The Best Lies

by Sarah Lyu

  “Anyone else could’ve brought the peanut butter.” I only kept pushing because I was secretly hoping that what she wanted wasn’t the peanut butter but me.

  “You were our lookout! You were crucial to the entire operation, and I won’t let you minimize your importance,” she said, sliding off of her lounger and scooting onto mine. “Also, I missed you.”

  Hearing those words thrilled me. “You did? Why didn’t you just—” Text? Call? Sit with me at lunch?

  She sighed. “You’re always with Melody and it’s obvious she doesn’t like me.”

  “No, that’s not true!” I said, but it was.

  Elise rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

  “She just doesn’t know you,” I said, slinging an arm around her. It was so easy, slipping back into how we were that first night, like no time had passed. “I think you should give her another chance. You guys have a lot of things in common.” I didn’t want to lose Elise again, but I didn’t want to hurt Melody either.

  Elise raised an eyebrow. “We have a lot in common? I’d rather die than spend an evening baking stuff and then setting up a table in the cafeteria to sell crappy cookies.”

  “One, Melody’s cookies are amazing. Two, she isn’t like that all the time. She can be fun. And three, she thinks boys are stupid too, just like you do.”

  She sighed again, dramatically, then began to fiddle with her lighter, flipping it open and closed, sparking a flame and letting the wind blow it out.

  “Fine, whatever. But if she tries to get me to bake something again, I’m out.”

  “Okay,” I said, relieved. “I’ll let her know.”

  Elise laughed lightly, resting her head against my shoulder and closing her eyes.

  SATURDAY // NOVEMBER 19 // DAY 71

  14.

  I turned seventeen in Elise’s pink convertible, the two of us in the front seat, my feet propped up on the dashboard, her legs hanging over the driver’s-side door, our eyes staring up at the dark sky.

  Melody had brought cake to school on Friday and we were going to have a sleepover at her house, as was our tradition. But when Elise asked if I was free, I canceled on her at the last minute, lying about a stomachache. I’d been doing that a lot lately, even though I wasn’t trying to avoid Mel. Elise joined us for lunch more often but they remained cordial at best.

  “I don’t get her,” Melody told me once, and I almost laughed because that was exactly how Elise felt about her.

  “She’s fun,” I’d said, and left it at that.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to spend time with Mel anymore. I just found myself saying yes to Elise more, gravitating toward her, spinning in her orbit.

  We were on our second cigarette when midnight came for me. A new year, a new me.

  “Happy birthday,” Elise said, tapping her ashes over the car door. “Welcome to seventeen.”

  “I hate birthdays,” I said, wrapping my jacket around me tighter. The wind chilled my fingers but I didn’t want to pull the top over us and lose the stars.

  “Why?” She turned to me, curious.

  “Bad memories.” When I turned five, my parents lost me inside a department store. When I turned nine, my dad had been gone for weeks and forgot to call. When I turned thirteen, no one remembered until early December.

  But although most of my birthdays were forgettable at best and traumatizing at worst, not all were like that. One of my favorite memories was from my sixth birthday, when my parents got me a bike. Electric blue with a shiny bell and wire basket—it was love at first sight.

  The day started off horribly. That morning, Dad said he had to go into the office even though it was the weekend, leaving Mom in charge of teaching me. But she didn’t believe in training wheels, on bicycles or in life, which meant I quickly racked up an impressive array of scrapes on my knees and elbows, hands and shins.

  “I don’t understand,” Mom said after I crashed for the fifth time. “Christian picked it up right away.” I wanted to cry but I knew she’d only yell at me for it, and say something about how crying was a weakness. She believed that as a girl, I shouldn’t cry especially because that was what people expected from me.

  “I’m sorry” was all I said.

  Things were no better when Dad emerged from the house in a crisp shirt and slacks, hair gelled back, his laptop bag over his shoulder.

  “Christian practically taught himself,” Mom said, helping me up yet again.

  “Hey, come on,” Dad said, walking over to us.

