Seven Ways We Lie (32 page)

Hood down, head up—check around, make sure nobody saw—

Slow down, heart
.

I shut the door behind me and head down the hall.

Hello? Someone there?
A familiar voice, a familiar smell.

I round the corner, and it's the most familiar sight, isn't it—

a coffee mug on a glass table. Evening light in his tired eyes. His patched gray sweater on narrow shoulders, rolled up to his elbows.

Shock slathered onto his expression.

Surprise
, I say.

The room expands, unfolds, unpacks.

There are miles of gray thread coiling between us.

Cavernous silence and those eyes,

those eyes.

June. What are you doing here?

(I have missed so badly the sight of you saying my name.)

It's freezing. Everything is freezing. My toes and fingers, long and pale.
I had to see you. With what they're saying about Norman—I had to make sure you're okay
.

He opens his mouth, showing nothing on his tongue but quiet.

The man of words, a dry inkwell at last.

He walks step by step my way, and I watch his

purposeful strides,

worn sneakers, grayed from morning runs,

stopping inches from mine.

I don't know what to do
, he says.
I don't know who said it was that McCallum kid and Neil Norman, of all people, but it's only going to get people more riled up. I . . . God, if he gets in serious trouble—the guy has a wife and kids, there's—

It has to blow over. They have zero proof
.

I guess
. His voice cracks. He licks his lips.
June, I've been thinking
.

Yeah?

We can cut ties. I can delete your number, texts, emails, everything—I can make sure nobody ever finds out. I can't fix what's happening at school, but if it'll help you . . 
.

His ocean eyes, deep black tumults, lightning storms.

My three words, three drops of rain.
Don't you dare
.

But

If something happens, I am going to be there with you
.

I can see his heart beat faster.
Are you—

Of course I'm sure
. My chest is so full, I think my ribs are cracking.
I didn't come here for a good-bye, David
.

I know
.

I came here to . . . I wanted . . 
.

I know
, he repeats.

His words light a fire under my lungs. My breaths are thick ash.

So what do we do?
I ask.

I don't know
.

But you love me?

Of course I love you
.

The top of my heart, hinged, cracks open,

and my fears, ravens, fly out.

They spill away like black paint,

leaving me empty and pink and new.

Hopeful.

He's reaching out. I'm reaching up to take his hand,

passing through a veil of guilt,

swaying two inches before his eyes.
David
.

His hands rest on my shoulders, lightly as wings.

(your lips fall to mine, natural as gravity
,

close on my lower lip, rough and sweet
.

i touch, i bite, i taste.)

I consume him.

(the sounds at the back of my throat are yours. everything
,

everything is yours.)

I press tight to his body. Between us is a hair-fine fault line,

hardly a fault at all.

His slender hands settle on my back and draw me in, close, closer.

Heat tingles in every inch of this skin,

dense, thick awareness, pins and needles and blisters.

I need you, too
, I murmur, flushed, aching.

His lips are a balm on mine. Gentle.
June
, he whispers, that's all.

Radiance and setting sun, bliss and blinding want.

(i feel you, cradle you, cherish you.)

When finally we break—

Missed you
—

So much
—

our shared words whisper and blend and merge.

A kiss, a rough kiss, the stamp of it is raw heat.

He pulls back, pulling half of me with him,

and smiles.

My own smile shrugs itself on,

wrapping me in comfort.

For weeks I have sweated,

labored,

aching to drive Sisyphus's stone up this eternal mountain,

and here: the summit.

Here they are. Here are his eyes. I have arrived

in the sunlight of his regard.

It's one in the morning when I lock us in for our thousandth test of willpower.

His room hasn't changed an inch: bare surfaces, empty desk, closed drawers, furniture sparse and simply made.

Blank, save his shelves of roommates:

Hemingway and Beukes, Christie and Martin, Márquez and Morrison, Rowling and—his best friend—the Bard.

Every flavor of word treated

tenderly, every corner soft from extensive paging.

I slip into his narrow bed. We lock tight,

two-lane traffic on a one-lane street.

I trace his jaw; the stubble nips my fingers.

He brushes my hair back.
What did you tell them?

I'm at Olivia's for the night. I don't know. We should tell them
.

You've said that eight thousand times, June
.

Eight thousand and one
.

I curl into him. He is a brazier, blazing,

lighting me mercilessly.

He smells like apple and a touch of alcohol. My feet fold against his calves.

I know we should
, he says.
But do you want to tell them?

Of course not
.

His chest collapses in a sigh under my hand.
Then there we go
.

Yeah. I guess
. I touch my lips to his collarbone, his throat. He hums with contentment.

I'm excited
, he whispers. A confession.
I'm excited for us. I keep thinking stupidly far into the future, you know?

I tilt my head up, surprised. This is an edit of the usual sentence. David is the here-and-now; David is grounded and pragmatic; David is not fantasy and imagination.

Where is this coming from?

Me too
, I whisper, and wonder.

I think about it all the time. After you finish college, us traveling. Brazil. India
.

I smile. Let my questions fade

to haze and hope.

Greece
, I say sleepily.
Mount Olympus
.

The world is here in this bed with us, continents quilted together,

the cosmos tucked against the headboard.

His finger traces my wrist, a figure skater flying in lazy figure eights.
Venice. A room this size that smells like the sea. Alaska. Lit candles, and fighting off an eighteen-hour night
.

