Liar (2 page)

Most of the white kids don't believe in God; most of us black kids do.

I'm undecided, stuck somewhere in between, same way I am with everything: half black, half white; half girl, half boy; coasting on half a scholarship.

I'm half of everything.

AFTER

We are all sent to counseling. There are individual sessions and group ones. The group session is first. It's a nightmare.

Jill Wang (yes, really) makes us move the desks and arrange the chairs in a large circle. I've been forced to see Wang before. She is achingly sincere. She believes most everything you tell her. Even my lies.

We sit in the chairs with no desks to hide behind. I wish I were in the library studying.

Brandon Duncan stares at the boobs I barely have.

Sarah Washington turns to look at me, too. Her gaze rests somewhere below my eyes, but not so low as Brandon's. “Why do you lie all the time?” she asks softly.

“Why do you?” I say, though I've never known her to lie. I say it quiet as her, staring right back, fierce as I can, pushing my gaze through the pores of her dark skin. I imagine I can feel the blood moving in her veins, the sound of breath in her lungs, the movement of the synapses in her brain. She is all buzzes and clicks. “Everyone lies.”

“We're here to talk about what's happened, about how we feel,” the counselor says. “Is there anything you want to share about—”

“Don't say his name!” Sarah shouts.

Now everyone is staring at her. Her heart pumps faster, pushing the blood through her veins.

“I won't,” Jill Wang says. “Not if you don't want me to.”

Counselors always say stuff like that. I've seen
lots
of counselors. Psychologists, shrinks, therapists. They're all the same. They're supposed to stop me lying, yet they believe everything I tell them.

“We don't,” Sarah mumbles.

“I haven't met most of you before. Tell me about yourselves. Let's go around the circle. Say the first word you can think of to describe yourself.” Jill Wang nods at me.

“Fierce,” I say.

Sarah shivers.

“Cool,” Brandon says. Several people laugh.

“Hot,” Tayshawn says. He's the most popular guy in school so there's laughter. But I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean it that way. Not sexy hot. More like prickly hot. Like he needs to loosen his collar. Mine itches at me. The heat is up too high. The steam pipes clank and groan, shouting their own words.

Each student says a word. None of them is right.

The door is behind me, less than six feet away. I imagine vaulting out of the circle, over Sarah in her chair, glaring at her own knees. I can run away.

I will run away.

“Gray,” Sarah says, closing the circle of words. A tear eases down her cheek to match it, clings to her chin for less than a second before falling onto the wool cloth of her pants and disappearing.

“Does anyone want to talk about . . .” Jill pauses, swallowing Zach's name. “I hear he was very popular.”

“You should ask Micah,” Brandon says. “She was his girlfriend.”

There's laughter. They are all staring at me now, everyone except Sarah. Her head is bowed further, her breaths shallow as she tries to stop crying. She is close to losing control. I hope she will.

“Very funny,” Tayshawn says, glaring at Brandon. I can see he doesn't believe it. Tayshawn is Zach's best friend. Has been since the third grade.

I want to kill Brandon. I know why he told them: to make trouble. That's what Brandon does. But how did he know?

Everyone is still staring. I hold my chin high and stare back at them. When people look at me my skin crawls. But I never let them see it.

“Do you want to say something, Micah?” Jill Wang asks.

“No,” I say.

“She wasn't his girlfriend,” Sarah says. “I was.”

Tayshawn and Chantal and others agree with her.

“You were his at-school girlfriend,” Brandon tells Sarah. “Micah was for after hours.”

Sarah goes back to her crying. Tayshawn looks like he might kill Brandon. I'd be happy to help.

Jill Wang looks from Brandon to Sarah to me. I can see her weighing what to say.

“I have a question,” Alejandro says.

She nods for him to continue.

“Everyone's talking about grieving and all that shit—sorry, stuff. Whatever. But no one's saying what happened to him. We keep hearing rumors and there are cops and that. But no one's saying what's up. Not really. So is the rumor true? Was he murdered?”

The counselor spreads her hands wide, makes eye contact with all of us, to reassure us that what she is about to say is true. “I know as much as you do. The police are investigating to determine whether a crime has taken place.”

Alejandro doesn't say anything else. But he doesn't look satisfied. No one does.

AFTER

When the counseling session ends I go into one of the stalls in the bathroom, lock the door, lower the lid, and sit down, thoughts beating loud in my head, drowning the noise of toilets flushing, faucets turning on and off, air dryers louder than a generator, and, more distantly, the sound of steam in the pipes, traffic. I hold my head with my hands to keep it from exploding. My thoughts are all Zach—all about him being dead. No air in his lungs, no blood in his veins.

Or would it still be there? But not moving? Stale air, congealed blood.

Zach is dead.

I will never see him again. Never hear his voice. Never run with him. Never kiss him.

