The Best Lies

by Sarah Lyu

  “Do it again?” I asked in a whisper, but she pretended not to hear me.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Jae asked, pouring out a screwdriver for himself and passing the vodka and OJ to Elise. “Who are we going to fuck up?” he joked, taking a sip.

  “No one,” she answered.

  “What’d you want to talk about?” Julie asked, and as Elise began to describe her vision of a ragtag group of vigilantes, my phone buzzed.

  Jack: Meet me after your thing?

  I glanced up to see Elise still preoccupied and quickly typed back a response.

  Me: I don’t think I can

  Jack: If you need a ride, I could pick you up?

  Then he sent a picture of him and Lola making puppy dog eyes, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Remy?” Elise said.

  “Sorry, what?” I looked at them blankly.

  “I was saying this could be a way to help people,” she said, a little annoyed.

  “Yeah,” I said, confused by what she wanted me to say.

  “Like what we pulled off with Jae’s ex and your ex, but on a bigger scale,” she continued. It annoyed me, the way she’d trot out our first prank every once in a while, like it was one of her signature achievements. That night was supposed to be special, but the way she brought it up cheapened the memory.

  “There are a lot of assholes out there,” Julie said.

  “And it wouldn’t be limited to exes,” Elise added quickly when she saw the reluctance on Madison’s face. “And it wouldn’t really be about revenge.”

  Me: I don’t think I can

  Me: I’m sorry

  Jack: It’s okay, thought I’d ask.

  Me: I’m sorry

  Jack: Don’t be

  Jack: Me and Lola will be here :)

  Then he sent another sweet photo of Lola. I saved all the pictures he sent me in a new album, Jack & Lola. When I caught Elise looking at me, I put my phone away, sad I was here talking about pranks when I could’ve been with Jack.

  “I’m in,” Jae said, with Julie agreeing soon after that.

  But Madison hesitated. “I don’t know. How will this even work?”

  “We’ll be like vigilantes,” Elise said. “Like with Mr. Dawkins. We’ll look for people who deserve to be brought down.” She set her cup down. “We’ll be like secret heroes, helping people who need us.” It was the conviction in her voice that cut through me, that raw pain. Any lingering resentment from earlier that night evaporated.

  “Okay,” Madison said. “I’m in.”

  Elise glanced over at me, and it felt like there was no space between us, like looking at her alone was enough to feel electric. Are you with me? she was asking.

  There was a time I would’ve run into battle for her without hesitation, but now I wasn’t so sure. It used to feel like she was the only one who really knew me, the only one who could ever know me, but now I wondered if that was true. Finally I tilted my head down ever so slightly in acknowledgment, and she smiled at me.

  • • •

  It was pitch-black when Elise and I went back to the Pink Mansion. We put blankets down on the balcony and lay there, smoking and watching the dark, dark sky, the moon and stars hidden behind a thick cover of clouds.

  “Promise me something,” she said, eyes vulnerable, all her usual confidence gone.

  “What?” I looked at her with concern. It was scary, seeing her like this.

  “Promise me that you’ll never leave me.” She sounded unusually despondent, almost like I’d already left. “I need you.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said, tapping my cigarette against a mug beside me.

  “I’m not. People are always leaving me.” She was talking about her mom. “Sometimes I think I’m just this black hole of need. That I just need and need and need. That I’m too much for anyone to handle. And that’s why they always leave.”

  “I won’t leave,” I said fiercely, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “And I need you, too.” I remembered everything she’d done for me, how she’d been there for me. I had to be here for her.

  “You’ll never choose someone over me?” she said.

  “Never,” I promised, even though it felt like she was only asking this question now that I had someone else in my life.

  “You won’t get all wrapped up with Jack and forget about me?” she asked.

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Promise me you won’t ever choose him over me,” she insisted.

  “I promise,” I said. “There, happy?” I couldn’t believe she’d felt so threatened by Jack so soon, but maybe it was just because of the weekend and how awful it’d been for her.

