The Best Lies

by Sarah Lyu

  There has to be a reason. There has to be.

  “Remy?” Vera says, jolting me out of my thoughts, alarm in her voice.

  Immediately, everyone’s eyes are on me.

  “What?” Then I feel it and touch a hand to my cheeks, pulling back to see my mother’s foundation mixed with tears.

  “Let’s—” She looks from me to my family, hovering over me like hawks. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  Outside, I dry my face and try to breathe. We’re standing behind the station but I’m still skittish, afraid of what’s waiting for me just around the corner.

  “What’s going to happen?” I ask. “To me, to Elise.” To us.

  Vera hesitates. “I can’t say.”

  “What could happen?” I ask with a sniff.

  “Well, it’s hard to predict what’ll happen, but the DA will decide whether or not to bring charges against her. And potentially you as well. If the evidence corroborates what you described, then they might decline to prosecute.”

  “Really?” I am breathless with shock as her words sink in.

  “In Georgia, you have the right to shoot someone who enters your property without your permission.”

  “Like self-defense?” I cough, my throat raw from all the crying.

  “Not quite. In a sense it’s self-defense but the burden of proof is nowhere as high. You don’t have to be in imminent danger. You just have to feel threatened.” She’s careful to keep her voice neutral, steady, but I can sense she disagrees with the law.

  My head spins and I have to lean against the wall for support. Though scratchy and rough, the brick wall is cool to the touch and I want to press my cheek to it. I think about last night, close my eyes. I can see Elise out on the balcony still. She turns with heavy shoulders and walks back inside. Then she hears footsteps, sees the shape of a man approaching her in the dark, sees her father approaching her and doesn’t think, can’t think. Just points and shoots.

  Her fear is palpable to me even now, even though I wasn’t there. I take a shuddering breath and cough again.

  “It’s time,” Vera says, checking her phone. “Are you ready?”

  I’ll never be ready, but I have no choice.

  “Listen, Remy.” Vera looks serious, grim even, as we begin the walk back. “What you say now is important, do you understand?”

  I nod, my heart racing. Everything depends on me. It feels like I hold both of our lives in my hands, the weight of it threatening to pull me under.

  “You need to worry about yourself right now,” she says. “Don’t worry about your friend or what might happen. Just focus on what you’re going to say.”

  “But they could choose not to prosecute?” I ask, voice low. I feel weak, like my legs could collapse at any moment. Elise was always the strong one of the two of us. She was always the one who knew what to do, who had answers. But now it’s up to me.

  “It depends,” Vera says as we’re about to round the corner to the main lobby where my family waits. She stops, places a firm hand on my shoulder. “It’ll depend on what the evidence suggests. It’ll depend on a lot of different factors—the strength of that evidence, if they can establish not just means but motive, public perception of the case, even. Prosecutors only like to try cases they think they’ll win, which means they’re very cautious about which cases they try. So it’ll depend on a lot of things.”

  “Like what I say?”

  Vera frowns, and I can tell my question doesn’t sit well with her. “Just stick to the truth, okay? Keep it simple, like we talked about. Tell them what you told me last night.” She looks like she has more to say but then someone turns the corner, almost colliding with us.

  “There you are,” the stranger says. “I’m Detective Sloane Ward.”

  I feel like I’m going to throw up.

  “We’re ready for you now,” the detective says, her smile quick, a flash of teeth.

  10.

  The camera behind Detective Ward is pointed right at me, its red dot blinking steadily. I try to stamp out my growing panic but I can’t—it’s wild and burning through me like poison. My chest squeezes unbearably and I can’t breathe.

  I tear my gaze away from the blinking light to focus on the person in front of me. A middle-aged white woman, all business, lips flattened into a severe line, a permanent crease between her eyebrows. She’s flipping through a thin file, pen stuck behind her ear, frizzy brown curls brushing her shoulders. Her white dress shirt is crisp underneath a royal blue cardigan. She wears a simple gold wedding band. Her nails are filed down, neat but bare. Without makeup or flashy jewelry, she doesn’t look like she belongs in a town like Lyndens Creek—she’s different, an outsider. Maybe she’d understand us. I press my palms against my knees, rub them dry. Vera glances at me, concerned.