The Great Wall
, I say.
Stonehenge. The Sydney Opera House
.

He kisses me.
The moon
. Again, he kisses me.
The moon
.

Wednesday morning dawns. The air is as chill and damp as drying tears,

Autumn's last battle. (Smells like brittle sap and old fires and cold sun.)

That sun in the sky is a dream, when I leave him, when I head home.

I push the oaken door, built to loom;

my feet on the hardwood are parcels of potpourri,

featherlight and inconsequential.

I grab my backpack and stop in the foyer. My parents have materialized on the steps.

They stand like stone sentries,

unfamiliar rubies set in their eyes.

My father:
Juniper, sweetheart, we need to talk
.

But I need to go to school
.

My mother:
You left your change of clothes here last night. So I called Olivia's house
.

I turn to ice limb by limb.
I . . . it's . . . I'll explain after school
.

Juniper—

After
. I turn on my heel. I totter out. Shell-shocked.

Three periods' worth of thought gets me nowhere. They noticed. They're asking, finally.

Will I push them away? Cocoon myself in lies again?

In the hall between classes, I pass the door to his room. I glance in,

see his fingers wringing clouds of dust out of the chalkboard.

He catches my eye for the briefest second.

Some hand is at my throat,

choking off all sound, all breath, all air.

It should be branded on my forehead—
I'm going to tell them—
hideous, fiery letters.

I continue down the hall, gaining momentum as I go.

ON WEDNESDAY, IT RAINS AND RAINS. I CAN'T FOCUS
in any of my classes, watching the droplets trickle down the windowpanes. I've hardly slept since the rumors broke on Monday about Lucas. Of course I can't turn Juniper in, but what am I supposed to do, knowing that's a lie? Lucas doesn't deserve that. Even Norman, douchebag of the century, doesn't deserve that.

García has avoided my eyes all week, and I keep busy trying not to imagine Juniper at his side. They'd be an unbearably photogenic couple, which makes it about eight times weirder. I don't think of teachers as having relationships, even friendships. In my mind, they exist in their own space: that twenty-foot stretch at the front of the room, where they're omniscient and all-powerful, where they rule our miserable lives. Everywhere else, they do not exist.

But since Sunday night, I've been thinking: what would it be like to talk to García as if he were our age? Talking about our lives and our interests and the future? It would be so weird, seeing him through that lens.

Though I guess since Juniper dropped his class, she doesn't know him through the omniscient teacher-lens. And that, more than anything, reassures me.

· · · · · · ·

IT'S STILL RAINING WHEN I GET HOME. I SHUT THE
door on the sound of it, sighing.

Coming home today is the dull pain of a headache. Besides a glimpse of Kat on Monday evening—she looked frighteningly numb—I haven't seen her at all. All I have is the recorded messages from yesterday, and now today:
We are calling to inform you that Katrina Scott missed one or more classes today
.

My phone buzzes. I pull it out, expecting Juni, daring to hope it might be Claire or Matt. But the screen reads:
Daniel
.

Frowning, I pick up. “Hello?”

“Hey. Olivia.”

“Dan?” I dump my backpack and my bag from the pharmacy on the kitchen table. “How's, um, how's it going?”

“Pretty good, pretty good.”

“That's . . . good?”
Why are you calling me?

“Look, I heard about Juniper landing in the hospital. That blows.”

“It does.”

“She doing okay?”

“I . . . yeah,” I say in my most discouraging monotone, still wondering what the point of this call is.

“How about you? You must be stressed.”

“Sort of. I mean, she's better now.” I wander into the living room and sit on our sofa. The springs creak. “Dan—”

“What are you up to?”

“What?”

“Because if you wanted to come over later, you could. You know, for stress relief.”

I take my phone from my ear and stare at it, half floored, half repulsed. “Excuse me?” I splutter, crushing it back to my ear. “Wait, slow down. Are you seriously asking what I think you're asking?”

“I . . . don't know?”

“Okay, I'll simplify: is this or is this not a poorly disguised booty call?”

“Well, my parents aren't home. House is empty.”

“Oh my God, Daniel. Let me make this perfectly, utterly clear.
No
.”

He's quiet for a second. Then he says, “What, are you with Matt now?”

“That's not—”

“Because he's not even a good guy, you know.”

“
He's
not a good guy? And yet you're the one still trying to hook up with someone who has told you no, like, three times? You could ask out any other human being. What do I have to do here?”

“So the other weekend meant nothing to you. At all.”

I close my eyes. “Look, this has got to be some sort of communication issue. It was fun, okay? I had fun, but it was a onetime thing. I thought we were clear on—”

“It doesn't have to be.”

“But it does.
A
, I don't want to hook up again, and
B
, I like someone else, so—”

“So it
is
Matt. What's the difference between screwing him and screwing me?”

My mind stops. I have no idea what to say, but that's A-okay, because, God bless him, he keeps on going: “Besides, if you're
going to let everyone and his brother get it, can't blame me for assuming you're down.”

When I find words, they rush out in a waterfall. “So by sleeping with more than one guy, I've forfeited my right to hook up with who I want? Or are you saying that by having sex with multiple people, I've become, like, emotionally incapable of falling for one person? Either way,
are you insane
?”