  Elise answered with a smile and rested her head on my shoulder. The weekend had been a roller coaster, but as we lay there, I had every reason to think we were back on solid ground.

  SPRING BREAK // DAYS 210–219

  FRIDAY // APRIL 7

  35.

  The next time I saw Jack, I turned off my phone and didn’t tell Elise where I was going. It was the first night of spring break and I knew she’d want to spend it staying out late, the five of us, maybe go to the football field, but all I wanted was to see Jack again. I felt a little bad, but I just wanted to avoid a repeat of last time. She couldn’t crash our date if she didn’t know where I was.

  He picked me up at seven and seemed almost nervous, making awkward conversation and insisting on paying for dinner.

  “Everything okay?” I asked. It’d been so easy to talk to him the night of Summer’s party only a week ago.

  “Of course,” he said. “Why? Are you not having a good time?”

  “No, that’s not it,” I said as I watched him from across the table of the sushi restaurant he’d picked. He wanted to impress me, I realized. The nervousness, the insistence on paying. It was endearing, how much he wanted me to like him. When I reached for his hand, he looked startled for a moment before he relaxed into a smile.

  I looked right at him. “We don’t have to do this—the dinner and a movie thing. I don’t care what we do, I just want to spend time with you,” I said. The night was mine to give away and I wanted to give it to him.

  For a moment, he looked caught off guard, then he smiled, eyes shy. “Okay.”

  “Tell me something true,” I said softly.

  Playing with my hand, intertwining our fingers together and letting go, he considered what to say. “I used to be a nationally ranked swimmer.”

  “Really?” I asked, impressed.

  Jack nodded. “I think I still hold the under-eighteen national record for the two-hundred-meter butterfly.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I can’t believe I asked you if you could swim the night we met.”

  He laughed. “It’s okay, you were just worried about my safety.”

  “Of course.” I smiled. “So, are you captain of the Riverside swim team?”

  “Um, I was. But I quit the team even before I took this year off.” Then he quickly changed the subject, turning the attention back onto me: “Tell me something true.”

  I didn’t know what to say for a long time. My life was boring—nothing had happened to me yet. The misfit child in a family of overachievers, I was the definition of unremarkable. I wasn’t like Elise, charming and funny. Electric.

  “I really want to meet Lola,” I said, which was both something true and something that deflected attention.

  Jack’s smile lit up the entire restaurant. “Okay.” We skipped the movie and went to Jack’s house to pick her up. “I’m staying with my cousin Evan right now. It’s a long story,” he said. “Wait here.” He disappeared into the house and came out with Lola a couple minutes later.

  “Whoa,” he said when she jumped on me.

  “It’s okay.” I bent over to greet her, rubbing her head and neck, scratching behind her ears.

  “She likes you,” Jack said. “And Lola is a good judge of character.” I laughed as she licked my arm.

  Jack pac
ked a thermos of coffee and we walked a mile to a dog park. With the sky almost dark, we had the whole place to ourselves. Jack held my hand and tossed an old tennis ball for Lola until she tired herself out. Eventually she settled down in the grass near where Jack and I sat sharing one of the old wooden benches.

  “Why’d you quit?” I asked, drawing up my legs and sitting cross-legged.

  “I was in a car accident almost two years ago.” He lifted his left hand, showing me a scar. I brushed my thumb over the glossy, stretched skin. “I have a pin in my wrist, and some hardware in my left shoulder.”

  “Wow.” I touched the scar gingerly before wrapping both my hands around his wrist.

  “To be honest,” he said, “I’m not sure I would’ve continued even if I didn’t get into an accident. I started swimming around eight, and I was really good. Great, even.”

  Jack had a swimmer’s body—broad shoulders, long legs and torso, an arm span big enough it seemed like he could hug me twice over. I could picture him cutting through the water quickly.

