Liarholic

by Kingsley Ash

  I take a long, hard drag of my smoke. ‘What was she like?’

  Bishop grimaces. ‘Dunno. She never said more than five words to me.’

  I snap my eyes to his, figure the lie. It’s a soft lie, badly delivered.

  He knows something. He fucking knows something.

  ‘Just tell me something about her,’ I grit out.

  Bishop studies his knuckles. ‘Violet was from another world. As I said, I didn’t really know her.’

  He’s stone-cold lying.

  I should know. It takes a liar to catch a liar.

  ‘Think we’re done here. For now,’ I tell Bishop. ‘Wouldn’t mind bringing us another round of coffee, eh? Cheers.’

  Bishop looks stumped, then goes back to the bar. A waitress brings over our coffee. Bishop is nowhere in sight.

  ‘You know Ella?’ Fab5 says. ‘The redhead from the club that keeps coming on to you?’

  ‘Vaguely. Why?’

  ‘You didn’t sleep with her, did you?’

  I glug back my coffee. It tastes bitter. Lukewarm. ‘Told you already — she’s not my type. Nowhere close.’

  Sunshine brain hair.

  Little emerald cities.

  Princess dresses and cookie dough.

  ‘Good,’ Fab5 says. ‘I’m gonna ask her out on a date.’

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Fab5 scowls at me, then searches in his pocket for his phone. ‘Shit, dude. I need to meet up with the electrician in an hour. He’s helping us set up those new fancy lights we ordered.’

  We walk out of the bar and go to his van.

  ‘Fab5. You don’t think I’ve got heart, do you?’

  My friend opens the door to his van. ‘Hell no, dude. Your heart was cut out long ago.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m secretly Christlike, a man with a pure heart?’

  ‘No way, man. You’re an arsehole of the purest kind.’

  He gets inside. I lean into the open window. ‘You don’t think I’m capable of growing a heart, right?’

  ‘Face it, dude. You’re fucking with a sweet, nice chick who has OCD. And let’s not forget the little detail of blackmail and pretending to be a doctor. You’re already shame spiralling big-time.’

  ‘Tell me again, Fab5.’

  I’m not good and kind and caring or any of that happy horse-shit.

  I’m nothing but a selfish prick. That I can live with. This is who I am. Just a fucking liarholic, and I can’t ever, ever let myself forget that.

  Christ sakes, Amy still thinks I’m a bona-fide psychologist. It’s a lie that’s cutting me to the bone. Which is new to me. I’ve never given a damn until now.

  Love her. Hate her. Can't stand to be away from her. Shit like that makes my eyes all stupid hot and wet like when I was a kid. Thought the lies and fighting fixed that, but I guess not.

  I say to Fab5, ‘Tell me again, I’m a heartless piece of shit.’

  40

  YOU

  Everything feels completely and utterly rotten.

  I catch sight of myself in the bedroom mirror. My eyes water and I blink back the tears. When did all my wires fray and fizzle out? There was a time when I was just away with the twisted fairies, and I couldn’t get out of the room or the estate without checking everything. I’m not just a mad girl, anymore. I’m a hopeless mad girl who needs a fuck so badly with the guy who breaks her heart, over and over.

  Under the tears, my cheeks are fiery red. I don’t look like a girl who has been fucked to within an inch of a heartbeat. I look as if I’ve been ruined.

  I am ruined.

  Ironically, all this destruction he’s created in my heart has fought back the OCD demons in my head. I manage to get away with only checking the room once tonight.

  Once.

  I feel like my broken strings are mending, slowly, one thread at a time, Shepherd’s hand stitching them back together.

  I lie in bed. Try not to think of him. Think of the missing teenager from this morning’s paper and her sad parents. Try not to think of tobacco flakes, little specks of silver in eyeballs, legs stretched out, dirty whispers in my ear. Try to think of white paint, bleach and spider webs.

  Try not to think of him.

  Try not to think.

  I lie awake for hours.

  I feel like I’m lying on an operating table, and the anaesthetic is wearing off, leaving me in between sleep and wakefulness. That’s why I can’t do anything but wake dream, just him. That’s why I hurt so much.

