We Told Six Lies Read online

  I would have waited until there was gray in my hair. Until the end of time. I couldn’t imagine waiting for anything better than what I figured you were doing—preparing for me.

  When the door to your room opened, I straightened like a soldier. I was ready for you. Ready for anything you’d have me do.

  You raised a long, slender finger and curled it toward yourself.

  I’d never moved quicker in my entire life.

  I entered your room in time to see you glide toward your bed, wearing a white nightgown that drove me to madness. When you turned, the smile on your face was shy, and I couldn’t tell whether you put it there for my sake or if it was sincere.

  You stopped in front of your mattress and said, “Come here.” There was urgency in the way you spoke, in the way you moved as if you were afraid you’d back out of what you had in mind.

  I was there before you could take another breath.

  You wrapped your arms around my neck and pulled my mouth to yours with little warning. I kissed you, and my nerves melted away. I found my courage in the way you shook between my hands. In the uncertain glint in your eye.

  You’d never done this before, I realized.

  I would be your first.

  I was afraid of how I would feel after this. Like you were mine. Like I had made you mine. That was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  But you felt so right.

  You threaded your fingers through my hair, and I gripped your back tighter. Pulled you against me. Our bodies pressed together, filling each other’s slopes and valleys. We didn’t stay like that for long before you broke away from me.

  You laid yourself on the bed like an offering. One I was supposed to unwrap and devour. I climbed on top of you, and you reached for my jeans. I had those words on my lips again, but I wouldn’t speak them. I knew I shouldn’t. Instead, I stood up and slipped out of my jeans, pulled off my shirt, and stared at you. Your hair fanned over the bed, so white it lit my heart on fire and sent those flames crawling across my skin.

  You pulled up your nightgown, and I watched as, inch by inch, you exposed your knees, your thighs, your hips. I hooked my arms beneath yours and moved you farther up on the bed, then I climbed after you. You seemed so fragile beneath me. My body swallowed yours, and you disappeared under the armor I’d worked so hard to accumulate. Is that what you wanted? To disappear?

  You weren’t as fragile as you seemed that night.

  I knew perfectly well that I was lying in bed with a viper.

  I kissed you anyway. And I lifted that nightgown over your head and trailed my lips down the delicate skin on your neck. Then I took your tightened nipple into my mouth and nearly lost my mind to the moment. Felt myself pushing against you with impatience.

  But you were the impatient one. Tugging on my boxers with anxious fingers. Digging your nails into my back. Wrapping your legs around my waist and inviting the thrust of my hips.

  Once this was over, we wouldn’t be the same. We would be bound. I wanted that so badly that every part of me ached. But that was the problem. You made dormant pieces of me spark to life, and it wasn’t enough to connect our bodies.

  I wanted to hear you say it.

  I knew you felt it.

  I reached down and slipped your underwear off, holding your ankle in my hand, and I guided one leg and then the other upward and then down. You watched me, and I could feel some part of you pushing its way out, its desperate arms stretched toward me. Time and again, you towed that part of yourself back inside. Gave me a false smile.

  “I know you’re scared,” I said, breaking our vow of silence.

  You shook your head, and that false smile widened. “I’m not.”

  “You’re putting your body into this, but not your head. Why?”

  You grabbed my face and stared intently into my eyes, but that only made it worse. I could see the lie so plainly. “I’m here.”

  “You’re falling in love with me,” I said, taking my boxers off. Keeping you beneath me. Hanging on to the hope that you’d admit what I needed to hear.

  You closed your eyes and released a small gasp when you felt me, unclothed, uninhibited, pressing between your legs. We were so close, so close, and yet that unsaid thing hung between us.

  I kissed the bottom lip of your open mouth, and then kissed your eyes, too. They opened beneath my touch.

  I found your stare and said, “Listen to me.”

  “I’m listening,” you whispered.

  “I love you.”

  You smiled, but you were only placating me.

  “I love the girl you hide inside. The one you’re so afraid to show the world. Afraid because it would make you vulnerable.” I pressed closer to you. Not enough. Not nearly enough. “I love the girl you show the world, too. The manipulation and the kindness. Your hard edges and your soft ones.

  “I don’t know if someone made you this way, or if you did this on your own.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I love you. I love your fucked-up pieces. Every last one of them.”

  I reached down and gathered myself. Put it against you and gave another small thrust. Almost there this time. Almost.

  “Tell me, Molly,” I said against your neck. “Tell me what I want to hear.”

  When you didn’t respond, I lifted my head and searched your face.

  “Be vulnerable. Just once.”

  Your bottom lip trembled. It belied the confidence in your gaze.

  You pulled me tighter, opened your legs wider, and said, “I am.”

  But that’s not what I meant, and you knew it. I wanted your body, but I wanted your mind, too. I wanted to strap on a headlight and explore every last part of you—the crevices in your brain and the lines of your body.

  But you were holding me back.

  Holding yourself back.