  “I won a lot. More than a lot, actually,” he said, opening his thermos to take a sip.

  “Don’t be so modest.” I laughed. “Tell me more about how you won everything.”

  He laughed too. “Sorry, that isn’t what I meant.”

  “I know,” I said, smiling.

  “Okay, you’re going to laugh again, but I kind of wish I hadn’t won so much?”

  “Oh my God.” I bumped him with my shoulder and rolled my eyes. “You know that this is the very definition of humblebragging?” He was so adorable.

  “I know, I know, I’m terrible,” he said, and I laughed. “But hear me out. When you’re a kid and you find out you’re really good at something, it becomes kind of addicting, the trophies and medals, even if they’re just made of plastic. After a few years of this, it starts taking over your life. I lived to swim, I lived to win, and I didn’t know what I was without it. And then it became less about winning and more about not losing.” He shook his head, a rueful smile on his face. “I know, I know, first-world problems.”

  “No,” I said, taking his hand. “I get it, actually. My parents, my brother—that’s exactly what it’s like for them. I’m kind of the family disappointment,” I quipped in an attempt at a joke.

  “That sucks, I’m sorry,” he said, and I could tell he was sincere. “If your parents are like the grown-up version of Christian, then yeah, I can see how they’re like that.”

  “They’re all kind of intense and I’m just not.” I reached over to pet Lola, who’d taken to sitting by Jack’s feet and resting her chin on the seat of the bench between us. “And it’s like life is a race that’s theirs to lose.”

  “Exactly.” He looked at me and my heart skipped a beat. There it was again, that rare kind of connection I felt from the night we met, when you see a piece of yourself in someone else and you feel less alone. “It becomes all about how to stay on top, how to be faster than anyone else and stay faster. But at some point you just can’t. It happens to everyone, and even if I’d never gotten into an accident, I was getting burned out. It was bound to happen.” He shrugged. “But honestly, it doesn’t matter, because I did get into an accident.”

  I remembered what he said that first night we met, about that homesickness for another life, that feeling of being in the wrong timeline of your life, the wrong version of yourself. And even though he said he probably would’ve quit, I wondered if he thought of the accident as the thing that derailed his plans, that took the choice from him.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “It was stupid, one of the stupidest decisions I’ve ever made. I was at a party and this guy I was friends with was pretty wasted and wanted to drive home. I offered to drive him, but we ended up in a crash anyway. Another car clipped us and we slammed into a telephone pole. We were lucky enough to walk away, but his car was totaled.”

  “Wow, what are the odds?” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Shit happens. I’ve long given up on the idea that there’s such a thing as fairness.” He was so different from Elise, who railed against the world, who couldn’t tolerate any injustice, no matter how small.

  “Did you quit right after?” I asked.

  “Yes and no. Even after months of PT, it just wasn’t the same. Maybe it was the surgery, the metal pins, the scar tissue, but I have a lot less range of motion on my left side.” He demonstrated by stretching each arm back. “And you need a lot of upper-body flexibility to be a fast swimmer.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever go back?” It was too sad, the idea that one night took so much from him.

  “Maybe? My grandpa really wanted me to, thought I could maybe get a scholarship for college even if I’d never make the national team, and I promised him I would, but I don’t know.”

  Lightning flashed in the distance, burning up part of the sky, and Lola perked up at the sound of faraway thunder just as it began to rain.

  “Come on,” Jack said, grabbing my hand and making a run for it. We laughed as the sudden deluge soaked us to the bone, Lola barking as we ducked under a canopy. We looked up at the same time and shared a breathy laugh. Then he leaned in, resting his forehead on mine, tangling our fingers together.

  “Hi,” he said softly.

  “Hi.”

  When he kissed me, I held on tight, not wanting to let go.

  SATURDAY // APRIL 8

  36.

  “Where were you?” Elise demanded the next morning when I finally answered one of her calls. “I drove by your house but you weren’t home.”