  At about three in the morning, I crawl out of bed. I sit shivering in my dressing gown for ten minutes with a cup of tea. When the warmth starts to settle into my toes, I decide to meditate.

  This time I don’t dream of Shepherd. I don’t want to hurt with every breath I take, but I want to do something. Little by little, I will fix myself.

  The harder I try not to think of him, the more impossible it becomes. I look up to the ceiling. I listen to the roaring silence inside my own ears, and wonder if he’s awake with me.

  Eventually, I meditate. Just for ten minutes. The timer goes off and I feel like I’m walking on water. I go back to bed, and, as it starts to get light outside, finally fall asleep.

  The next day, in the early evening, I decide to be brave and go for a run. I get kitted out in tracksuit and trainers. I only check the estate once.

  It’s windier than I realise, and my route to the high street means I’m running into the wind most of the way. Before Christmas, I wouldn’t have dared to come here. But I feel okay. I’m wearing my baseball cap low so nobody recognises me.

  I stop outside a pink neon sign that says Psychic. Crystal balls twinkle in the window. An old woman watches me, beckons me from the doorway. I want to know my future. But then a part of me is afraid. That if she says what I know is there, it will be undeniable, it will be real.

  I go inside. It smells of sickly sweet smoke and fake roses. The candle in the centre of her table has an electric flame.

  What am I doing here?

  She starts tapping her fingernails on the table. Rap rap rap.

  ‘There is something you’re keeping, dear. Some secret you know will destroy the one you love the most,’ she says. She shakes her head and squints through me. ‘You’re heading for a fall, my dear. I can tell you more. It’ll be forty pounds. I can help you. Don’t be afraid, dear.’

  I run out of her shop as fast as I can.

  What will she tell me? Suddenly, I don’t want to know my future.

  The sky breaks. Big droplets of icy rain begin to fall. By the time I get back to Swan Lake, I’m soaked, my hair spiked up in all directions by the rain and my own sweat, my cheeks stinging from the cold. But I feel great. No, better than great. I almost feel like my best self. I am getting better. I am not heading for a fall.

  Dig deep, and find the grit in you.

  I can do this.

  Later in the night, Shepherd calls me on my mobile phone over FaceChat.

  ‘Amy, you okay?’

  He’s kept to his word. He hasn’t ordered me to come to his for nearly two weeks. He hasn’t pushed me into another dark corner.

  He leans close enough to the camera for me to see the silver in his black eyes. He drops his voice and says, ‘Come closer so I can see you.’

  I move my phone closer to my head. ‘What is it, Shepherd?’

  ‘Why don't you come visit me, so I can get a good look at you instead of always watching you on my phone. You look beautiful. I bet you smell beautiful, too. I could behave if you came to see me. Keep my hands to myself.’

  ‘Could you?’ I say. He’s squinting, making him look more predatory.

  ‘Maybe. Why’d you still sleep with your lights on?’

  ‘I don't —’

  ‘Quit lying, Amy. Your bedroom light is always on at night. Why?’ he says, with his voice some strange cadence between tenderness and menace.

  ‘I told you . . . to keep back the monsters that come in the dark.’


  ‘You still got monsters?’

  ‘You were right. I always will have,’ I say, and turn away from the phone.

  ‘Don't — don't turn away. I want to look at you.’

  ‘You can look at me every day. I know you’re watching me on the CCTV cameras you set up in the hallways and entrance.’

  ‘But not for me. I want to look at you when it's just for me.’

  I sit where he can look at me wearing his white T-shirt — it’s the best thing I’ve ever worn.

  Half-defiant, I keep my eyes down, knowing he wants that, too. Always wants all of me.

  ‘Will you come visit me?’ he says.

  ‘You promised I didn't have to. Until I was ready.’

  ‘I know I promised, but will you? So I can look at you? Really look at you.’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Please, Amy. I promise I won’t hurt you.’

  It startles me, chills me. He never begs. The strain in his voice sounds real, raw. It’s terrifying. He’s desperate enough to say Please. Is he losing control?