  “Stay out of it, Stephen,” she said, straightening the bike. “Don’t you have to go?” She didn’t bother glancing back at him. I looked between them, terrified another fight was about to erupt.

  Dad didn’t answer, just watched as Mom sent me down our driveway yet again. By then I’d learned to stay close to the lawn, and Dad saw me land on the grass a couple more times before he intervened again.

  “Why don’t I go to the store on my way home later and pick up some training wheels?” he offered. “We can try again tonight.”

  I would’ve liked that, but Mom said no. “I told you to stay out of it.”

  “You’re not making this fun—it’s her birthday. All she’s doing is falling and hurting herself over and over.”

  “She has to learn on her own. She’s got to toughen up. She’s not always going to have the option of training wheels, then what?”

  “She’s six,” he said, shaking his head. “She should be having fun.”

  I looked from one to the other, wishing I could just disappear. Or better yet, be like Christian. They never fought because of Christian. Mom was right: He was always fine on his own and he never needed training wheels.

  “Fine, you want to do this, go right ahead.” Then she went inside, leaving the two of us staring at each other in mild surprise. Mom didn’t give in often, if ever. Maybe she felt bad for yelling at me on my birthday. Or maybe she was just tired. Of me.

  Dad called in sick, bought a set of training wheels, and spent the day teaching me how to ride a bike.

  “You’re getting the hang of it,” he told me in the afternoon when we were done, and I could tell that he meant it.

  I felt so good, being out of Mom’s ice storm and basking in the warmth of his praise.

  “Did Christian really do this without training wheels?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking. It was always there—he was always there, two steps ahead of me, and I was always chasing him.

  “I don’t remember,” he said. “I really don’t.”

  I didn’t believe him. Christian was a prodigy, always faster, better.

  “Your mom—” He broke off, sighing. “Listen to me, Remy. None of that matters. What Christian did or didn’t do isn’t important. And besides, this just means we get to spend more time together, right?”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way, hadn’t thought he’d want to spend time with me.

  “We’ll do this every day until you win the Tour de France,” he said, shooting me a wink.

  “What’s that?”

  His laughter was infectious. “Just a silly joke. But we’ll do this every day until you’re the best bicyclist in the neighborhood,” he promised.

  “Better than Christian?” I asked, not believing him.

  “The best.” By the end of the week, the training wheels were off. I didn’t need them anymore, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need my dad anymore.

  • • •

  “I love birthdays,” Elise said, bringing me back to the Cadillac and the stars. “It always means one year closer to freedom.” She stretched her arms overhead in an exaggerated yawn.

  “True,” I said. “I can’t wait until I’m out of that house.” Away from my parents and their path of destruction. I’d leave and never look back.

  “What will you do? Where will you go?” Elise asked, flicking her cigarette away, a burning streak of orange against the night.

  I released a stream of smoke, watched it mark the air. “I do
n’t know. I just want to get out.”

  “Come on,” she said, her eyes on me. “Use your imagination.”

  “I guess I’d be in college.” I shrugged, tossing my cigarette as well. I watched it hit the pavement, its spark bursting, then dying.

  “Really? That’s it?” Elise said, shaking her head in disbelief, her dark hair brushing her face softly. “What about after?”

  “Whatever people do after college. Get a job or something.” Melody was always talking about which schools were on her list, how she was going to be a doctor. I’d never thought that far ahead. I didn’t know what kind of life I’d have. I just knew there was another one out there waiting for me. A Remy Tsai I’d step into once I left home. Someone who’d know what to do, who’d never feel lost again.

  “Get a job, get married, have kids, retire, wait to die,” Elise said with a sigh, like she was disappointed in me. “Boring. Don’t you want anything more?” She lit yet another cigarette and offered it to me. “More than what our parents have. More than an ordinary existence in an ordinary town like Lyndens Creek. More than a one-size-fits-all life. Just more.” Her voice was threaded with confidence, her eyes wide.