  I think about everything I’m going to say and everything I can’t say. The words I practiced with Vera are right there, fresh on my mind: Elise and I were at her house. Elise and I were arguing but I don’t remember why. We separated and I called Jack. He came over and said he’d talk to Elise alone. I went to my car and was about to leave when I heard the gunshots.

  “Okay, Katherine,” Detective Ward begins, and it’s jarring to hear my own first name. It feels like she’s talking to someone else. I never liked it and fought with Mom to go by my middle name, and now I can’t help but think Katherine belongs to another life, and maybe it does. To someone like Christian, obedient and loved.

  “She goes by Remy,” Vera corrects gently.

  “Oh. Okay, Remy,” she starts again. “I’m going to ask you some questions and I want you to answer them to the best of your ability, okay? This isn’t like in the movies or on TV. You’re not in any trouble. It’s not an interrogation,” she says, even though it feels like one. “I’m going to read you your rights, but it’s just a casual conversation, really.”

  As she delivers the same short speech Vera did, my gaze shifts back to the blinking red light.

  The detective notices. “Don’t worry about that. It’s there to make sure we don’t miss anything and everything we talk about is aboveboard.”

  “Okay,” I say, my voice barely higher than a whisper. My throat is still scratchy. I cough, and it makes it worse.

  “You all right?” Detective Ward asks as I try to clear my throat. She’s trying to sound warm, to make me think she actually cares. When I manage to nod, she moves on: “Please state your name.”

  I open my mouth but nothing comes out. The room suddenly feels too small, like it’s closing in on me. The light is too bright, the air too cold. My heart rattles against my rib cage, urging me to run, and all I can think about is making it out of this alive.

  This won’t last forever.

  It helps, and I take a deep breath before I speak: “My name is Katherine Remy Tsai. Everyone calls me Remy.”

  “Good. See? Nothing to worry about,” she says, her smile purposefully friendly. “How old are you, Remy?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “November nineteenth.”

  “Can you tell me what happened last night?”

  Behind Detective Ward and the camera is just a wall. No one-way mirror like on TV shows, just concrete cinder blocks painted in a thick, glossy white. It reminds me of the walls at school, but I am acutely aware that I’m no longer in a classroom.

  When I remain frozen, unable to answer, Vera steps in.

  “Can we start with simpler questions?” she asks.

  Detective Ward doesn’t argue. “Did you know that your friend had a gun? Or where she might’ve gotten it?” she asks.

  I was there when she found it in the attic filled with all of her grandparents’ things. Don’t lie, but don’t give the police anything they can use against you. “I think it was her grandfather’s,” I say, and it’s the truth.

  “Really,” she says, putting her pen down. “Do you know where the gun is now or where it could be?” Detective Ward leans fo
rward, elbows on the table, fingers coming together to form a peak.

  “You don’t know where the gun is right now?” I ask, shocked. After Jack had been shot, the last thing I would’ve paid attention to was the gun and what Elise did with it. Before Detective Ward told me it was missing, I just assumed the police had it.

  “No, we don’t,” she says, eyes so piercing that I flinch. It feels like I’m trapped in some kind of game but I don’t understand the rules.

  “I don’t know,” I say, still in shock. For a moment I’m scared of what this means, that it’s still out there, the revolver that belonged to Elise’s grandfather, but then I think maybe they just haven’t found it yet, that it was lost in the chaos of last night and probably under a couch or TV stand.

  “What can you tell me about last night? Anything at all.” Ward frowns, growing impatient. “Think about Jack,” she says like I’ve forgotten about him, like I need to be reminded of the wound in my chest.

