The Best Lies

by Sarah Lyu

  Some nights, Elise would drag me out with them, and we’d go to McDonald’s or Waffle House for breakfast at midnight, or go for an aimless drive. On our first nighttime adventure, we all went to the football field at school and sat on the Astroturf, smoking and talking. At some point, Jae took out his phone to play music and Julie took Madison’s hand, the two of them dancing in the dark.

  “Come on,” Elise said, pulling me up too. She twirled me and I laughed, feeling exhilarated, the winter air sharp against my skin. Eventually we all collapsed onto the ground, breathless.

  Melody would never approve, I thought. It wasn’t a school night, but it was still late and we were technically trespassing on our own school property. Then again, Melody and I weren’t talking much by that point.

  The last time we spoke had been over two weeks ago. She’d cornered me after school one day. “I’m worried about you,” she began, and I could already feel my defenses coming up.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I’m sure she really thought she was worried about me, but I couldn’t help but think that she was just jealous.

  “You seem different. It’s like you just moved on from obsessing over Cameron to obsessing over Elise,” she said with a frown.

  I shrugged it off. “What do you want, Mel?”

  “Nothing,” she said, looking hurt. “You’re my oldest friend. My best friend.”

  I stayed quiet but felt bad. “You say that like we’re not friends anymore.”

  “Are we?” Melody asked. “I never see you and you don’t even bother to text me back most of the time.”

  “I’m sorry.” I meant it, but both of us knew I wasn’t going to come back to the fold. I never felt like I fit in with Mel and her friends, and now I had Elise, someone who knew and loved the real me.

  “Elise—I don’t know,” she said, and my guard was up again.

  “What about Elise?” I said, immediately ready to defend her.

  “She seems kind of selfish?” Melody said, sounding uncertain. “Wait—maybe that’s not the right word.”

  “Elise is one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met,” I said, remembering our first night together. How she caught me when I was reeling and patched me up. She always knew what I needed, she was always looking out for me.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Melody tried again, but I was already walking away from her.

  Elise said Melody and I had simply outgrown each other. “But don’t worry,” she told me. “We will never outgrow each other.” And I believed her.

  Lying on the Astroturf, we were all still laughing, Elise’s hand loosely on top of my wrist. Our eyes met and even in the dark I could see that undercurrent of electricity behind hers. She gave my hand a short squeeze and let go.

  “I’m bored,” Jae announced when the laughter died down.

  “Well, we can’t have that. What do you want to do?” Elise asked.

  “I don’t know. But something. Anything.”

  “I have an idea,” Julie said. “We could go trash Mr. Dawkins’s classroom.”

  “What? Why?” Ben said.

  “Ugh, he is gross,” Elise said. Dawkins, one of the AP Lit teachers, had a certain reputation for being a creep. He never said anything reportable but I’d heard girls complain about the way he’d look at them, staring a little too long, or the way he kept asking some of the students to come by his room after school for a chat—almost always his female students. I stayed clear of him and his classroom. Had he done something awful to Julie?

  “I don’t know how or why, but he found out about me and Madi,” Julie said. “And he pulled her aside to ask her about us.”

  We all sat up and looked at Madison expectantly. “Well, I mean, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but yeah, not exactly great either. He was just ‘curious,’ ” she said, using air quotes. “He wanted to know why I broke up with my boyfriend for Julie, which isn’t even what happened!” I couldn’t believe he took it upon himself to target them like that.

  “He said he was concerned about her,” Julie said, rolling her eyes. “He wanted to make sure she was making good life choices.”

  “What the hell?” Ben said, leaning forward, elbows against his knees.

  “Actually, he didn’t even say Julie’s name, just ‘that girl,’ ” Madison added before reaching for Julie’s hand.

  “Wonderful,” Elise said.

  “Let’s do it,” Jae said. “Let’s go trash his room.”

