We Told Six Lies(69)

That was the reaction she needed, but she realized as she dressed that she was doing it more for herself than for him. It felt therapeutic, to do something for her own happiness versus trying to affect someone else in some way. Was this the first time she’d done that?

Blue left the room and went to the kitchen, and she followed him out. He’d set a table for them with white dishes covered in indeterminate meat drowning in black sauce. Stiff green beans and mashed potatoes lay beside the meat, and two goblets of wine sat proudly above the plates.

There were cloth napkins. And polished silverware. And two pillar candles with flickering flames. As Molly took her seat, Blue put a record on the player and laid the red needle on its spinning face.

Molly smiled, because what else could she do?

As they ate in silence, Molly looked through the window. Her eyes fell on the white van. If she died tonight, would they ever find her body? Or would they only find that blasted van? This claustrophobic cabin? The room where he’d kept her?

“Where do you get this food from?” she asked, trying to make conversation.

But he didn’t respond, and she didn’t really care about the answer anyway.

When they were done eating, they left the plates where they were, because what was the point of cleaning them?

Molly took Blue’s hand, and they danced in the living room as they had done several nights ago. But this time, Molly didn’t do it for any other reason than to cling to the last person she might ever touch. Her concept of what was right and what was wrong was slipping, she knew. All she could focus on now were her immediate needs.

I need to feel cared for.

I need to have human interaction.

So they danced until the record skipped to a stop, and Blue flipped it over. Then they joined hands again and took more turns around the room. When the record stopped a second time, though, they lifted their heads and looked at each other.

It was time.

They both knew it.

And so Molly took his hand and asked, “Are you ready?”

He watched her for a long moment before nodding.

She took his hand and led him toward the door. He unlocked it quietly and led her out into the night in silence, over the snow. Long before they reached the pond, Molly’s body shook from the cold. When they stood with their toes at the edge of the water, she turned and looked at him.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked.

She knew she shouldn’t push, but when he didn’t reply, she said, “I know this was the reason you found me. I needed to do this with someone else. I’ve thought about it for so long. I’m just so tired of being sad.”

His eyes fell to the ground, and she added, softly, with her gaze landing on the cabin, “They’ll find us eventually, and then we’ll have lost this moment.”

He raised his head.

“This is our choice,” Molly said.

He looked out at the water and removed his shoes.

She did the same.

They were still holding hands.

Molly turned to him and said, “Once we’re out there, you’ll have to take it off.”

Blue looked at her and then back at the water. He swallowed. Even in the moonlight, she could see how nervous he was. How ridiculous, she thought. They were about to kill themselves, and he was worried about how she’d react when she saw him.

He shouldn’t have worried, though, because she already knew.

It was in the way he walked.

In the way his shoulders moved.

It was in the way he lifted a fork to his mouth, and the way he stared at the sky when he was thinking. It was in the way he clapped his hands together when he was angry, and the way he held her when they danced.

It was in the way he looked at her when she sang.

It was in the way he gripped her hand just now.

It was in the way he pushed her against that tree and clasped her face between his hands.

She knew who he was.

Though she hoped she was wrong.

Or maybe that was a lie, too.





NOW


I lean closer to the tablet and realize I’m watching what must be security camera footage.

The lens is directed at a parking lot, and static licks through the screen every few seconds. My stomach threatens to upend itself as vehicles come and go. What’s the last thing I ate? Peanut butter on stale bread because we’d been out of jelly for two weeks. A couple of guilt-laced oatmeal cookies Mom made late at night.

Finally, I see Molly’s car appear.

“The cuffs,” I bark, thrashing my hands against the restraints.

Detective Hernandez nods to Tehrani, and he removes them with a frown.

I immediately snatch the tablet and lift it so I can see better. My heart slams against my rib cage as Molly sits in her car for a few moments. I wonder what she’s doing. Waiting for me? Is she waiting for me? Is this the gas station we were supposed to meet at? I don’t think it is.

Finally, she steps out. Her white hair is loose around her shoulders, and she’s wearing my favorite sweater—black with an animated rainbow over her left breast.

Molly, my girlfriend, someone I haven’t seen in over a month, walks past the screen. It’s blurry, but I know it’s her. I know the way she walks. The way her hips move as she covers ground.

She vanishes inside the store, and a moment later a white van pulls up next to Molly’s car.