  “Sorry, I was out with Jack and my phone died.” The lie was innocent enough. I didn’t owe her an explanation, but it was strange, intentionally lying to her for the first time. Then again, she was the one who lied first. “We got caught out in the rain and by the time I got home, all I could manage was a quick shower before I fell asleep.”

  “You missed everything,” she said, clearly annoyed. “How soon can you get dressed? I’m coming to pick you up.” Before I could even protest, she added, “Never mind, just get ready, I’ll be there in fifteen,” and promptly hung up. This was classic Elise. She made the decisions, dictated the terms, and I’d been more than happy to let her take the lead. It’d been such a relief to have someone to follow, but now it was beginning to grate on me.

  Ten minutes later, she was already waiting for me downstairs. I hadn’t even had time for a shower or to grab a bite to eat.

  “You look terrible,” she said when she saw me.

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “And what are you wearing?” She stared at my shirt.

  “Oh, it’s Jack’s,” I said, and when she shot me a droll look, I added, “You didn’t exactly give me enough time to get ready!” The truth was that I liked wearing his Superman tee, the cotton soft from years of use, and even though I’d washed it since he gave it to me, sometimes I could still catch a hint of peppermint.

  “Okay, whatever,” she said. “Get in.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Can we at least get something to eat on the way?” I complained. “I’m starving.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  • • •

  “What am I looking at here?” I asked when she pulled up to the school. They’d chained together the metal bar gates at the entrance and we had to go on foot.

  “You’ll see, come on!” she said, pulling me along by the wrist. It was strange, being on campus during break. It was completely deserted, the parking lots empty, the silence almost oppressive.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked as we went around to the back doors, the entrance to the gym.

  “You’ll see,” she repeated before pulling out a set of keys.

  “Where’d you get those?” I asked, alarmed.

  She shrugged. “On Friday. Don’t worry, I’ll make copies and make sure Ms. Corkern gets them back.” Corkern taught sophomore chem. I didn’t ha
ve her but Elise probably did. I remembered how she’d swiped that substitute teacher’s car keys with no one noticing, not even me. Ms. Corkern also coached softball, which meant she’d have a key to the gym for early or late practices. So that was how they got in.

  “What about—” Inside, I looked up at where the cameras were positioned.

  “Don’t worry, we took care of them last night. It was dark and we were wearing all black, our faces covered.”

  I squinted, looking at the cameras closer. “You—”

  “—are awesome?” she finished for me with a laugh. “A genius? I’m aware.” She’d cut the power supply line behind each one of them. “Come on.” She took me by the hand, dragging me along as I gaped at all the disabled security cameras along the way. She finally stopped at a classroom in the language arts hall. “Ready?” she said, hand positioned over the doorknob.

  I nodded, confused, until we entered and I saw Mr. Dawkins’s nameplate on the teacher’s desk.

  “Ta-da!” Elise said with a wide sweep of her arm, smiling at her grand destruction.

  “Oh my God.” She’d outdone herself, they all had. All the student desks had been stacked into four towers that reached the ceiling. His desk had been egged. Silly string coated the walls, along with what looked like some kind of slime. And then there was what they’d written on the whiteboard. It was a satirical take on kindergarten rules, complete with cutesy decorations. Stay in your seat, raise your hand, walk, don’t run, say please and thank you—the usual suspects. Then there was the last one, which was simply, “Don’t be a perv.”

  Elise laughed, looking at it again. “The best part is that everything was written with dry erase markers except that last one, so when he goes to wipe the board, he’ll clear everything and realize the last line’s in Sharpie. Julie came up with that.”

  “Wow,” I said, surveying the disaster.

  “I can’t believe you weren’t there,” she said. “Our first mission and you were MIA.” She shook her head in mock disappointment until I looked sufficiently chastised, even if I didn’t feel it. “So, what do you think? Pretty awesome, right?”