  “No,” Madison said. “Let’s just forget about it. I mean, he’s a jerk but he’s harmless, you know? More annoying than anything else. And I’m graduating in a few months, anyway.”

  “I don’t know,” Elise said. “I feel like we should do something.” It was moments like this that I was extra grateful for Elise. She could be counted on to take action, fix things.

  Madison shook her head. “That was a couple weeks ago and he hasn’t said anything since. Honestly, I feel sorry for him. He’s just sad and pathetic and lonely.”

  “You’re way too nice,” Julie said, but ultimately she sided with Madison, and we dropped it.

  “How do you even end up like that?” Ben asked, reaching for another cigarette.

  “What?” Elise said.

  “Like Dawkins. Pathetic and creepy.”

  “Maybe he was always pathetic and creepy,” Julie said.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. Everyone turned to stare at me, surprised that I’d interjected. With Elise and her friends, I’d always felt a little out of my depth and liked to stay under the radar.

  “What do you mean?” Elise asked.

  “Just—” I thought of my parents. They couldn’t have always been what they were now. They had to have loved each other at some point. There were photographs around the house with genuine smiles, with affection in their eyes. “People change,” I said. “They change and get weird and bitter, and I guess, creepy.”

  “God, I hope that doesn’t happen to me,” Madison said, flopping onto her back, pulling Julie down next to her.

  “I wonder about that sometimes,” Jae said softly, staring at the ground. “Do you like any of the adults you know? I mean, do you want to be like them—your parents, your teachers? Sometimes I think about that and I just want nothing to do with them.”

  “Yeah,” Elise answered, voice quiet. “I know what you mean.”

  “My mom’s okay,” Julie said. “But I don’t want her life. She just seems trapped. Stuck.” Madison took her hand and squeezed it.

  “Like, my parents thought it was a waste of time when I started doing magic,” Jae said. “But when I started getting all this attention, they got excited and made me work at it constantly until I hated it. They still show people that stupid clip of me on Good Morning America even though I quit pretty much right after I went on the show.” He also stretched back down onto the ground, closing his eyes. “Maybe that’s what happens to people.”

  “What?” Madison asked.

  “The universe takes the things they love and turns them into the things they hate,” he said. I thought of my parents then, what they let the universe take from them. How they ended up trapped and unhappy, their misery compounded by their efforts to hide it.

  “That’s just your parents being assholes,” Elise said. “There’s no way I’m going to be anything like mine.”

  “How do you know?” Jae asked.

  Elise simply smiled and said: “The universe only takes things from you if you let it. So don’t.”

  • • •

  Later that night, when it was just the two of us, we went to the Pink Mansion, where we could be alone, her father gone for the night. Out on the balcony, Elise sat on the bannister even though it made me nervous. The drop to the river below was steep, and in the dark it was hard to see anything and that made it seem even farther away.

  “Get down,” I told her.

  “I’m fine,” she said, smiling down at me. “I’m not going to fall.”

  “Elis
e,” I said. “Please.”

  “Trust me,” she said. “I’m not going to fall. Join me, it feels good.”

  I shook my head and she shrugged.

  “You know what we should do?” she said, her voice excited.

  “What?”

  “We should prank Dawkins,” she said, eyes bright. “He’s a predator. Come on, it’ll be like a present for Julie and Madi.”

  “But Madison said she didn’t want to prank him.”

  “She did,” Elise insisted. “She was just too scared to admit it.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “We won’t do anything big.” She hopped down. “No mice or slashed tires. We’ll just find out where he lives and set off fireworks outside his house, like we did with Cameron.”

  It took me a moment before I caved. “Okay, I guess,” I said, following her into the house and up to the attic. We rifled through box after box, starting with the ones near where we’d found fireworks the first time, but there were no more to be found.

  Instead, we found a gun.

  A small revolver with bullets beside it, all nestled in a leather case. Elise pulled it out, the attic light hitting the metal barrel like a spark.

  I instinctively backed away. “Oh my God, put that down!”

