She Lies Twisted (7 page)

“
Alright guys, let's settle down,” Mr. Summers pretended to shout over the din. In reality, he cared as little as they did. He was tenured, he was retiring at the end of the school year, why should he give a shit? “Pass your homework to the front of the room and we'll get started on our next unit.” Chalk scraped across the board as Mr. Summers wrote out a sentence in his teeny, tiny handwriting. I squinted to see. Snickers resounded behind me like a chorus of chipmunks.
Chitter, chitter, chitter.

“
I hope it's Romeo and Juliet...wouldn't that be perfect? Just like Boyd and Tate. Wonder when she'll cut
her
wrists.” It was Jarrod, Margaret's boyfriend, who wasn't even a jock, just a loser. I didn't blink back tears or yell out, “What did you say?” I just turned around and spit in his face. “You fucking bitch,” Jarrod shouted as we both rocketed out of our chairs. He pulled his fist back.

“
Hit her, hit the stupid bitch!” It was Margaret Cedar.

“
What is going on here?” Mr. Summers hadn't even had a chance to process what was happening when I swung first. My fist connected, white hot pain racking my knuckles and sending Jarrod stumbling back, blood streaming from his split lip.

“
You fucking whore!” He screeched. I didn't hear, I didn't stop to see what Mr. Summers would do, just ran with my heart on my sleeve, fat tears mixing with my eyeliner and dripping down my face, thick and runny like blood.

I sat in the park for hours, in the spot where Boyd had taught me how to play chess.

“
You see this one, here?” He'd asked pointing to a knight.

“
You mean the little horsey guy?” I'd asked and watched as he'd thrown back his head and laughed, loud and raucous and passionate. I knew then that we'd be friends. We were just too perfect together.

I kept my sweatshirt wrapped around my knees, arms locked together tightly as I stared at the people passing by. Smiling people, happy people, people with friends and family. I ignored the drying blood on my knuckles and only vaguely thought to wonder if an asshole like Jarrod had any diseases.

“
Why do you even bother?” A voice asked. At first I thought it was mine since I had been having that very same thought when I realized the words hadn't come from my mouth. The boy from the beach stepped out from behind the tree. He was even sadder in the perfect daylight than he'd been in the dusky evening. His head was stitched to his neck with the same black thread that I'd pulled from my skin the night before. I adjusted my sleeves. It hadn't grown back. Some part of me had said that it would. I stabbed at the holes with my nails.

“
Even bother what?” I asked as he knelt down in the grass next to me. People were starting to stare, not that I really cared, but how did he ever make it around town like that? Maybe the frosty lips and the navy eyes would work on Halloween but as it stood, even I thought they were a bit creepy. The boy folded his legs beneath him like he expected to sit a long time. I stood up.

“
Where are you going?” He asked.
I have no fucking clue
, I thought,
since I'm probably suspended.
I sat back down. He made a daisy chain while we sat in silence together. When he was finished, he handed it to me. I waved him away.

“
Aren't you going to tell me what that thing was last night or are you really gonna make me ask?” The boy put the chain around his own wrist and secured it. I shuddered. The happy daisies emphasized the pale translucence of his skin and made the black cross hatches of his own stitches even more macabre.

“
I meant, why do you even bother going to school anymore?” I pursed my lips. So he knew who I was. That explained the getup and the stitches. It was all a set up. Of course it was. It had to be. It was just my luck.