  Getting up from the bed took a Herculean effort. My body wanted you more than it had ever wanted anything. More than it ever wanted food, or sleep, or sunlight. More than it wanted to grow and protect the raw, fragile interior parts of me.

  But my brain wanted you. It wanted to know I was safe here. And right then, I wasn’t.

  You sat up and pulled a blanket over yourself. You must have felt exposed. But you couldn’t possibly have felt as exposed as I did. I think my organs were showing.

  “Cobain, wait,” you said. “Wait, don’t go. Don’t be upset.”

  I turned to pull on my clothes.

  I heard you rising from the bed. You were angry now. I could feel it radiating from your body. It warmed the room. Scorched the walls. Singed the hair on my arms.

  “Don’t walk out on me,” you said, but I was already halfway to the door. You’d broken the bones of my rib cage to get at what lay inside. But you wouldn’t do the same for me.

  “I’m in pieces, Cobain,” you said, your voice becoming hysterical. “You’ve ripped me to pieces. You think I wanted that? You think I wanted to come undone? I was barely holding on as it was.”

  I opened the door and turned back.

  You were crying. I wanted to hold you in my arms and protect you from anything or anyone that would hurt you this way again. But I was hurting, too.

  “I want all of you, Molly,” I said.

  Your face changed from sadness and fear to anger. You were furious that I was doing this to you. That I was opening you up.

  You ran toward me with that anger contorting your features. I opened my arms to you. Ready to still your turmoil or to push you away. I wasn’t sure which. I just knew you were running and I was anticipating and the world was holding its breath because we were about to—

  Crash.

  NOW

  Our garage smells like mold, but it’s my only refuge from the world, so I can’t complain.

  My dad is gone, repairing a ride at a carnival that will start touring
come spring. My mother is still here, but she’ll be on her way out soon, and I certainly don’t want to rehash what happened between Holt and me. So I’m in hiding, with the garage door closed because it’s too damn cold outside, using the bench press I carried home from a neighbor’s house three blocks down. They’d thrown it by the curb—their trash, my sanctuary.

  I slide a forty-five on one side, and a thirty-five and a ten on the other, because those are the only weights I have. With the bar, it’s 135 pounds. I can do more, but this is enough to take the edge off.

  I clamp the weights in place, remove my shirt, and throw it in the corner. The chill hits me, but I’ll warm up soon enough. I lie down on the bench, and instantly, my brain settles on this task. It focuses on my hands gripping that cold bar. The feel of lifting the weights off the rack. The satisfying pressure on my chest and triceps.

  I bring the bar down to my pecs and breathe my way back up, keeping my wrists locked, controlling my head so it doesn’t press into the bench.

  I bring the bar down again. And again.

  In between reps, my mind betrays me. It’s supposed to remain quiet. That’s our arrangement. I provide the body fuel, and it repays me with blessed silence. But each time I get that bar back up, my mind asks a question.

  Did Molly break up with me that afternoon we almost slept together?

  Bar down.

  Bar up.

  Did I misread that last kiss before I left?

  Bar down.

  Bar up.

  She never mentioned a breakup after that, did she?

  Bar down.

  Bar up.

  What was it she said the next morning at school?

  Bar down.

  Bar up.

  She said she belonged to me.

  The stress of it all pushes down, down, down on my chest and throat until I feel like I can’t breathe, until my vision grows blurry. I sit up, gasping, my lungs burning from the cold winter air. Clenching my eyes shut like I did that day with Molly in the forest, I slow my breaths.

  Then I shoot to my feet and go back inside for a drink of water, trying to erase the sensation from my mind.

  Trying to get ahold of myself, for fuck’s sake.

  MOLLY

  Blue took to sleeping outside her room.

  He did it on accident the first time, Molly decided, after she’d sung longer than she normally did. At first, she thought she was imagining the gentle sound of him breathing deeply. She kept singing, softer, as she crossed the room, her footsteps trepid, until she was able to see him through the slot he’d left open.

  He slept on his side, his arms folded across his chest, his head resting on a stair. The mask he wore slipped up a fraction, and she spotted the stubble on his jawline. Her heart leaped at the color—black.

  She knew the color of his hair now.

  It was such a simple thing, but these pieces, they were everything. Especially those she discovered without his awareness.

  The color of his hair didn’t answer that ultimate question, but it got her closer.

  She feared she knew what she would ultimately find beneath that mask.

  Was she certain she wanted to know?

  Yes. Yes, of course she was.

  When he fell asleep outside her door a second time, she was certain it wasn’t accidental. Blue hadn’t seemed to hate her when he took her from that convenience store, she thought. The kidnapping didn’t even seem to be about her, regardless of what the dusty dresses and wilting flowers suggested.

  But whatever his reason was for taking her, it was changing.

  It was daylight now, and Molly stretched toward her bathroom window, causing small bruises to bloom along her wrists. She was so close to the glass. Six inches. Maybe less. She did this several times a day. It kept her sane to attempt a quiet escape, even if she knew it was futile.