  A shiver slipped down my spine. Take me with you, I wanted to say. Don’t leave me behind to live this ordinary life. Elise played with her lighter, flipping its heavy top open and shutting it, the metal gleaming even in low light. She sighed, turning away from me, eyes focused on the sky.

  “Then what?” I asked, my voice a whisper, like she was telling me a fairy tale and I didn’t want to break the spell.

  “I know what I don’t want more than what I want,” she said, her eyes faraway. “I don’t want my life to be a waste. I don’t want to blindly follow some checklist. I don’t want to be forgotten.” She snapped the top of her lighter closed a final time, the strike of metal against metal ringing in my ear.

  “No one could ever forget you,” I said, my hand reaching for hers, tugging her back to earth. She turned from the stars to me and smiled.

  “I want my life to mean something. I want to be remembered. Because why even bother being alive if you’re not going to leave a mark, if you’re not going to really live?” I’d never thought about it that way. If anything, I did everything I could to not leave a mark, to become invisible and avoid setting off my parents.

  We were quiet on the drive back, her words echoing in my mind. “Want to go to my place?” she asked when we were close to my house. She was going to drop me off but she didn’t want to say goodbye and neither did I. “My dad’s not home,” she added.

  “Where is he?” I looked at her curiously.

  “Oh, at his girlfriend’s again.” She shrugged.

  Elise never talked about him, except to say if he was home or not. He reminded me of my parents, always absent. But instead of buried in work, he was always at his girlfriend’s house.

  I knew almost nothing about the girlfriend, just her name, Heidi, and that she worked as a real estate agent—Elise called her The Realtor. I’m not sure Elise knew much more.

  When Elise’s grandmother left her the Pink Mansion in the will, her dad had wanted to “unload it.” That’s what Elise said, complete with air quotes. They drove down from Chattanooga one weekend the summer before sophomore year to meet with real estate agents, and that’s how her father met Heidi.

  “Do you not like her?” I asked, wondering why he was always at her place and never the other way around.

  “I’ve met her a few times. She’s okay I guess,” she said, like she hadn’t ever given it much thought. “She’s not trying to be my mom, so I don’t hate her.”

  Elise didn’t like talking about her family, barely ever mentioning her father and never talking about her mother. All I knew about her was what Elise had told me that first night. I couldn’t tell if she never wanted to talk about her mom because she missed her or because she didn’t.

  • • •

  It was almost one in the morning when we pulled into her driveway. She parked but didn’t get out, staring off into the distance. Shivering from the cold, I grabbed the cigarettes and she lit two. The wind gently lifted her hair off her shoulders, and in the moonlight she looked ethereal—skin glowing, eyes sparkling, a hint of a smile on her lips. I wondered if she was imagining what the future held.

  “Why are you here with me?” I asked. I realized I sounded insecure but I needed to know what she saw in me. “I mean, why do you even like me? I’m not . . .” I left the rest unsaid. I’m not pretty like you, not funny or brilliant like you. I’m not interesting like you.

  “I make it a policy to have an opinion on everyone, and I have pretty good instincts,” she said, turning toward me. “I’d noticed you around school before the night of homecoming. I thought you were a Hermione.”

  “A Hermione.” I looked at her in confusion.

  “You know: straight As, boring, tame. A little like Melody, no offense.”

  “Wow,” I said. I was hurt but tried to pretend I wasn’t. “Is that what you really thought when you first saw me?”

  “Yes, but I was wrong,” she said, draping an arm around my shoulders. “I’ve never been more wrong about someone in my life.”

  I shot her a skeptical look, but felt a little better.

  “I’m serious. Your ex-boyfriend was an asshole, but in a way I’m glad. Because I got to meet you. The real you,” she said, playing with my hair.

  “Spoiler alert: I am pretty boring,” I joked.

  Elise shook her head. “No, you’re not. You’re just like me. You’re tough, you’ve been through a lot, more than any of the losers at this school.” She turned to face me, staring into my soul. “That makes you special. Surviving—having to survive—makes you stronger. Things have never been easy for people like us, Rem. I’m really, really glad I met you.”