“
So you know about Boyd, huh? Is that why you followed me to the beach? To harass me? To watch me cry?” I could feel my blood pounding in my ears. The boy blinked. I stood up again. “You could've killed me, pushing me off of that cliff and the stitches...” I paused. The more I broke down last night's events in my head, the less sense they made. I decided to keep my rant going anyway. I did best riding my anger hot. If I let it cool down, it was likely that I would never act and the boy and his friends, whoever the fuck they were, would get away with it. “You better be prepared to fucking explain yourself. You stuck a needle in my goddamn skin,” I huffed, pointing a finger at myself. “And that costume, that sand guy, was that shit from the props department?” The boy opened his mouth but I stopped him with another torrent of harsh words. “You know what, you know fucking what,” I breathed. “I don't care. I don't fucking care.” Tears were falling again and it was all that I could do not to break down. “I just lost the best friend that I'll ever have. He was everything to me,” I shrieked through clenched teeth. “They all were and now they're all fucking
dead.
” I dropped my hands to my sides. “You don't need to go out of your way to fuck with me, okay? I'm already screwed up enough as it is.” The guy had yet to speak, to defend himself, but at least he hadn't laughed. I think if he had I might've hit him harder than I'd hit Jarrod.

“
I lost someone, too,” was all that he said and then he was back to picking daisies again. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stir up any raw feelings, I just thought you knew.”

“
Thought I knew what?” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. I was starting to feel stupid now. The boy placed his newest creation atop his messy head of gray-brown hair.

“
There are two cops coming down the walkway behind you.” I cast a disinterested glance over my right shoulder. Sure enough it was Margaret Cedar's older brother and the school cop. I threw my hood up to cover my hair.

“
Thanks,” I said as I stepped around the base of the tree and out of their line of sight. The boy stood up and followed me.

“
My name is James,” he said, holding out a hand. I ignored him and kept walking. “You see that?” He asked as he pointed his finger across the park. I glanced up and then froze.

It was the black bird lady from the beach.

I ducked my head and began to walk faster.

“
That's enough,” I hissed as I slipped through a break in the hedge and a hole in the neighboring chain link fence. “I told you to fuck off, leave me alone.” He kept following.

“
You don't know anything do you?” He asked, this time with a touch of amusement in his voice. I proceeded down a cobblestone pathway that lead to a duck pond and a series of trails that would ultimately end up with me in my own backyard. When I reached the cover of the trees, I turned around and shoved 'James' or whoever the hell he was in the chest.

“
I said fuck off!” And then I was turning around and running until my breath caught in my chest and I was standing at the edge of our fence debating the merits of actually going in. I didn't have anywhere else to go. I didn't have any money on me. What were my options?
Boyd's. Go to Boyd's.
My unconscious mind had yet to accept what my conscious one had already drowned in. Boyd was dead and gone.

Boyd killed himself and he's never coming back.

The wind whispered these words in my ears but still, I went. I walked that familiar route and climbed in the trailer through a back window. The house smelt like bleach and new carpet but still, under all that, there was just a little of Boyd. I curled up in the corner of the kitchen and hoped the Orangutan hadn't moved back in yet. I wasn't in there for more than five minutes when I heard noises from Boyd's bedroom.

They're cleaning his stuff out, throwing it all away.

I rose to my feet without thinking. All I knew was that it had to stop. I had to stop them from touching it because if they touched it, if they took his flannel night shirts away, if they took the manga, if they took the ships in bottles, then Boyd would really be gone.

I flew around the corner, my hands grasping the edges of the door frame and prepared myself for a fight with the Orangutan. Instead, I found something else. Something I had been trying to prepare myself never to see again.

It was Boyd.

My insides burst open like a pinata. There it was, all of me to see, my emotions strewn across the floor like candy.

“
Boyd?” The word was wet with tears. It dripped from my lips and splashed into the silence that loomed between us. Boyd glanced back at me and rubbed a hand over his beard.

“
Which do you like better,” he began, holding up two CDs. “Moonlight Sonata or Für Elise?” I stared at him a moment and watched him shimmer like a reflection in a glass, wobbly and unstable. He wasn't real but now I knew I'd finally plunged over the deep end. I'd left the dock of sanity at the trailer door. But at least if I was crazy, I could have Boyd back in a way. Maybe I could even summon up my mother or Jessica or my brother, Abe? I lunged towards him.

Arms wrapped around my chest, pulled me back, and threw me to the floor in the hallway.

