Listen for the Lie (20 page)

Ben gets Julia's episode up bright and early Monday morning. I listen to it while I run on the treadmill, and apparently, I'm not the only one tuning in first thing, because I have a bunch of missed calls and several texts on my phone when I'm done. I read them as I walk across the parking lot to my car, sweat trickling down my back.

Grandma:
Hon, can you call me? Or come by. Any time.

Dad:
Did you leave already? Your mom and I want to talk to you.

Nathan:
Hey, is everything okay down there? Just because we broke up doesn't mean we can't still be friends. If you want to talk about anything.

Emmett:
Do you want to get lunch soon?

Christ, I'm so popular suddenly. People find out that your first husband has been slapping around his second wife and everyone makes assumptions.

I sit in my car for several minutes with the AC blasting in my face, thinking about what to do about those assumptions.

On the one hand, they're right.

On the other hand, they can all go fuck themselves.

I don't appreciate them turning me into the victim of this story.
Savvy's the victim. She was buffed and polished after her death and turned into the perfect victim I could never be. Let's leave it that way.

Another text pops up on my phone.

Hey, it's Julia. Ben gave me your number.

I told him he could do that. Now I wish I hadn't.

I hope you're okay. I'm happy to talk, whenever you're ready.

I wonder whether she really never fought back. Did Matt just confuse us, or did she snap like me, and decide to get out ahead of the story?

God, I hope it's the latter. She's so tiny and cute, no one would ever believe that she hit him. I hope she beat his ass.

I stare at her texts. I'm never going to give her what she needs. I'm not a supportive shoulder.

I quickly type out a reply.

Thanks. Good luck with everything.

“
If you stab him in the neck, it'll be quick
,” Savvy whispers in my ear. “
Do you want it to be quick?”

Julia is definitely better off without me.

My phone rings—Grandma—but I ignore it. I have to make a choice. If I tell the truth, and admit that Matt hit me, he will
definitely
tell everyone that I fought back. It won't matter that it was months before I snapped. It won't matter that I suffered through countless nights of screaming insults and stinging slaps and being thrown against walls so hard it's a miracle my head isn't dented.

I did, eventually, snap, and it'll just be further proof of my evil, violent heart.

Of course she killed Savvy! Instead of leaving her abusive husband she hit him right back! Who does that?

If I lie, I leave Julia out to dry. I should care about that. Woman solidarity and all that.

But there's no reason people won't believe her. Julia is not me. She's still likable. Still a good victim.

My options are shitty, but I know what I'm going to do.

No one expects the truth from me anyway.

“He did have a temper when he drank, but my experience with Matt was not exactly the same as Julia's.” I say the words like I practiced them. I already said them to Ben, in a long interview this afternoon. Both he and Paige looked at me like they thought I was full of shit.

My mom, however, looks relieved. She's standing in the kitchen, leaning on one crutch. Dad is behind her, a spatula in his hand like he's going to threaten someone with it. Grandma sits at the table. They've all been waiting for me to get home. I spent the entire day avoiding them.

“What does that mean,
not exactly the same
?” Grandma squints.

“Like I said. He had a temper. He threw some glasses at the wall, stomped around a lot.”

“But he didn't hit you?” Dad asks nervously.

“Of course he didn't hit her!” Mom exclaims. “She lived five miles down the road then. We would have known.”

I lift an eyebrow. I'd planned to be a little more straightforward in my denial, but Mom is making this difficult. My sense of self-preservation is really battling it out with my desire to prove my mother wrong.

“I don't think that anyone knows what's going on inside someone else's marriage,” I say. “No matter how close they live.”

Everyone freezes.

Dad still has the spatula poised in front of him like a weapon. He has a familiar look in his eyes, one I used to see often as a kid. Like he's afraid I'm about to say something that he'll have to deal with, and it's the absolutely last thing in the world that he wants to do right now.

“But I will not be making any tearful podcast confessions, if that's what you're worried about,” I quickly add.

Mom lets out a breath, like that was exactly what she was worried about. Dad sets the spatula on the counter, blessedly free from having to do battle for me today.

“We're worried about
you
!” Grandma says.

“Well, I'm happily single now, so it doesn't really matter anyway.” I smile. “What's for dinner?”

“Gnocchi!” Mom says, overly chipper, and points to Dad, who is now struggling to open the package.

Grandma throws her hands up in the air. “What the fuck? Are we going to talk about the fact that it was probably
Matt
who killed Savvy?”

Dad spills the gnocchi all over the floor.

Matt:
I'm outside. Can you come down?

