for the most important reason of all. Is this what happiness feels like?

  I couldn’t tell you. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way, I don’t actually remember.

  October 2, 1990

  It’s been a while, Journal, and I apologize. I haven’t written because I’ve been too busy being IN LOVE. I hope you understand and don’t hold it against me.

  Not like Audrey does. She’s annoyed because I don’t have time for her hour-long phone calls anymore. And she’s beside herself that I keep turning down the dates she arranges. But it’s not her fault because she doesn’t know. Nobody does, Journal, except for you.

  It’s like my own delicious secret—OUR delicious secret, mine and his—and somehow this makes what we have even more special. Our love is on a different plane, above and beyond what is felt on this world and so there’s no need to share it with anyone.

  They wouldn’t understand, anyway. They can’t because they don’t know how he makes me feel.

  With him, I feel like I can fly without wings. Breathe underwater. Defy gravity. That’s what his love does for me. It makes me invincible.

  Alarm bells ring in my head, loud and long and insistent. This isn’t going to end well. It can’t. I wouldn’t be lying here reading my mom’s journal if it had. Her topless photo wouldn’t be floating around the Internet. Something about her words crawls inside me, something oddly familiar that tangles my stomach with my kidneys and lungs. Something not good.

  I want to shout at the journal, at the seventeen-year-old Tabitha. Run! Run as fast as you can from this relationship. He isn’t good for you, not if he makes you keep your relationship a secret.

  But she can’t hear me, and even if she could, it’s too late. The past has already happened. All that’s left for me to do is to find out how bad it was.

  My hands trembling with fear, I continue reading.

  Dear Journal,

  I’m still happy. Still in love. One little incident doesn’t change that. I won’t let it. This is turning out to be exactly the senior year I envisioned, and I’m not going to ruin it for myself. I’m not.

  I’m probably being a prude anyway. That’s what Audrey always says. She says I’m so selective about who I let touch my boobs, they might as well be an artifact at a highly exclusive museum. Right. If my boobs were priced that highly, I’d have been out of Lakewood eons ago.

  He’s older than me. He’s used to more experienced women, and I have to respect that. Of course he’s going to want to do things out of my comfort zone. I have to grow up sometime.

  Besides, if I have to give my virginity to someone, shouldn’t it be to the man I love?

  October 21, 1990

  Dear Journal,

  It’s not as if I don’t like sex. There are moments in the whole sweaty encounter when it’s actually okay. These moments, unfortunately, are fleeting. They’re gone before I can catch them and hold them close.

  What I like best is the part afterward. The part where he holds me and looks into my eyes. He smiles, and I know he likes what he sees. I know I am more than this body and this face. I know I am worth something.

  These times, though, happen less and less often. This isn’t his fault. He would hold me if he could. But he’s so busy. We don’t have time for the long conversations we used to have. So we have sex when it’s convenient. Where there are no beds. And no time to cuddle afterward.

  He tells me again and again he gives me the things I need. He fills up the blank spaces inside me. When he first said this, I thought it sounded so romantic. But now I hear the crudeness behind the words. And I don’t like it.

  When I ask him to stop saying it, he says I’m being hormonal. And maybe I am.

  But you know what? I’m a teenage girl. What did he expect?

  October 28, 1990

  Dear Journal,

  Audrey won’t speak to me anymore. I’ve been a terrible friend. He said she was too immature for me and advised me to cut her loose. I was so in love at the time, I did exactly as he asked.

  And now I have no one but you, Journal. I used to think I was lonely before. My mom—my number-one champion—was gone, and the only girl my friends knew was the one on the outside, the one in the mirror. Now, I would give anything for even that level of friendship.

  I can hear his voice now: “Don’t be so dramatic, Tabitha. If you’ve lost your friends, it’s all your own doing. It has nothing to do with me.”

  Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially sullen, I want to lash back: Oh really? You weren’t the one who encouraged me to drop my friends? You weren’t the one who said they were poison to my purity?

  In the end, though, he’s right. It was my decision. But I made the decision for true love. Not for this.

  No. I don’t mean that. He is my true love, my soul mate. I’ve been stressed lately, that’s all.

  I guess I’m not sexually exciting enough for him, so he makes me pose for these naked photos. It’s not smut, he says, tracing the curve of my breasts, but art. I didn’t want to, but he promised he wouldn’t show anybody. He promised we would get back to the way we were if I would do this one thing for him.

  I hate it. Okay, there, I said it. I really, really hate it. These explicit photos that turn him on so much—it makes me feel dirty. So dirty I can’t find those fleeting feel-good moments AT ALL. And when I mentioned it to him, he smiled and said, “Don’t worry, babe. I’m deriving enough pleasure for the two of us.”

  Which made me want to slap him. Is that wrong? I know he’s kidding around. He would tell me I have no sense of humor. And so I clenched my teeth and said nothing.

  Because in the end, I don’t want to lose him, too. He’s all I have left.

  November 2, 1990

  I’m shaking so badly I can hardly write this. I can’t believe what I just did. What he made me do. I couldn’t even stay at school, I was so upset. I’ve taken two showers now, and I still don’t feel clean.

  You won’t judge me, will you, Journal? If my dad finds out, he’ll skin me alive. Maybe I should let him. So I won’t have to think about it anymore.

  The lunch hour started normally enough. I was by my locker talking to Billy Cramer. He was sick yesterday and wanted to borrow my notes. So what if he put his arm around my waist? So what if I laughed an
d dropped my head onto his shoulder, my long hair falling over his arm? Billy and I have been friends since preschool. There’s a class photo of us sitting side by side when we were four years old, me in a velvet jumper, him with his trademark smirk. Any flirtation between us can never be more than innocent. It’s Billy, for god’s sake. Kissing him would be like kissing my brother.

  If I’m being honest, maybe I did want a little attention. Maybe I wanted to feel pretty once again, since it’s been so long since he made me feel that way. Billy always makes me laugh and smile and I know he had a crush on me in the seventh grade, so maybe I did push the boundaries a little bit. Maybe I held his eyes a little too long. Smiled at him a little too suggestively.

  Is that a crime? Is that so wrong?

  According to him, the man who supposedly loves me, it is. He stalked up to us and grabbed my shoulder, not noticing who saw, not caring what Billy might think. And then he all but threw me into his classroom.

  I was wearing the clothes he likes, these short little schoolgirl skirts, with a thong underneath. I wear these clothes for him, not for Billy or anyone else, but he wouldn’t believe me. He called me a “slut” and he said if I wanted to act like a prostitute, he would treat me like one. A moment before the bell rang, he shoved me under his desk, this solid, massive, oak desk that sits right on the floor. And he plopped down in front of me, spreading his legs and shoving my head into his crotch. And then he dug his nails into my scalp, so hard it felt like real metal nails being hammered into my brains.

  Right there. In the middle of class. With twenty students on the other side of the desk. He drilled his nails into my head until I unzipped his pants and gave him what he wanted.