“
Don't touch him!” James screamed, his chest heaving as he struggled to hold me back. “He isn't finished yet. If he was finished, they would call for you!” I stared at him for a long while, wondering which us was crazier. I decided I didn't care and threw him off of me. Boyd's room wasn't very big and I was at his side in three short strides.

“
Boyd?” My fingers brushed his sweater, my hand reached for his face. His lips twisted, curled, became black and brittle like charcoal and began to flake across my skin. He wrapped his hand around my waist while talons, dark and gleaming pierced into my side. I started to scream but then he was tossing me like a doll across the room. I burst through the cheap prefab walls and into the living room. In the very spot I'd seen Boyd dead, I was now lying in danger of bleeding to death.

I lifted my sweater and stared in horror at the red liquid leaking across my hands. Boyd- or whatever it was that he'd become- crawled through the hole I'd made and came tearing after me. His back was twisted, his vertebrae exaggerated and sharp, and his eyes, like two pieces of broken glass, reflected my pale face back at me. “What are you doing?” I whispered as his talons tore through the new carpeting and reached out for my face. “Why?”

James stepped in front of me and placed a hand on the Boyd-thing's bulging forehead. In an instant, Boyd was back to normal, grinning and thrusting a piece of paper under my nose.

“
You are not gonna believe this, Neil.” I saw my own hand reach out and grab the paper.

“
Hey!” I heard myself say. “You passed! I can't believe it!” I watched as a mirror image of myself ran forward and threw her arms around Boyd's neck. “I told you that you were smart. Stupidity skips a generation.” The ghost-me withdrew and planted her hands on her hips. “It's true.” Boyd ruffled my hair. “We learned that in AP Bio last week,” the other me said as she knocked his hand aside. I turned my face away and stared at the dark pool on the floor. My fingers shook as I reached for the wounds in my side.
It's true, it's all true. Your life really does flash before your eyes.

“
You must've been really important to him,” James said as he turned around and stared down at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling in concern. “If he's already gotten this far after what, a week?” There was still blood, lots of it, but when I touched my skin I met roughness instead of pain. I wiped my skin off with the edge of my shirt and sat up. There were new stitches all across my body from the new wounds to the old ones. I was right, they had grown back!
This isn't happening.

I stood up.

James had turned back around and was watching Boyd brush hair away from my face. I hated when he'd done that. It had always made me feel guilty for not loving him like that.

“
What the fuck is happening to me?” I asked as James continued to watch what was probably one of the most important days in my life unfold like a blurry watercolor painting right in front of what was apparently
both
of our eyes. “Why can you see that? What's going on?” James knew. He had to know. He had stitches, too. He glanced back at me.

“
I was going to explain but you took off before I had a chance.” I watched my hands glide down the arms of Boyd's sweatshirt.
This is why he died. You killed him. It's because of this day that he's dead.
I closed my eyes and hoped that wasn't true.

“
Can we go now?” I asked. “I think I'm going to be sick.” I stumbled towards the front door and then thought the better of it before returning back to the window I'm come through in the first place.

“
We can't go,” James said as he glanced around. “Who's going to clean all of this up?”

“
Who the fuck cares?” I snapped as I forced my bottom half through the narrow opening. The ghost Boyd and I were walking back towards his room. I had to get out of there. My feet hit the grass with a thump. I turned around to make sure nobody had heard the commotion. If they had, they were ignoring it. True trailer park style. James hit the ground behind me.

“
Your blood is everywhere and there's a lot of it. Whoever finds that mess is going to think someone died in there.”

“
Somebody already did,” I said and took off at an uncomfortably quick pace. After just a couple of minutes, my breath was growing ragged and my head was on fire. James caught up to me and stayed silent until I finally slowed.

“
It may have healed up but that doesn't mean it won't affect you.” I ignored him. If he was going to keep speaking cryptically like that, we might as well play charades. I waited until we were deep enough into the trees that it was unlikely that anyone would stumble onto us and then proceeded to have a panic attack. My emotions dragged more wet from my tired eyes than I'd ever thought possible. I dropped my face into my hands and sobbed.