The text pops up on my phone after ten o'clock. The house is quiet, Mom and Dad already asleep.

I climb out of bed and creep across the room to the window to see Matt's car parked in front of the house. A dark figure leans against it.

I should probably ignore the text, pretend to be asleep. But I still desperately want to confront him, and I didn't get a chance to in the middle of the replacement-wife drama.

I text back,
I'll be down in a minute
, pull on a pair of shorts, tie my hair up, and head downstairs. I slip on a pair of flip-flops and walk out into the humid air.

He straightens when he sees me coming, sliding his hands out of his pockets. Behind him, the streetlight shines on the pavement, providing enough light to see him clearly. The knuckles on his right hand are bruised, and I wonder whether it's from a face or a wall.

“I met your wife,” I say.

“I know, she told me.”

“Seems nice.” I lift an eyebrow. “Nicer than me.”

His jaw works, and he looks past me at nothing. I hope she told
him over the phone, and not in person, because I can feel the fury coming off him in waves.

“You ignored my texts,” I say.

He pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “Things are so fucked up.”

“You just noticed?”

He laughs, shortly at first, and then again, a bigger laugh that makes a smile linger on his face. “God, I miss you.”

“
Poison would be less messy, but also less satisfying, in my opinion
,” Savvy whispers.

“Yes, your wife did make it sound that way on the podcast.” I lean against the car next to him.

“She was always too nice for me.”

What a load of shit.

“I should have known I would mess her up. I just thought that a nice girl like that…”

“Could save you?”

“Yes.”

“You don't deserve to be saved, Matt.”

He frowns, but doesn't argue. “I heard that you didn't say the same. About me. About…” He clears his throat. “You said things were different for you.”

“You
heard
?”

“Yeah.”

I wonder whether he heard directly from Mom, or if she's just told so many people that it got back to him.

“I said my experience was different than Julia's, which is true. I'm not really eager to rehash the past.”

He turns to me, genuine gratitude on his face. “Thank you.”

“Trust me when I say that it wasn't even a little bit for you.”

“
You can't tell people about us, Lucy
.” Matt's face from five years ago appears in front of me. The day he kicked me out of the house and told me to go to my parents'.

“
Savvy is
dead,
Matt
,” I'd choked out. “
Our shit doesn't matter right now
.”

“It will matter to the police. Don't make me tell them about what we did to each other, okay? Don't make me tell them.”

I'd realized what he was saying—that if the police were looking for evidence that I'd been violent before, Matt could certainly give that to them. I could try to refute it, try to explain that
he
was the abusive one, but it was muddled now.

People don't believe women who fight back. When a man lashes out, people say he's lost control of his temper or made a terrible mistake. When a woman does it, she's a psychopath.

Matt steps forward suddenly, drawing me back to the present. He pushes me up against the car. The length of his body presses against mine, and then his mouth is on mine too.

He tastes like mint, not alcohol, and it reminds me of our early years. Toward the end, he always tasted like booze. Or smelled like it. It was seeping from his pores, eventually.

But this Matt is the one I liked, at first.

“
I think I'm going to miss him
,” I'd said to Savvy. “
That's fucked up, right? That I'm going to miss him?
”

I tense and want to recoil, but I'm kissing him back instead. It's partly habit. Partly instinct. Always just easier to go along with it and not piss him off.

“He doesn't deserve you.”

I bite his lip, hard.

He pulls away, amusement in his eyes, like he thinks that was meant to be sexy instead of a failed attempt to draw blood. “Sorry. It's hard not to kiss you sometimes, you know?”

“Try.”

“Come home with me.”

“No.”

I have one tiny shred of common sense, and I'm proud of it.

He sighs, but doesn't argue.

“Is Julia right?” I ask. “Were you there when Savvy died?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“After?”

“No.” He turns to me. “I'm sorry I abandoned you after. That's what I meant when I said that to Julia. I should have stuck by you. Not sent you to your fucking parents, who just let Ivy interrogate you.”

I don't know whether he's lying. Matt's a great liar.

“Who was the woman you were arguing with in our driveway that night?”

“I really don't think it's fair to drag her into this.”

“Why not?”

“Listen.” He puts both hands out, like he needs me to calm down. I consider jumping in my car and mowing him down. Then backing up over the body just to make sure he's dead. “She's not involved in Savvy's death, okay? I promise that she never hurt Savvy.”

“How nice that you have so much faith in her,” I say dryly.

“I deserved that.”

Sweat is starting to trickle down my back. I let the silence stretch out for a long time before speaking again. “You know everyone is starting to think it's you.”

