Seven Ways We Lie(55)

“I mean, no, but—”

Valentine folds his arms. “Then we need to at least talk to her.”

“Dude,” Matt says, “why are you trying to put this off?”

Valentine shoots back, “And why are you so avid to indict Juniper? Look: telling anybody about this has as much of an impact on her life as on his. We don’t know nearly as much as you all seem to think, and if this is happening, I presume it’s been happening for a while now. So what difference does a few days make? Not a lot in time, but vast amounts in terms of the information we could learn by, oh, I don’t know, talking to either of these people.”

Valentine’s outburst leaves a heavy silence behind. His face turns red, that complete red that reaches up to the roots of his hair.

“Yeah,” I say. “You’re right. We should wait.”

Valentine glances up at me, and I catch a split second of gratitude in his eyes.

“I . . . okay,” Olivia says helplessly. “I’m so worried, though.”

“Well,” Valentine says, “the best course of action is not to ruin her life while she’s got a tube up her nose in some hospital bed.”

Always the picture of tact, Valentine. I raise my hands, aiming for a gentle intervention. “It’s going to be okay, Olivia,” I say in my most reassuring voice. “We’re going to figure this out sometime when it’s not one in the morning, all right? Once she gets out of the hospital and rests up a bit, you can talk to her, and we can go from there. Sound good?”

She half smiles. “Thanks, Lucas.”

“Great. So let’s clean this place up, yeah?” I look around at the others and rub my hands together, offering them the biggest smile I can muster. “Where should we start?”

But in my head, everything is a hundred percent serious. I picture myself walking onto the set of The Confessor, this secret locked away, worth the full $50,000. The five of us have been shackled together, forging an imperfect but unbreakable circle.





This bed isn’t mine.

These crisp sheets, looking in the light as if they’ve been frosted with dust. (Is it dust? Is it sugar? Is it ground-up hounds’ teeth? Christ, my head, my head)— This sunlight, spotty and broken. Every fragment— bang

??bang

on the back of my skull.

My rubbery fingers find an IV plugged into my body: if they yanked it out, would I jerk slump

shut down?

I am frail, I am fragile, I am flawed, yes—and for once, God, for once the world is treating me as such.

I find the clock,

remember how to read 4:00 PM.

Remember everything and nothing at all.

But David . . .

I whip up. Bad night. Last night.

Eyes piece the world together: rubber and tiled floor and thin, brittle blinds . . .

Hospital. Alcohol. Caught.

Kiss my past future away. (So much for it.) I’m crying, like I can afford the saline extract.

My mother keeps vigil by my bed.

The newspaper flops, a dead bird in her lap.

She is so confused. It hurts to see.

“Sweetie . . .”

Stop tiptoeing, I want to scream. Stop tiptoeing and storm at me. I deserve it. Do it.

This, her feeble tempest: I hope this won’t happen again.

“You,” I say, “have got to be kidding me.”

People have said I have her eyes, but I hope I don’t look that cowardly, readjusting at the first hint of steel the first flash of fire.

Where is the hard-faced professionalism she slips on for work each morning?

She should be raging. Don’t you dare, she should be saying. Don’t you talk back to me.

You know better.

(I do know better.)

“Juniper,” she says, “tell me how you’re feeling.”

“I can’t believe you,” I mumble.

“Sweetie—why?”

A hell rustles inside my skull and pours out. “Are you even angry at me? I did everything wrong—why aren’t you mad? Aren’t you going to ask how I got here? Why don’t you stop me?”

I don’t realize I’m screaming until a door hinge complains and I slam back to the bed,

the pillow engulfing my peripheral in a puff.

(When did I sit up?)

They make her get out, and she looks lost.


I’m home three hours later. My mother’s eyes are a swaying pendulum that cannot fix on me. Her mouth seems wired shut.

My father will be back this evening. If he so much as raises his voice, it will signify a radical revolution, shaking me from power.

My mother tucks me into

my bed’s warm embrace.

The second she vanishes, I pull out my phone to find twelve calls, a neat dozen, lined up from last night.

Flashes linger past midnight. The dim memory of the screen pressed to my cheek, heated as a kiss, and the static whisper of his sigh. (I picture his narrow shoulder blades folding in on themselves like origami.) I tap voice mail. It conjures up the sound of him: “Juniper. Are you okay? Please call me back. Call me as soon as you get this. If I don’t hear from you in three minutes, I’m calling an ambulance. Text, call, anything. Please.”

(a tight pause.)

“June, I need you. To be all right.”