A Fabrication of the Truth (6 page)

At school, Dalton gave me a smirk. I tried to hold in my smile but couldn’t. His powers of adorability were strong. And I swore, every time I saw him, it was like in slow motion, and there might have been music, like total movie moment, and then his smirk—I melted inside. I watched his back as he walked away, the way his jeans hugged his hips perfectly and the wonderful shape of his bottom. Oh dear lord, I liked Dalton Reyes. I didn’t know how much longer I could resist.

He was all I could think about in class. The way he smelled, the way he felt so close to me, the softness of his touch. I got in trouble with yet another teacher for not paying attention. This time it was my gym teacher, and I got hit in the head with a basketball. Mrs. Neilson yelled at me about focusing as I snapped back to reality in the gym.

“Just because this is P.E. does not mean you get to slack off,” Mrs. Neilson yelled. She might have been a drill sergeant at one point in her life because her only form of communication was yelling. “Do you understand?”

“Huh?” I responded.

“Lexie, are you even aware of what class you’re in?”

“Gym.” Oh man, I forgot and said the word – Mrs. Neilson’s trigger word.

“This is physical education, Lexie, not gym. This is not some class for an easy A. Physical, it’s in the title. Gym is an antiquated class for little kids on scooters. This is physical education.”

She was still carrying on when I interrupted her. “I seem to be experiencing double vision. I need to go to the nurse.”

“The ball barely touched you, Lexie.”

“If my parents found out that my eyesight is at risk, you and the school will get in lots of trouble.”

“What’s so special about your eyesight?” she asked, not caring that I could possibly be having vision problems.

“As part of one of my parents’ outreach programs, I read to elderly patients in one of their non-profit hospices, and I am the best at what I do.” Okay, I knew what I said really made no sense. “Patients seek out my family on word of my abilities, and if they get lawyers involved…”

“Lexie, get out of my gymnasium, and go to the nurse.” See, she couldn’t even bring herself to say “gym,” even to refer to a type of classroom.

“Much appreciated,” I said.

After gym, one of my classmates found me in the hall.

“What’s the name of your parents’ hospice?” he asked. “I’d like to volunteer.”

“So does everybody else in the world. There’s a waiting list to volunteer. Would you like me to put your name on the list?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

“What’s your last name again?” I asked. To be honest, I didn’t even know his first name.

“Graham, James Graham,” he said, swiping his long bangs across his forehead.

“Okay, cool, James – I’ll put you down. Oh, and I need a phone number to reach you when a spot becomes available.”

I collected all of James’ information and went on with the rest of my day, thinking of a good name for my parents’ outreach program. In case anybody asked, I always had to be prepared. Lies sometimes require lots of details. Not initially, but as you get further into them.

***

I got home from school, and my grandma sat at the kitchen table with a solemn look on her face.

“What happened?” I asked, always assuming the worst.

“Got a phone call.”

“Okay…,” I said, going over in my head if I did anything worthy of the school calling home. Oh man, I hoped it wasn’t about gym. I never went to the nurse.

“It was your dad.”

“Oh, geez,” I said, going into a full body slump.

“He just wants you to visit.”

“No.”

“You haven’t seen him in five years.”

“Yeah, with good reason.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“He loves you.”

“If he really loved me, he would have done everything he could to keep me safe, keep my friends safe. He would have had a totally different job. If you can even call what he did a job.”

“Just think about it.”

“I already have.”

“Lexie…”

“I have homework to do.”

I went up to my room, but didn’t even attempt my homework. Instead, I sat in front of my sewing machine with my arms crossed. I really hadn’t seen my dad since that day, and I had no plans of ever seeing him. If he loved me so much, he would have tried to lead a clean life. I wouldn’t have cared if we had no money or lived in someone’s basement. We would have had each other, and that should have been enough, but it wasn’t. He was evil and selfish, his line of work required it. My grandma once told me it wasn’t a huge operation – which I do believe was a lie – but still, he got himself thrown in jail and got Dalton shot, not to mention all the people he had corrupted with drugs. He also turned me into a liar – okay, I might have already been one, but he encouraged it – not to mention whatever he did that made my mom go away. Grandma claimed it was her, not him, but I don’t know. If I was married to a man like my dad, I’d leave too – but I’d at least take my child with me.

Why couldn’t I have been born into another family?

I stood up, looked out my window, and there was Dalton in the room across the way, sitting in an office chair with his knees drawn up, reading a book, and biting his thumbnail. I just watched him for a while, the way his brow furrowed and un-furrowed, and on occasion he mouthed a line or two, biting the corner of his lip. He looked over his book, right at me. Busted. He put his book down on the shelves next to him and stood up, walking toward the window. I opened mine, and he opened his.

“It’s for school,” he said. “The book. No torrid love affairs tonight.”

“Okay,” I said.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing, really. Brooding, maybe.”

“Brooding?”

“It’s nothing.”

“I bet it’s not,” he said, then turning away from the window. “I ate already,” he shouted. He then sighed and walked away from the window to the door of the room, sticking his head out and shouting something else. He came back to the window shaking his head. "My lola and lolo are constantly trying to shove more food in me.”

“Ah,” I said.

“By the time I leave here, I’ll weigh three hundred pounds.”

“I think the weight would look good on you.”

“I hope so.”

I smiled.

He smiled back. “I have to go eat more food, even though I ate already.”