  I do think about him, I want to scream. I’m always thinking about him. I wish he were here, I wish I could see him again. I loved him. I love him still.

  Think about Jack.

  “I loved him,” I choke out, and it’s all I can say as tears stream down my face.

  But I feel fear closing in. It spreads to every inch of my body until there’s no room for the love that I have for Jack. It hijacks my brain until I can’t breathe, until I can’t think about anything other than survival.

  It feels like I’m dying.

  “Let me tell you what I think happened,” Detective Ward says, ignoring my tears. “I think this was a romantic entanglement that went sideways.” Her voice is matter-of-fact, almost soothing in its neutrality. “The only question in these situations is who played what role. We know Elise was the shooter. We know Jack was the victim. What were you?”

  Her words coil around me. For a moment, I think the earth is quaking, but it’s just me shaking uncontrollably in my hard plastic chair.

  “There’s no need for any aggression,” Vera intervenes. “We came in here to cooperate.”

  Detective Ward takes a pause, looking down at her notes, giving me a moment to dry my eyes. My hands are coated in streaks of my mother’s foundation, my mask coming undone.

  When I’ve quieted, she leans in even closer and changes the subject. “Tell me about Elise.”

  “What do you want to know?” I say.

  “Was she ever violent around you?”

  “What?” I don’t like the way she’s talking to me. I don’t like what she’s implying.

  “To your knowledge, has she ever hurt anyone before?”

  “No!” My mind screams with panic. She’s asking leading questions, like she’s already decided what kind of person Elise is and what really happened last night.

  “Has she ever hurt you?”

  “No! Of course not,” I say.

  She examines me and leans back, clasped hands resting on her lap now. “Sometimes we think we know someone and we think the world of them, but maybe they’re not always what they seem. You never really know what someone’s capable of.”

  “Elise would never do something to hurt anyone. I know she didn’t murder Jack because I was there.” The words fly out of me before I can stop them.

  The entire room quiets. There’s just the sound of the air-conditioning clicking on, the sharp cold hitting the back of my neck.

  What did I just say?

  “You were there,” Detective Ward repeats slowly.

  What have I just done?

  “Wait,” Vera says, confusion and panic in her eyes.

  “Are you certain? Are you sure that’s the statement you want to give?” she says as Vera interjects again. She wants some time with me, alone.

  “We’ll answer any questions you have but Remy just lost her boyfriend and hasn’t slept. She needs a minute.” Vera doesn’t wait for an answer. She takes me by the wrist and pulls me down the hall to the restroom.

  Splashing cold water on my face, I watch as the rest of my makeup runs down the drain. War paint, that’s what Mom called it once, like going to work required battledress. She always looked perfect, not a hair out of place, face bright and never tired. Appearances always mattered more to her than anything else.

  Looking up, I stare at the girl I see in the mirror. She looks wrecked, eyes swollen, skin patchy and rough. She looks like she went into battle and lost everything.

  Why did I say I was there? I splash more water on my face, too ashamed to look at myself anymore.

  “Remy,” Vera says once I’ve turned the water off. “We need to talk.”

  I dry my face, lean on the sink with both hands against the counter.

  “You told me you weren’t there.”

  At the heart of every good lie is the truth, that’s what Elise told me once. The best lies are at least half-true, she said, but what if she had it wrong? What if it was the other way around? What if it was the truth that required a lie? Not the facts but the truth, and the truth is that it was all a horrible accident.

  I collapse to my knees, fingers still gripping the edge of the sink, head heavy.

  “Remy!” Vera tries to catch me but she’s too late.

  Letting go of the counter, I ball up into myself like I’ve been punched in the gut. It becomes more and more difficult to breathe. I’m gasping for air until I vomit onto the floor, my morning coffee coming up bitter and burning.

  “Oh my God,” Vera says, but her voice barely reaches me. She leaves my side to return with fistfuls of paper towels.