He nods, eyes downcast.

“Maybe they have a point.”

His head snaps up, genuine bafflement on his face. “You think
I
killed Savvy?”

“How's it feel, asshole?”

“That's…” He closes his eyes for a moment. “That's fair. But I…” He closes his eyes briefly. “Lucy, please just drop it.”

“Just
drop it
? You lied and—”

“Please.” He grabs my hands. I try to pull them free, but he holds firm, his eyes pleading. “Go back to L.A., Lucy. Stop helping that podcaster. Trust me, okay?”

“Trust you?” I repeat incredulously.

“I know that it doesn't seem like it, but I've always just wanted to protect you. I'm still protecting you.” He squeezes my hands. His eyes have gone shiny.

My heart dives to my feet. I yank my hands away and stumble as I step back. The world is swaying.

“Matt, did we see each other after Savvy dropped you off that night?”

“No.” He says it again, immediately, like an automatic response he practiced. I don't believe him.

I push down the panic rising in my chest. “Just tell me who it was, okay? Who came over to see you that night? At one in the morning?”

“Lucy, just … don't, okay?”

“Just tell me, Matt. You owe it to me.”

He sighs, running a hand down his face. “It was Nina. Nina Garcia.”

It was Nina
, I text Ben the next day, as I sit down in Mom's office with my laptop. I'm ignoring Matt's advice to stop helping Ben. Fuck Matt. If I did it, then let Ben figure it out. The smug bastard deserves it, after all his hard work.

The person who Matt was fighting with in our driveway after the wedding
, I add.

I'm going to need you to tell me that story with the mic on
, he replies immediately.
Come over? Do an interview? And stay?

I'm tempted to run over there immediately.

Interview and stay? Is that like the podcaster version of Netflix and chill?

Maybe.

I have to write for a few hours. I can come later.

Okay. Does Nina know you know?

Not unless Matt told her.

Do me a favor and don't say anything yet.

I should be more protective of my high school best friend, but I know exactly why Nina was dropping by to see Matt in the middle of the night, even if he wouldn't admit it.

No problem.

Ben greets me at his hotel room door with a smile. He's barefoot, in jeans and a faded T-shirt. It's cute in a way I both hate and love.

“Let's do this,” he says, walking to the small table in the corner where the mics are set up. “Then I thought we could order some food?”

I nod. He turns on the microphones.

“You saw Matt recently?” he prompts.

“Yeah, he showed up at my house last night. He wanted to talk about…” I trail off, deliberately. “He just wanted to talk. And I wanted to know who he was fighting with that night after getting home, so I went out to talk to him. I'd been trying to get in touch with him for days, but he's been ignoring me.”

“Did he tell you?”

“Yeah. He said it was Nina Garcia.”

“
I told you she was a bitch
,” Savvy says. I try my best to ignore her.

“Did he say why she was dropping by in the middle of the night? And why he lied about it?”

“He sure didn't. But … well, you've heard what people have been saying about our marriage. I doubt she was coming over so they could go play checkers together.”

Ben's mouth twists like he's trying not to laugh. He makes me recount the whole conversation, which means I have to carefully navigate around our discussion of Julia and that moment when I let him kiss me.

Not how innocent people act.

“Okay, it's off,” Ben says, switching the mic off when we finish. “I guess we know now why Nina doesn't like me.”

“Or it's just your personality.”

He winks at me.

I wake up in his bed, alone. The clock on the nightstand says 3:38, and I roll over to see the bathroom door open, the room dark. Light filters in under the door from the living room.

I slide out of bed, find my underwear and tank top on the floor, and pull them on. I push open the door and peek out.

Ben sits on the ground next to the sliding glass door, wearing a T-shirt and boxer briefs. It's cracked open, and he's smoking a joint, blowing the smoke out the door. A half-finished drink is on the floor next to him.

He turns when I step outside the bedroom. “Hey.”

“Can't sleep?”

He shakes his head and then holds the joint out, offering it to me.

“No, thanks.” I walk across the room and sit down across from him.

“Matt texted you.” He points to my phone, which is on the coffee table.

I reach over and grab it. “You're not even going to pretend that you didn't look at my phone?”

“Nope.” One side of his mouth lifts. “In my defense, it flashed on the screen like half an hour ago and I just happened to see his name.”

I unlock my phone and read the message. Sent at three in the morning. He must be drunk.

I'm sorry. Can we talk?

“He wants to talk.” I put the phone back on the table.

“Are you going to?”

“No. He's just drunk.”

He takes a hit off the joint and peers at me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“My drunk ex-husband?”

