Seven Ways We Lie(26)

Then a shout bursts into my attention, ringing through my door: “—be quiet!” and I wince and smother my phone, but Olivia’s already asking, “Everything all right over there?” and I’m like, “It’s my parents,” because it’s easier than a lie.

“That’s rough. It’s pretty late,” she says, and I sigh. I don’t want her to pity me, but I do want her to know that I get what it’s like, coming home to a house you can’t deal with, so I shrug and say, “They’ve been like this since I was, like, ten. On and off. So I get . . . I hope your sister gets better. I hope you guys work it out. Because this shit drives you insane. You know?”

For a long moment, she doesn’t say anything. Then her voice comes back, calm and slow. “Yeah, I know,” she says. “I get done with school and everything and come home to this, like, hovering atmosphere of—I don’t know what I did, you know? I’m going crazy trying to figure out what I did,” and I say, “You probably didn’t do anything,” and she says, “What?” and I say, “I mean, my parents are always angry because they’re miserable.”

Silence. I feel as if the words should have been hard to say, but they slid out as easily as thin liquid, not an ounce of resistance. I stare at my bedroom wall, and my voice trails on without me, careless, thoughtless. “My mom feels like she’s wasting her fancy degree out here in bumf*ck Kansas, and my dad gets all, Why are you so ungrateful? and nothing I do changes that. So, like, your sister? If I had to guess, she’s probably going through something personal, and she needs to figure it out before she’s ready to treat you like . . . I don’t know. A person.”

Looking over at the windowsill, I realize my blunt has smoldered down on its plate. I stub it out, not even angry about having wasted half a joint, because, what the hell, when did this turn into an actual conversation? I’m perched, tense, on the edge of my chair, waiting for her answer.

Olivia says, “Where’d your mom go to school?” And I say, “Yale. She’s a biologist.”

“How do you deal with the fighting?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” I rummage around for a better answer but come up empty-handed. “I don’t deal with it. I’m just here.”

“You don’t try to stop them?” she asks, and I’m like, “Nah. Last time I tried was freshman year. Now I only speak up when they get Russell involved,” and she’s like, “Your little brother,” and I look over at him, his mouth cracked open in sleep. “Yeah,” I say. “He’s better than the rest of my family combined.” A breeze washes in through the window as I listen to her silence on the other end. I haven’t talked like this in a long time, and something in my heart is waking up, lifting its drooping head.

“What’s, uh, what’s going on with your sister?” I ask.

“She’s missing classes, she never comes out of her room, and every time I, like, dare to seem worried, she snaps. It’s like living with a . . . I don’t know, a Venus flytrap. A large, deeply angry Venus flytrap.” Olivia chuckles, and it breaks, and she’s quiet, and I rearrange my fingers on the hot plastic casing of my phone and wish I knew what to say.

“It’s frustrating,” she goes on, “?’cause we’re both dealing with the same thing, you know? She’s the only one who would get it, but we’ve never spoken about Mom, not once. I wish she’d talk to me. Jesus, I never thought I’d say this, but I miss middle school.”

“Makes sense wanting to rewind things, though.”

Her silent understanding rings through the phone. Me, I’d go all the way back to elementary school, before permanent lines settled between my parents’ eyebrows.

“But also, f*ck middle school,” I add, and she laughs.

Silence settles carefully, like ashes. “This is weird,” she says after a minute, and I say, “Yeah,” and she says, “I hate to, like, ruin your night—”

“You’re not—”

“Let’s just . . .”

“Yeah,” I say. “So, Saturday? My house? I can pick you up.”

“Okay, sure. I’ll send you my address, and . . . yeah, great.” Her voice is uncertain, tense with the weird anxiety I’m feeling, too, and I get this image of her eyes bleary and her long dark hair draped over her shoulder, and it startles me a little, the reminder that she’s a real, physical person, someone I’ll see in the flesh tomorrow at school. What will it be like, meeting her eyes after saying all this? I’m going to mess it up, won’t I? The easy slide of this conversation will disappear, and I’ll be back to my usual awkward mumbling.

“I’ll read Inferno,” I blurt out, without knowing why. Somehow, even though I haven’t done any required reading since I was twelve, it doesn’t feel like a straight-up lie.

She chuckles. “I’m holding you to that. See you tomorrow?” And I say, “Yeah,” and she says, “Bye, Matt.”

When she hangs up, it feels as if I’m surfacing from a deep dream. I draw a long breath, dazed, and carry Russ upstairs to tuck him in. As I shut myself back in my room, easing myself into bed, I can hardly believe that somewhere across town, Olivia picked up the phone and something happened—I don’t know what the hell it was—over the line.