“See you in a few extra pounds then.”

“You should take a nap now.” His lips pressed in a smirk.

“Why?”

“So when I sneak over later you won’t be tired.”

“Who said you could sneak over?” I asked, putting my elbows and forearms up on my windowsill as a cool breeze touched my face.

“You did.”

“I did not.”

“I bet you want me to.”

“I’m not sleeping in the basement tonight.”

“I bet around midnight the light will be on.”

“You’re wrong, my friend.”

“Our friendship is official now, good.”

“Go eat a second dinner, Dalton.”

“Later.”

I already knew I would accidently fall asleep in the basement watching TV.

***

There he was, six minutes past midnight.

I opened the window, and he crawled in. He had on basketball shorts, a pullover hoodie, knit hat, and a pair of Chucks with no socks.

“I think the shorts and hat contradict each other,” I said as he plopped down onto the couch.

He answered with, “Do you think I really need new material?”

“No,” I said, sitting down on the other end of the couch. “I actually really like your stuff.”

“Thanks,” he said, looking down at his hands.

“So, what’s up?”

He shrugged. “Just wanted to talk.”

“Really?”

“Would you prefer we do something else?”

“God, no.”

He smiled, turned on the couch so he leaned against the arm of it, and stretched his legs out across the cushions, his feet landing on my thigh.

“So why were you brooding tonight?”

“It’s nothing,” I said, glancing down at his feet, leaving them there.

“You wouldn’t have mentioned the brood if it was nothing.”

I sighed. “Um…my dad wants me to visit him.”

“Okay.”

“Last time I talked to him, I was eleven.” I lay my head back on the couch and stared at the panels of the drop down ceiling.

“Do you miss him?”

“Am I wrong if I do?” I asked, rolling my head and looking at Dalton, a sympathetic expression on his face.

“No, he’s your dad.”

“I can’t let go of what happened. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to forgive him.”

“In all fairness, he didn’t shoot me.”

“But his actions led to it, so it’s just as bad.”

“Maybe at least call him?”

“I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”

“Whatever you feel in your heart,” he said, pulling his feet off my lap and sitting up. He hugged his knees and stuck his chin on top.

“That’s no help.”

Dalton shrugged. “Sorry, it’s not my decision to make. Maybe you need to talk some things through with him.”

“Ugh, why is my life so complicated?”

“Is that why you lie, so people don’t know the real you?”

“Maybe. Explaining everything, my whole life, it’s just too much. Nothing about it’s good.”

“What’s so wrong about it?”

I sighed. It was the first time that I tried to put it in words that weren’t just floating around in my brain. “My mom, my dad, that day. I think lying like became my natural defense mechanism. It started right after my mom left. At school, kids would ask me why they never saw my mom. Why I never talked about her. I didn’t want to have to tell them that my own mother left me. I wasn’t worth sticking around. It’s a crappy feeling to have.”

“Yeah, sorry. That does suck.”

“So, then my dad told me to make something up about his work, and it just kept growing, and I grew to kind of like making things up. I used to make up stories about my life and anything random. Like this one time in third grade I convinced everyone that I had a zombie trapped in my basement, and if I ever let him go, a zombie apocalypse would start. I gave kids nightmares for years. I think some are still scared of me because of it, but I always feel oddly better after I tell a lie.”

Dalton let go of his knees, and scooted over on the couch so we were shoulder to shoulder.

“I feel like I ruined your life. I always thought about how you felt afterward, about what you saw. It messed me up, so I imagined it kind of did the same to you,” Dalton said.

“Yeah, I guess it did, but it’s not like you had anything to do with it. I was kind of messed up even before that day. It was just the icing on the cake. Don’t ever think you had any sort of negative impact on my life. My dad did. The people who worked for him did. The guy who shot you did. You had nothing to do with ruining me. You were an innocent victim of my crappy life.”

“Don’t say that, Lexie. I always imagined the wonderful things you did next door. The great and adventurous life you led that scared my lolo and lola. Please don’t say your life is crappy.”

“What kind of stuff did you imagine?”

“My favorite thing I came up with is kind of embarrassing, weird.”

“Now you have to tell me.”

“It’s of you sitting in front of a mirror and brushing your hair.”

“Brushing my hair?”

“I loved your hair. I thought it was so beautiful that you brushing it, well, I guess it was like a ten year old turn on.”

“I’m not sure if that’s weird or kind of cute.” My heart yearned for him and ached for my mother. One of the few memories I have of her is that she would always sit me on her lap and brush my hair. She would brush it so gently and sing me a song. I remember how much I used to love it, and sometimes, if I let myself, I swore I could bring myself back to her sweet singing, the way she smelled like jasmine and how she would hug me and say,
“All done.”
I always keep my hair long and perfectly straight.

“Thinking of it used to give me a boner.”

Dalton snapped me out of my moment of nostalgia. “Dalton!”

“It really did.”

“And what about now?’

“I’d have to excuse myself to use the bathroom.” I slapped him in the shoulder.

“Okay, what else?” I asked, trying to keep our conversation from getting too…I wasn’t sure what, but we needed to stop talking about boners.

“My lola didn’t like your dad, and at the time I didn’t know why. She used to say it was dangerous over there, so I thought perhaps, you were someone of the utmost importance – like a princess in hiding, and people were always trying to kidnap you.”