“Everything … involving your drunk ex-husband.”

“No.”

“Is there a reason you never want to talk about him?”

“I talk about— Wait, off the record?”

“Yes. We're in our underwear.”

“Being in just your underwear means you're off the record?”

“I mean, I think it should.”

I stretch my legs out, crossing one ankle over the other. Ben puts a hand on my calf. “I talk about him. But I'm not interested in recounting my sad marriage story for your podcast listeners.”

“Your sad marriage story is probably relevant.”

He has no idea
how
relevant. I shrug.

Ben slowly blows out smoke. “Was he that big of a dick when you married him?”

I give him an amused look. “No. Or, yes. I don't know. He was a more lovable dick. Or I was more tolerant of assholes then. Probably a combination of the two.”

“I don't really recognize the version of you that people talk about.” Ben finishes the joint and reaches up to drop it in an empty glass on the end table. “The twenty-two-year-old Lucy who married him sounds like a completely different person, the way they talk about you.”

“I was, in a way. I was Plumpton Lucy. Same girl I was in high school.” I reach for his drink and take a sip. It's straight whiskey, and it burns as it goes down. “I always admired that about Savvy. She was so different than she was in high school. She wasn't afraid to…”

“
I thought it would be more upsetting, being covered in blood
,” she whispers in my ear.

Ben looks at me expectantly.

“… change,” I finish.

“It doesn't sound like you were so bad in high school,” he says.
“You were the type of girl who went around punching assholes. I think we would have gotten along.”

“Or I would have punched you.”

He laughs. His eyes are slightly bloodshot, and he's loose, high. “I was a huge nerd in high school.”

“I want to see you as a teenage nerd. Show me a picture.”

“No,” he says, with little to no conviction.

“Come on. You spend your days obsessing over every detail of my past. You've probably seen every picture taken of me in my early twenties.”

He squints. “That's a really good point, actually.” He sighs as he reaches for his phone. “Fine.”

He swipes for a minute before turning the phone so I can see the screen. I take it from him.

It's a prom photo. He stands next to a pretty brunette girl in a green dress. His tie matches. His hair is too short and he has a giant pimple on his forehead. It looks like he hit his growth spurt later, because he's about the same height as his date, who's wearing flats. Or maybe she was just six feet tall.

“You liar.” I pass the phone back to him.

He looks startled. “What?”

“You absolutely had girls lining up for you. You were cute and you know it.”

“I was a nerd! A bumbling, awkward nerd. I talked about
Iron Man
a lot.”

“Oh yes, talking about the billion-dollar Marvel franchise that everyone loves must have made you extremely uncool.”

“Hey. It was slightly less cool back then.”

“God, you're so smug. You had hot prom dates and won fancy student journalism prizes. You solve crimes on your own and you get murder suspects to have sex with you.”

“Paige would be extremely annoyed to hear anyone thinks I solve
crimes on my own. And how did you know I won fancy journalism prizes? You researched me?”

“You hired a PI to investigate me, so I don't think you have room to judge my light googling.”

“I wasn't judging, I was flattered.”

“Don't be.”

He laughs, his fingers moving against my calf. I scoot forward a little, and his hand slides up to my thigh.

“What was your most likely thing?” I ask. “You know, in the yearbook? Like how I was ‘Most Likely to Kill Her Best Friend.'”

“You were ‘Most Likely to be a CEO by Thirty.'”

“Thanks, stalker.”

“We didn't do those. I thought they were just a movie thing, actually. A movie thing and a small-town thing, apparently.”

“What would you have been? Most likely to win a Pulitzer?”

He laughs. “I doubt it. Most likely to obsess over unsolved murders? I was known for it back then too.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“It's in one of the Reddit threads about your podcast. Some people you went to high school with have weighed in there.”

“Jesus, you should not be looking at any Reddit threads about me or you.”

“Why? Because they call me a crazy murderer but say they'd still fuck me?”

“Yes! That's exactly why.”

“This isn't news to me.” I move even closer to him, parting my legs so I can wrap them around him and sit in his lap. His arms circle my waist.

I lean down to kiss him. “As one of the men who would definitely still fuck a crazy murderer, I don't think you have the right to look so scandalized.”

His lips brush mine as he speaks. “I prefer not to use the word
crazy
. Not in that context, anyway.”

“It's so interesting that it's the word
crazy
that bothers you and not
murderer
.”

“I didn't say that word didn't bother me too.”

I kiss him, looping my arms around his neck and shifting until I can feel that he's currently only bothered in the good way.

“Let's go back to the bedroom.”