  My finger hovers over the End Call button.

  ‘Something you’re keeping . . . Some secret you know will destroy the one you love the most . . . ’

  I’m remembering now, as if the past had been a Magic Eye painting, and finally, I’m starting to see the real picture.

  I need to go before the bad monsters are let out.

  ‘I’m sorry, Shepherd. I can't,’ I say, and disconnect him.

  41

  ME

  It slips out before I even realise it.

  Please, Amy.

  Fucking pathetic. No wonder she hangs up on me. Problem is, I say it to myself too much. Since I got back to this ghost town, I imagine myself saying all kinds of things to her I would never say. Like I'm sorry. Fucking people who think apologies undo things when they don't do shit. You can't say, ‘I'm sorry,’ and make it like all the bad things never happened. Won't keep bad things from happening again either.

  I lie on my sofa with a whiskey bottle in hand. After a couple of hours drinking into nothingness, I get up and ring Fab5. The phone rings twice, then goes to his voicemail.

  ‘This is Fab5. Check you.’

  ‘Fab5, no one has said check you since 1992. Seriously, it just sounds weird in a Scottish accent. You giant prick.’ I hang up.

  Five minutes later, he rings back.

  ‘What’s up?’ he says. ‘You sound moodier than norm.’

  ‘Nothing’s up.’

  I hear a girl’s voice. Then the sound goes hissy and I figure Fab5 has covered the phone with his hand. His voice sounds distant but enclosed, as if he’s shouting into a cup.

  ‘Friend . . . touch of the old maritals . . . ’ The girl’s voice says something I can’t make out. Fab5 laughs. I think I can hear the sound of a kiss. Someone says mmmm.

  ‘Fab5,’ I growl.

  He removes his hand from the phone. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Covering the phone with your hand doesn’t work. And if you’ve got a hard-on right now, you’d better fucking hang up.’

  ‘Yeah, no worries, mate. Limp as your grumpy cold dick.’

  ‘Who’s the chick?’

  ‘It’s one in the morning, Shepherd. You’ve not rung me to talk about me compromising my vow of celibacy. You okay?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Want me to come over?’

  ‘You’re busy.’

  ‘Break out the Courvoisier. There in an hour.’

  And an hour later, he’s sitting opposite me at my kitchen table.

  ‘I have no Courvoisier,’ I say.

  ‘Relax, Shepherd.’

  ‘Got damn good whiskey.’

  He looks at the label, then taps the whiskey bottle.

  ‘Who do you know who drinks Courvoisier anyway?’ I say.

  ‘Figure of speech. A joke. Over your head. No big deal.’

  I pour two large whiskies and offer him a smoke, which he declines.

  ‘Same question, Shepherd. What’s up? Amy, no?’

  ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘Awfully highly strung.’

  ‘That’s you, mate. Who was that, anyway?’

  Fab5 considers this for a moment. ‘Displacement, Shepherd.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You didn’t call me up to pop a cap in my ass for my sex life. What’s up?’

  ‘Pop a cap in your ass? What’re you, fourteen?’

  ‘I’m the only one willing to be your friend. So what’s going on?’

  ‘Wow, a real question, with real English words and everything.’

  ‘Like I said, you don’t have other friends, twat. Tell me what’s wrong.’

  I tell him, grudgingly. It takes me just under half the bottle. Fab5 doesn’t drink much, but he does listen. At four, he puts away the whiskey bottle and makes me drink two pints of water. At four thirty, he pushes me into the bathroom to wash my hair and change my clothes, while he makes coffee. I shower and go into the bedroom for clean clothes.

  In my living room I say to Fab5, ‘What’s happening to me?’

  ‘Shepherd, friend, right now you’re drunk, and you need to be drunk. You need to switch off that right brain, sometimes. Let your left brain take over.’

  ‘Other way round.’

  ‘You see?’ There’s concern in his eyes. ‘You need to decompress, mate.’

  ‘Alright. Cheers, Fab5. You’re a mensch.’

  ‘And you need to get back to the academy and train. Go fight. Best way to get it out of your system, mate.’