  She fiddled with it, checking to see if it was loaded. “Don’t worry. There aren’t any bullets.” Elise pointed it away from us and pulled the trigger. Click. “See? Nothing to worry about.”

  “Oh my God.” Alarmed, I recoiled from her, scrambling away.

  “What? It was unloaded!” she said, like it was no big deal.

  It took a few breaths before I could speak again. “Still. And why was there a gun here anyway? Did you know?”

  “I had no idea,” she said. “It must’ve belonged to my grandparents.”

  “Let’s put the gun down,” I said, both hands raised.

  Elise ignored me and got up, posing with it pointed up close to her chest like she was an action hero about to kick down a door, a spy with a license to kill. Her dark hair looked coppery, almost golden under the light, and when she swept it back to one side, she shot me a quick wink.

  “Put the gun down,” I said, slowly getting up. I couldn’t believe how cavalier she was being. “Please.”

  Elise sighed. “Fine, fine. What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t like guns,” I said. “I just really don’t like them.”

  “Okay.” She put it back into the case and snapped it shut. “There, all gone. Feel better?”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s go to your place, watch a movie.” She dusted herself off. “I’m tired. Dawkins can wait.”

  “I’m tired too,” I said, secretly relieved that the prank had been abandoned. “Let’s just stay here.”

  She paused. For a moment I wondered again about all the time Elise spent over at my house. I’d thought she wanted to be there for me, protect me from the havoc my parents wrought, but wouldn’t I be safer here at the Pink Mansion, away from all of them?

  “The thing is,” she began, choosing her words carefully, “my dad might come back tomorrow morning.”

  So that was it. Her father.

  Elise took a deep breath. “Things are a little weird between us right now.” She sounded pained, like she didn’t want to have to admit that there was something wrong.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked. Finally, I thought. Maybe she’d tell me what was going on with her dad.

  “Yeah, of course,” she said, a little too quickly. “Everything’s fine. He’s just being kind of an asshole.” I wasn’t convinced. When she saw the concern on my face, she added, “It’s nothing I can’t handle.” She attempted a smile that ended up looking more like a grimace. She wasn’t willing to talk, but I knew if I pushed now she’d only dig in harder. I was frustrated that she was still shutting me out but I tried to let it go.

  “What are you in the mood for?” I asked once we were in my basement trying to pick a movie.

  She took a moment to think about it. “Christian Bale?”

  I laughed. “Okay.”

  We fell asleep on the couch in the early hours of the morning, The Dark Knight Rises still playing in front of us.

  That was the night I realized Elise loved superheroes, because superheroes were powerful and the one thing she could never tolerate was feeling powerless. That was partly why she loved playing pranks, why she was always looking out for her friends—she didn’t want anyone else to feel powerless either.

  MONDAY // AUGUST 28 // DAY 353

  22.

  “I’m going to give you a chance now, Remy,” Detective Ward says. “I’m going to give you a chance to change your statement.”

  Vera cuts in. “I need a moment with Remy. Alone.”

  “No,” I say. “It’s okay. I don’t want to change my statement. I was there, and Elise only said that I wasn’t because she thinks she’s protecting me.” Elise is telling the truth—I wasn’t there—but the only way I can save her now is if Ward believes that I was there.

  “And what, exactly, is she protecting you from?” Detective Ward says, an edge to her voice now, her impatience showing again, that flash of teeth.

  “Nothing,” I say, voice strong all of a sudden, strong enough to surprise even me. “She thinks she’s protecting me. She’s worried I’ll get into trouble, she’s—” I break off. “She does this. A lot.”

  “Lie?” Detective Ward asks, lifting her pen to make a note.

  “No!” I need her to see Elise like I do, but I don’t know how to make her understand. We stare at each other, eyes locked. I feel like I’m in the fight of my life—no, the fight for my life. For Elise’s life.

  I’ve already lost Jack.

  I can’t lose her too.