  Despite the coughing and choking, I feel strangely better. Empty, but lighter, like I have a new sense of clarity. I know what I have to do, how I’ll save us. And for the first time, I have direction.

  I wasn’t there but if that’s what I need to say to make sure they know the truth—that Elise would never have killed Jack if she’d known it was him—then I’ll say it. I’ll lie, but only so they’ll know the truth.

  I stagger up and hold on to the nearest wall to steady myself. Vera is saying something but it’s hard for me to hear.

  Finally, her voice comes into focus. “You said you weren’t there,” she says again.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?” she asks, not angry, just perplexed, and I’m relieved. “You know I’m on your side, right?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again, and I am but only for the trouble it’s causing her now, not the lie.

  “Were you just scared to tell me?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “So you were there,” she says. “And you saw all of it.”

  Jack’s gone, but Elise is still here.

  “Remy?”

  I nod again, struggling to find my voice. I’ve already lost him, I don’t want to lose her.

  “But everything else is true,” she says, searching my face.

  “Yes,” I manage to say. I wash my hands, watch them shake under the water. After I wipe my face, I look at myself once more. There’s no war paint, no mask to hide behind. This is who I am. I know what I have to do.

  “We don’t have to do this right now,” Vera says. “We can ask to reschedule, come back tomorrow.”

  “No. I’m okay,” I tell her, and though I’m not sure either of us believes that, she sees the determination in my eyes and relents, leading me back.

  Detective Ward isn’t in the room when we return. Vera keeps asking me if I’m okay, telling me that we really could come back tomorrow, but I just shake my head. I’m exhausted and shivering and in pain, but if I don’t do this now, I’ll lose my nerve. I always wanted to be more like Elise, who never second-guessed herself. I thought it was pure confidence, maybe even arrogance, but that wasn’t it. She simply trusted herself and that’s what I have to do now, trust myself. Trust her.

  Taking a deep breath, I sit down at the table and press my palms against the cool surface. When Detective Ward finally comes back, she pauses at the door, leaning aga
inst the frame. “Ready?” she asks, one eyebrow raised. I nod. Detective Ward turns on the camera and sits down in front of me, crossing her legs, examining me. “Why don’t we start over at the beginning.”

  Is it really lying if it’s in service of the truth? The truth is complicated, this lie is simpler. But both roads end in the same destination: This was an accident, pure and simple. One is long and winding, the other is a straighter line.

  Jack, I think, would understand. He didn’t believe in revenge, an eye for an eye, and I can’t imagine that the Jack I knew would want Elise to go to prison for the rest of her life for a mistake—something that couldn’t have been her fault.

  I remember what he said to me once: “You’re still here, you’ve survived so far, and you’ll survive this, too, and whatever else comes your way.” I’m just trying to survive. I’m just trying to hold myself together.

  The camera glares at me, its red light blinking steadily, a time bomb counting off the seconds before detonation. I stare back, unflinching.

  I can’t save him, but maybe, just maybe, I can save her.

  SUNDAY // SEPTEMBER 11 // DAY 2

  11.

  The night of homecoming, Elise pulled up to my house in the early hours of Sunday morning, the windows dark, everyone asleep. We were still giggling in the Pink Caddy, and feeling a little starstruck, I didn’t want to leave her side.

  I felt light, like I was floating, like I could fly. Her spark was contagious, brighter than the fireworks we’d set off earlier.

  “Come on,” I whispered, leading Elise around the house, down to the backyard. We sat by my pool to smoke, lighting matches and tossing them into the water.

  When the night grew too cold, we ducked into the basement for blankets, and that was when I heard their voices upstairs.

  “You can’t be fucking serious!” my mom screamed. “How dumb do you think I am?”

  “It happened one time. You’re never going to let it go. One time and you’re never going to forgive me, are you?” he shouted back.

  I looked at Elise and panicked. Coming back here was a bad idea. All the lights were off—I thought they were asleep or I would never have let Elise stay.