Little Black Lies (25 page)

The next morning, the weather complicates our move. Icy rain buckets down on us as we load up the trailer. Dad didn't like the way we were tracking muck up into the clean apartment, so we came up with a tag-team system. Dad treks up the stairs, then back down again with his arms full of cartons and small appliances. I wait in the lobby, at the door—which I've propped open with a telephone book—for the next load before stepping out into the rain and racing to the trailer with it. It's so cold outside I can see my breath, although, from beneath the dripping hood of my yellow windbreaker, it's pretty hard to see anything at all.

As I carry a particularly towering stack of boxes through the storm, a small
S
-marked box, the box I filled with my precious things—my jewelry box, the
I
NY
mug from when Mom once went to a concert there, the clock radio with broken alarm, and matches—threatens to slip off the top of the pile. I step forward, wet hands reaching upward, and just as I save the falling carton, my right boot floods with icy water.

“Ugh!” My waterlogged boot now weighs about fifty pounds. I spin around to show Dad, but he's already gone upstairs. I haul myself into the U-Haul and pull off my rubber boot, standing on the metal floor in my sopping wet sock, before turning the boot upside down and dumping out enough water to fill a fish tank. Rain is hammering down on the metal roof, but I hear the sound of footsteps running along the sidewalk, then someone swings around and jumps up into the trailer. All I can see is a jacket and wet jeans. I pull back my hood to see none other than Leo staring back at me.

He reaches up to wipe water from his grinning face. “Finally!”

I'm too stunned to speak right away. Still holding my boot, I manage to whisper, “Hey.”

“You're a tough one to get hold of. I've been calling you for days.” Small clouds puff from his mouth as he speaks. I want to inhale them.

“My phone's broken.”

“I finally get my voice back and find out you're moving to New York.”

“You were that sick?”

He points at my boot. “Shouldn't you put that back on?”

“Yeah.” I don't move.

He steps closer. His denim jacket is soaked right through. “I wouldn't have cancelled our plans for anything that didn't require serious meds. You believed me, right?”

I pause too long.

“Please don't say you thought I ditched you because of what happened in the garage?” he says, groaning. “I
knew
it.”

“Well …”

“Sara, we both admitted to a few white lies.”

“Yeah, but mine were more black.”

“Will it make you feel better to hear mine?”

“You totally don't have to …”

“You know those scars on my chest?”

“Yes.”

“It was unbelievably stupid. It was a hot summer day. I found a bottle of my mom's nail polish and bet my neighbor I could make it explode.”

“Nail polish is so flammable. It can totally explode.”

“Yeah, so I learned. This kid, Oliver, he was two years younger than me. We'd been in his pool earlier and were both in our bathing suits. I should have known better than to involve anyone else, but I found a sunny spot on the driveway and pulled out a magnifying glass. Anyway, it took a long time, but eventually the bottle exploded.”

I cringe in horror. “You got burned?”

“What happened to me was nothing. Oliver lost sight in one eye. It's the biggest regret of my life.
So
stupid.”

“God.”

“Yeah. He jokes about it now, but only because he's a good guy.”

Instinctively, my hand goes up to his chest and rests on his wet jacket for just a moment, as if my touch might penetrate through the fabric, might smooth away the scars.

“Will you ever hang out with me again?”

I look around at the stacks of boxes. “I'm moving.”

“I know. I live with the president, remember? You better tell Charlie my dad is one tough boss. After graduation this June, he's sending me to work in the Manhattan office.”

“You'll be living in New York?”

“If you can call sleeping on an air mattress at my brother's apartment living, then, yeah,” he says with a grunt. “So? What do you say?”

The rain slows down and the hammering on the roof grows softer. Outside, a tiny sliver of blue sky peers through the clouds. Water dribbles down his face, drips from his chin. I want to wipe it away but I don't. Instead, I squint in the brightening light, halfway between my old life and my new, and smile. “I'd love to hang out with you again.”

Tish Cohen
is the author of several books for adults and young readers. Her adult novel
Town House
was a 2008 finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book Award (Canada and Caribbean Region) and is in development as a feature film. She is also the author of the middle-grade novels
The Invisible Rule of the Zoë Lama
and
The One and Only Zoë Lama.
Having grown up in Los Angeles and Orange County in California, and Montreal, Cohen now calls Toronto home. You can visit her online at
www.tishcohen.com.