  Heart racing, I manage to hold her gaze until she breaks eye contact. My head is pounding, but this small victory gives me strength.

  “Let’s go over it again,” Detective Ward says, scanning her notes. “One more time, from the top. What were you doing before you and Elise went to her house?”

  The question surprises me. I haven’t thought of anything but the moments surrounding Jack’s death. “I think we had dinner.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m not sure. Panera, maybe?” I say, and that’s the truth. Everything about yesterday feels out of focus, my memories cloudy and fragmented. Where we ate dinner. The 9-1-1 call I made. But some moments are so clear I can close my eyes and I’m there again. Elise’s comforting hand on my shoulder. Jack pressing a kiss to my forehead. The gunshots.

  That gun, that fucking gun. Jack would still be alive if we’d never stumbled across it. Yes, Elise thought she saw her father, and yes, she and Jack were arguing over the pranks. But without the gun, none of this would be happening. The three of us, we’d be in school today. I’d be taking that physics test, but then I’d get to see Jack at lunch. And after, we’d go to the lake.

  No matter how bad things got, we would’ve all survived if it weren’t for that revolver.

  “You’re not sure?” Ward asks. Her voice jolts me back to reality, to the place where I’ve lost Jack. Where I might lose Elise too.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I say, and I can tell she believes me. I have no reason to lie about that. My memories are shards of a broken vase that I’m trying to piece back together.

  “And before dinner?”

  “I was with Jack that morning.” He met me at the lake and we sat by the water, dipping our feet in. I was mad at Elise about the final prank we pulled the night before. If I close my eyes, I can still feel Jack’s arm around my shoulders, heavy and warm. A safe harbor.

  “Doing what?” she asks, leaning toward me, pen positioned over paper.

  “Just hanging out.” The tears fall quickly. I miss him so much that I shake with longing. My body still remembers his touch, still hears his voice, still misses him. I can’t imagine feeling that way about anyone else again. I can’t imagine anyone in his place.
/>
  I don’t know what’s worse—losing him entirely or this tortuous longing. I already fear the day I wake up unable to remember the sound of his voice, or the way we held hands, mine in front of his.

  Detective Ward pauses her questioning about the timeline of that awful day. Instead she says, “Tell me about Jack.”

  FRIDAY // MARCH 31 // DAY 203

  23.

  Elise’s birthday fell on the Saturday after prom, and she spent the entire Friday afternoon before trying to convince me to crash a senior party with her.

  “It’ll be fun,” she promised. “Madison and Julie are going, and so is Jae.”

  By then our circle of friends had come down to the five of us, with Ben leaving not long after he joined—Elise was not for the faint of heart.

  “Madi said it wasn’t seniors only,” Elise added.

  We were passing the last cigarette in her pack back and forth between us while lying on the lounge chairs by the pool in my backyard. It was almost warm enough to swim.

  “Please, Remy? For my birthday?” She turned to face me.

  “It’s just going to be a bunch of drunk idiots hanging out. I’d rather stay in tonight, count down to midnight like we did for mine,” I told her. It’d been the best birthday I had in years, maybe ever. “Or we could just watch both volumes of Kill Bill again and eat cake.”

  “Tempting,” Elise said with a smile. “But no, come on. It’ll be fun. It’s an anti-prom party.”

  “The one Summer’s throwing?” I asked. Summer Stevens was well known for her benevolent popularity and aggressive tennis serve, and for throwing the best parties. She’d gotten into Cornell early and was cruising through the rest of her senior year.

  “Yeah, and everyone’s going to be there.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Everyone?” I just wanted her to admit that she liked Christian. For her to tell me things like I always did with her.

  “Everyone,” she confirmed.

  “Like who?”

  “Well, like I said, Julie and Madi. Jae too.”

  “Who else?” I asked, growing suspicious. “Christian?” She almost never brought him up, or even interacted with him directly, but after the Thanksgiving fundraiser I’d sometimes catch her staring at him with this look of curiosity. Of interest.