We Told Six Lies(4)

But instead, they’re looking at me.

Why are they looking at me?

I hate myself for doing it, but I grab the fast food bag from the floor and shove my hand inside, finish eating the fries, the cold nuggets. I open the barbeque sauce and slurp some into my mouth. Then I suck down the Coke. I pace the floor—back and forth, back and forth—and then go for the door.

I take a step outside the room.

Phones ring, and someone—an officer—walks right past me with a folder. We almost touch, and yet he doesn’t even look in my direction. Should I run for the exit? No, that’ll make me look guilty.

Then it hits me—why do I care what it looks like?

I have to find Molly!

“Hey, there.” Detective Tehrani strides toward me, holding a drink of his own. “One of the officers said you might be upset. Everything okay? You need to go home for a while? Take a breather?”

“Molly’s car. You said you found it. Did you find her, too?”

Detective Tehrani motions back inside the room, inviting me to take a seat. I go in, jerk a chair away from the table.

“No, she wasn’t there,” he says. “Did you think she would be?”

“I…I don’t know. How would I know?”

He looks confused. “You two were dating, right? I figured if anyone would know you would.”

“Were her things in the car?” I ask. “The things she took from her house?”

Detective Tehrani hesitates, seemingly deciding whether to provide this piece of information. “No, they weren’t.”

“Well, that’s good. If someone had taken her, they wouldn’t have taken her things, right?”

The man leans back. Clasps his hands on the table, his drink forgotten. “You think someone might have taken her?”

“What? No…well, I don’t know…the other officer said—”

Detective Hernandez sweeps into the room. “Sorry about that. Was the food okay? I hate it when the fries go cold on you and—”

I pound my fist on the table. “I don’t give two fucks about fries. Tell me about Molly’s car. Did it seem okay? Was there any sign of a…I don’t know…a struggle, or whatever?” I watch them watching me. “Why are you two just staring at me?”

Detective Hernandez is looking, specifically, at my hand. The one I hit against the table. My fingers are still clenched, my knuckles white.

She sits down slowly, and her brown eyes meet mine. She pulls in a long, patient breath. There is pity in her gaze, and I feel a surge of guilt for my outburst. “Talking to you, talking to everyone, Cobain…that’s how we are going to find Molly. That’s what you want, right?”

I nod, remembering we’re on the same side, even if it doesn’t feel that way.

“Now, if you don’t mind staying a bit longer,” Detective Hernandez ventures, “Tell me about more Molly. Did you two share the same friends? Did she ever meet your parents?”

The fight I experienced only a moment ago leaves my body.

I think about Molly driving her mother’s car, heart-shaped sunglasses on her face, window down, hair whipping around her head, fingers tapping on the steering wheel.

A bag on her empty passenger seat.

A seat I was supposed to fill.





THEN


I’d never been one to bounce from bed in the morning. I’d rise, sloth-like, to flip off the day. But that morning, in particular, I had trouble getting up. You’d invaded my mind, a welcome parasite. I wanted to lie in bed forever, let the thought of you keep me in a dreamlike state.

But my mom had turned on the radio. She turned it progressively louder the longer I stayed in bed in a passive-aggressive maneuver to get me up. I knew she’d already have breakfast on the table. Pancakes maybe, or French toast. She wasn’t a Pop-Tarts kind of mom, though sometimes I wished she were.

I wondered what you were eating for breakfast, Molly.

I liked to think it was strawberries.

Is that weird?

I pressed my pillow over my head and groaned. Counted to ten and then threw the thing across the room and got up, because Foreigner was growing unbearably loud. I stretched, feeling my muscles ache in a good way, and thought about what Coach Miller said. How I should really consider joining the team. How it would do me good to hang out with some of the other guys.

I’d rather bathe my dick in honey and lie on a bed of fire ants, I’d replied.

And the dude had laughed.

That’s why I liked him. Anyone who could take a joke was gold in my book.

I pulled on some clothes and padded down the hallway. My dad turned from the table, a newspaper held stiff between his hands. “Welcome to the land of the living.”

“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” I replied, and nudged the laptop on the table toward him.

My dad looked at my mom with amusement. “He speaks.”

“And to make fun of those stinky newspapers,” Mom added. “I like it.”

“The smell of newspaper ink is invigorating,” he said and took a sip of his coffee.

“That’s one word for it.” Mom dropped a plate of fried doughnuts dusted with powdered sugar in front of me.

I sighed.

“Don’t sigh at me, child. A couple of doughnuts aren’t going to hurt you.”