  She curled her fingers toward the world beyond—toward that rectangular painting of blues and browns and snowfall whites. Her chin trembled as she thought of him. She remembered what she’d told Rhana about what had happened between her and Cobain, and how it split her heart into two irreparable pieces to do so.

  She was a survivalist, and so she tried to forgive herself. All she’d wanted was freedom. Freedom from her father. And her mother. But the closer she got to Cobain, the further she tumbled into a cardboard box that held only her. Only him. Suddenly, she didn’t want freedom if he wasn’t a part of that new equation.

  But was that really freedom?

  She’d seen what she was doing to him, of course. He was unraveling. At first a quiet, lonely boy who kept his head down, and then, slowly, a man who fought for what he wanted. He’d had cracks, her Cobain. He’d filled them with mortar, but she…she had chiseled away at them until his entire body became unstable.

  She dreamed of him every night now. And when she woke, she cried.

  Her arms dropped to her sides, and she fought to keep herself contained. Her eyes lowered, and she stared at her wrists. At the tiny bubbles of blood rising beneath her bonds.

  Molly heard the door unlock behind her, and she twirled around, hiding her arms behind her back.

  Blue stood in her doorway, seeming more confident than he had in the past.

  He walked toward her with powerful steps, but she didn’t shrink away. She knew how he felt about her.

  Blue cut the restraints and waved her toward the stairs.

  When they arrived in the hallway, he opened his arms as if to say—left or right? Living room or kitchen?

  Molly stepped to the left because she remembered that’s where the front door was. He followed after her and stood in the doorway as she examined the room. A floral couch. An empty mantle. A coffee table. A lamp without a bulb. All of it suffocating under a blanket of dust. All of it devoid of life.

  She turned to look at Blue, her head full of wishes.

  He went to the front door and double-checked the lock, a bolt that would only open with a key. She was certain he did it only to show her she couldn’t escape. He touched a flat hand to his chest and jabbed a thumb at the kitchen. His hand was still bandaged, but it didn’t bleed through anymore. He hadn’t cooked anything since his injury, and she hoped that changed today. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of a warm meal. A glass of milk. Normally, she didn’t like milk. But the thought of it now, creamy and thick and cold in a tall glass, made her mouth water.

  Molly started to follow him, knowing he would never leave her unattended. But he stopped and held another hand out. Waved it around the room.

  Stay here, if you want.

  Her jaw went slack as he left the room. Almost immediately, she was searching the space again, looking for a way out. As the clanging of pots and pans colliding reached her ears, she rushed to the first window she saw and attempted to lift the glass. It was painted shut, and so she ran to the next window. And the next. Four in all, and none lifted so much as an inch. She couldn’t break one, or he’d hear, so something else, then.

  Her eyes snapped to the fireplace. Could she climb up it?

  She began to cross the space in a frenzy when a bang sounded through the room.

  Her heart soared into her throat as she whipped around, expecting to find Blue. But it seemed he was still engrossed in cooking. Molly went to the nearest window, looked out, and found the source of the sound she’d heard. Her eyes fell upon a bird on the ground, beak opening and closing. It flapped its wings vigorously at first, and then slower. And then not at all.

  What window had it slammed into? Her eyes went to the door again, and this time she noticed the small rectangle of glass above it. The same size and shape as the one in the basement.

  She took five quick steps toward the kitchen and listened.

  What sounded like humming drifted from where he worked.

  Molly raced toward the couch an
d shoved it across the floor, her pulse beating so hard she was afraid she’d faint. Would he ever bring her above ground again or take his eyes off her? She couldn’t gamble losing this chance for a head start.

  She leaped onto the couch and reached for the handle on the window and cranked the lever.

  It opened.

  Tears welled in her eyes, and her heart exploded with the possibility of escape. Maybe she wasn’t her father after all. Maybe she could just leave and never look back. Tell the cops what happened like a good girl. Forgive. Forget.

  Her true self scoffed even as she cranked the lever faster and faster. As she grabbed the edge of the window and lifted herself off the couch. Her feet pin-wheeled against the wall as she pushed herself higher.

  She got her shoulders through. Then her chest. She could feel the cold. Could hear the birds.

  She reached her stomach, and though she heard a noise behind her, she bit back a scream and struggled the rest of the way through. Fell headfirst toward the ground. She broke her fall with her hands, and pain rocketed up her arms.

  Didn’t matter.

  She was on her feet.

  Running, running, running.

  How far did she get before that front door swung open? Ten steps? Twenty?

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw him racing toward her, and instantly, she switched from a physical escape to a mental one.

  She stopped in place and said, “I just wanted to help it.”

  She knew he wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t care.

  He charged toward her, and she backed up, hands raised, stumbling over her own feet. Her back pressed into a tree, and he pressed against her. Invading her space. Invading her senses. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them against the grating bark.

  She shook her head, and he reached up to take her face in his hand. For one terrifying moment, she thought he would lift his mask and kiss her. If he so much as leaned in, she would tear his eyes out. Even if he killed her, she would die inflicting as much pain on him as she could.

  “I was trying—”

  He released one of her arms and covered her lips with his finger.