  I try not to think about things.

  I fail. I think about those things, and about what I’m about to lose. I think about them for the longest time.

  THE BOXING GYM is empty because it’s damn early. I only turn on enough lighting to walk through the gym without tripping over any equipment. I go to a punching bag hanging from the ceiling.

  My hands and wrists are wrapped good. Don’t fist fight for sport anymore. Did my stint in prison. Still train. Still feel like my knuckles are never quite healed from the punches across jaws and the indents of teeth. In prison there were no rules. No fancy style. Just all out brawling. The sort I learnt on the streets. The only reason I survived.

  I’m training here and now because it’s too early to get wasted, and there’s little else to do in this godforsaken town.

  I unzip my grey hoodie and throw it down to the floor leaving my chest bare. I know I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been. Definition that hadn't been there in my teens, strong pectoral muscles, arms that I now wonder whether I could bend damn steel with.

  I take a glug of the water bottle I’m carrying before setting it down on the floor and bring out my mini pod. I put the little white buds into my ear and clip the device to the waistband of my black shorts, cables trailing down my chest.

  I turn the music up loud, the blaring of some old rock band in my ears. I’ve always hated fucking silence. It’s easier this way. Always has been. The sounds of neglect and torture drowned out. Creates a sense of detachment.

  I swing my fists hard against the punch bag, blow connecting with force, speed, gut punches, making the bag swing back and forth, pendulum like.

  I go at it until I realise there’s not enough anger in me to forget Amy.

  Trying to take her down is like being in the ring, except she makes me more breathless. It was an unfair match from the start. Boxing is the sport of kings or something. But this — her — is the damn opposite. She’s the sport for the poor and the desperate, men willing to break their minds, hearts and souls.

  I didn’t think I’d care about anything ever again. Stuff people care about, like babies and kittens and rainbows and shit. But all that shit could make me smile — genuinely smile knowing she is in the fucking universe.

  My breathing becomes heavier, punching out on the exhale, faster, harder, the music in my ears creating a fast beat that I replicate with my body. Faster. Faster.

  The indication I�
��m no longer alone comes when the harsh strip lighting snaps on and the entire gym floods with bright glaring light. I remove the ear buds, letting them trail down to the floor and lean over to grab my water bottle. I take a deep swallow, allowing some water to trail down my throat to mix with the sweat on my heaving chest. I look at my watch.

  Damn.

  Three hours. Three hours of sparring at the boxing gym, and I can still hear myself fucking saying it. She's probably long since forgotten it. Probably didn't even notice it. Not like the way I have to all the time replay her saying, ‘I used to love you.’

  I think about jumping rope or lifting some weights, but fuck if that’s gonna work.

  Weeks into not fucking Amy, I figure it's time to do something. She won't come see me, even if I beg. Even if she does, I promised not to touch her. I've already burned through with training and beating the bishop, but it isn’t taking the edge off anymore.

  There's nothing I can do but go see Amy, even though I know it's a mistake. I don't know how big a mistake it is until I go into her room, later that evening.

  I take a step forward closing the gap between us, my pulse increasing, my blood pumping. I reach out across a gap that isn’t just distance but a gap of seconds and hours — and five fucking years of absence.

  All that time wasted.

  ‘I missed you.’

  Damn, it sounds pathetic when I say it out loud — all chicky and girly and shit. I don’t do feelings well. I find my hand stopping, knowing I can’t do anything in the confines of her room. I want to take her in my arms and stroke her hair, but I know I can never touch her again.

  It’s been a long time and my right hand’s been no comparison for her pussy. No fucking match for that passion or intensity. It’s been far too long since that hot, dirty-as-fuck night — twisting in sheets and just taking what we needed from each other. Before I gave her space. Space that’s now torturing my goddamn soul.

  Christ, the way she looks with her tits and in my white T-shirt . . . I manage to get about five words out, including her name. The other four are something bad like, ‘Can't keep my promise.’

  She stands up and her eyes go wide and a little wild. Don't know why I ever thought I wanted my soul back. Looks fine right where she's got it.