He is gone.

“I know you're in there,” Sarah Washington calls, knocking on the stall door. “I saw you come in.”

“What do you want?”

“Is it true?” she calls.

I open the door. Sarah steps back from me, her eyes wide—she's afraid of me, I realize—and accidentally sets off one of the dryers. She startles. I go to the sink, squeeze soap out of metal onto my palms, put my hands under the tap and, when no water appears, go to the next sink. This time the sensor works. I wash my hands thoroughly. Under fingernails, between fingers, backs of my hands, wrists. Then rinse until each sud is gone and the slimy feel of soap erased.

Above the sink are windows. Opaque with wire set into the glass, nailed shut, with metal bars on the other side, facing the street. My hands hover over the sink dripping.

“You should be in class,” Sarah says.

“So should you.”

“Study period. So
is
it true?” She's come to a rest by the door, leaning against it, staring at me. The question is eating at her. She's much prettier than I am. Why would Zach spend time with me?

“Is what true?” I ask. Why is she asking
me
about the truth? She knows I'm a liar. They all do.

“Were you and him . . . ?” She stops, takes a few steps toward me and then away.

“Why don't you ask Brandon?” I ask. “He seems to know everything. Why ask me?”

“Because,” she begins, takes another step, and then pauses. “How does Brandon know about you and him? How would Brandon know and me not? Zach was my boyfriend. He told me everything,” she says, but her voice falters. No one tells anyone everything.

I stick my hands under the nearest dryer, wincing at the noise and hot air. Back, front, wrists, palms. It's better than listening to Sarah.

“So is it true?” she asks, raising her voice to compete with the roar.

“Why would I tell you?” I say softly. There's no moisture left on my hands, they are starting to roast, but I keep turning them back and forth.

“He was
my
boyfriend,” she says. “Everyone knew that. Why would Brandon say that
you
were?”

“Why don't you ask him?”

She shakes her head. “I did. It didn't help. He's still dead.” She slumps, wavering between me and the door, her eyes heavy with tears. I wonder how there can be any water left in her. “Brandon loves to make trouble.”

I step away from the dryer, ignore the stinging of my hands. “True,” I say.

“After-hours girlfriend?” she says, echoing Brandon's tone of voice. “I never even saw him look at you. Not once.”

“There you go then.”

“He didn't come to school sometimes. And you—you're always skipping class, skipping whole days. Is that where he went? Was he with you?”

“No,” I say. “He wasn't my boyfriend.”

“I don't believe you. You never tell the truth.”

“Then why ask?”

She steps away, leans against the wall again. As though standing is too hard, too much effort. She cries harder. “I want to know what happened to him. His parents won't even let me see his body. How do I know he's dead if they won't let me see?”

I can't imagine her wanting to see a dead body. She won't even cut up rats in biology. “Well, I heard he was shot,” I say, even though I haven't heard any such thing. “That can't look good.” I try to imagine. But I can only see the whole Zach. Smiling at me, laughing.

“I saw my grandma dead,” Sarah says. “She was lying in a coffin, all bundled in white silky fabric. Her hands around this big bunch of white lilies. Open casket, they call it. All I could think of was how much she hated flowers. Cut ones, I mean. Always said they were pointless and a waste. ‘What are they gonna do?' she'd ask. ‘Rot. That's what. Best leave 'em growing.' That's what happens when you die—you rot.”

Sarah doesn't bother to wipe away her tears. “I can't believe he's dead. Everyone liked him. Who would kill him? Who would hate him that much? Do you know?”

I don't, but I want to know. I never saw Zach hurt anyone. Not on purpose. He preferred things to slide by, for everyone to be easy. He didn't like to argue or fight or even mildly disagree. He'd shrug and say, “Sure. Whatever.” It wasn't that he was a pushover. He mostly got things to bend his way, but without any obvious effort.

His kisses were sure and easy, too. I put my hand to my mouth, remembering what he tasted like.

“You
were
with him,” Sarah says, staring at my mouth. “Weren't you?”

AFTER

The day I find out Zach is dead is the longest day of my life. School has always sucked. Now it's hell.

Everyone is staring at me. Not just Sarah, not just everyone from the counseling session, but every student in the entire school, even the freshmen, the teachers, the administrative staff, the janitors.

It's much worse than when they found out I wasn't really a boy.

Zach is dead.

I cannot make sense of that. How can he be dead? I saw him Friday night. We climbed a tree in Central Park. We kissed. We ran. Principal Paul must have it wrong.

I wish everyone would stop looking at me. They think they know something about me and Zach, that we were—whatever it is that we were—that somehow they have something on me.

They don't.

I keep my head down. Try to block my ears to the “slut” coughs. Try to focus on my remaining classes. Distract myself studying in the library. Try not to think about Zach. Try not to think about anything other than my studies.