  “Me too,” I said, smiling, blushing. No one had ever called me special or said I was strong.

  “I want you to have this,” she said, pressing her lighter into my palm, closing my fingers around it with both of her hands. The warmth of her touch lingered after she let go. “Look at the bottom.”

  I angled it toward the scant moonlight. Elise x Remy, it said, inscribed in a simple script.

  “Happy birthday.” She had the softest smile.

  “When did you get this done?” I stared at her in surprise. I couldn’t believe she’d noticed me admiring it, or that she’d give me something that obviously meant a lot to her. Elise always had it on her, was always fiddling with it. My thumb traced over the silver filigree. It looked like an antique, like it held an important piece of her history, like it was a piece of her. I’d never gotten something so personal before. This was the kind of thing people only gave to family. And maybe that was what Elise was saying—that we could be family. I held it tightly in my hand like it was proof I was loved, and maybe that’s exactly what it was. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she said, still smiling. “Come on.” We went inside, up to her room. As we got ready for bed, I set the gift on my pillow and stared at it. Soft light from the street filtered through the blinds and hit the metal like a spark. Maybe it really was a piece of her, I thought as I drifted to sleep.

  Elise was electricity. I was the night. She banished the darkness, she lit me up.

  SATURDAY // NOVEMBER 26 // DAY 78

  15.

  Every relationship has a pivotal moment that defines it. Ours was the night of Northside Hospital’s annual Thanksgiving fundraiser, held at the Four Seasons downtown that year. We were friends before, maybe even best friends, but after that night, we were family.

  Elise spent Thanksgiving break in Chattanooga with her father, packing up the rest of their things. She sent me pictures of weird stuff she found in her closet—a self-portrait done in macaroni from kindergarten, a half-used pack of hair extensions—and funny selfies of her sprawled on the floor exhausted. And then, late Saturday morning, she texted to say she was back and wanted to hang out.


  Me: Can’t

  Me: I have to go to this black tie dinner the hospital’s throwing to get money from rich old people and pretend I love my mom

  Elise: Okay, I’m in

  Elise: Just how black tie is this thing?

  I stared at her message with surprise. Christian and I never, ever brought anyone to these things for the same reason we almost never invited people over to our house.

  Before I could come up with an excuse, she sent a picture of a deep red cocktail dress. “This okay?” she asked.

  Fuck it, I thought, and sent her a thumbs-up emoji. They always had a few no-shows every year, and in public my parents liked to pretend everything was perfect—their marriage, their kids. It was always unsettling when my mom squeezed my shoulders and kissed the top of my head, or when my dad laughed at all of her jokes and looked at her as if he still loved her. But all of that just meant they’d be too preoccupied trying to convince everyone they had it all to cause any kind of scene.

  The night started out as expected, a crowd of wealthy donors mingling in a large ballroom, waiters in crisp uniforms offering cocktail shrimp and mini crab cakes. Elise and I huddled together by one end of the bar, sipping sparkling apple cider, laughing as she made fun of what some of the donors were wearing: “Sequins should be banned.” Mom chatted people up with Christian by her side, occasionally glancing at the door for Dad’s arrival. He’d gone into the Coke office that morning, taking his tux with him. He was supposed to join us here but when it came time to sit, he still hadn’t shown up. Watching Mom smile and make excuses for him to our tablemates, I could see the lines tighten around her eyes in anger.

  Elise, not picking up on the tension, was peering at the person on the other side of my mom.

  “I keep forgetting that Christian’s your brother,” she said, distracted.

  I gave her a look. “We have the same last name.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t want to assume,” she said, her eyes still on him. Christian was Riverside-famous. Everyone at school seemed to have a crush on him, from the captain of the volleyball team to the president of Speech and Debate. Even Melody, who considered boys a waste of time, was drawn to his good looks and stellar grades. But he was more than grades and academic extracurriculars. He’d been class president every year until he ascended to student council president his senior year. He played three varsity sports, was the captain of the basketball team, and was being recruited by coaches at Brown and Princeton.