Liar (26 page)

The door opens while I'm contemplating how much DNA I share with black bears. Dogs and humans have 85 percent shared genetic material; wolves and bears share—

It's Sarah. I look away.

“Okay if I join you?” she asks.

I nod.

I wish it hadn't happened.

No, that's a lie. (See? I told you I was done with lying.)

What happened, it was . . . I didn't . . . I did . . .

I liked it. It felt good. I wish we would do it again.

But I don't know how it happened. Sarah can't really have meant to return my kiss. Neither did Tayshawn. It was something else overwhelming us.

Grief.

We were trying to find traces of Zach in the layers of our skin.

“How you doing, Micah?” Sarah says, sliding into the seat beside me.

“Fine,” I say.

She puts her hands on the table and accidentally touches the side of my little finger. We both pull away quick.

“Sorry,” Sarah says. “I didn't mean . . .” She pauses. “Kind of creepy eating lunch here, don't you think?” She's looking at the plastic model of the human body. The guts are jumbled, the pancreas resting on the heart, the gallbladder on the place where the genitals would be if the model had them. The large and small intestines and the voice box are on the floor.

“It's quiet,” I say, wishing I didn't have to speak. Zach didn't like talking all the time either.

“We should talk,” Sarah says.

She never used to talk to me when I was invisible. But I'm not anymore.

After my first two lies were exposed—they knew I was a girl, they knew I hadn't been born a hermaphrodite—after that, I started to disappear. I didn't talk in or out of class. If your mouth's shut, lies can't come streaming out. There were still whispers. But after a year they dulled down.

I liked being invisible.

I watched. I thought.

Zach never saw me. I know that. I noticed him, sitting with Sarah, nuzzling at her neck, kissing her. Playing ball with the guys.

I imagined what it would be like to be him. But I didn't envy it. I wasn't happy, but I wasn't
not
happy either. Invisibility suits me.

“I like you, Micah,” Sarah says. “Aside from Zach and all that . . .” She blinks, takes a deep breath. “Aside from that and from you being a crazy liar, too.” She smiles at me and my cheeks feel hot again. I don't know where to look except at her. “Yesterday was the best I've felt since . . . Zach. The talking, I mean. The three of us being friends. I don't want to lose that, too. We can stay friends, right?”

I nod, though I really doubt it.

“Good,” she says. The top she's wearing clings to her arms. They're slim and not at all strong-looking. How exactly do they think a girl like Sarah could have killed Zach? He was stronger and taller and bulkier than her.

And Tayshawn? Why on earth would he kill his best friend? His boy that he'd known since the third grade.

Sarah's waiting for me to say something, but I have nothing.

“Could you help me with bio?” she asks.

“Help you?” I repeat, not understanding.

She gestures at the plastic model pieces. “I'm not doing as well as I should. Biology's not really my thing.”

“Sure,” I say.

“I can help you with your other classes.”

“Okay.” I'm not bad at any of them, but biology is what I'm best at.

Sarah's looking at me, expecting more words, but I have no idea what to say. She hasn't said anything, not really, about what happened. It's as if it didn't.

It did. When I'm not thinking about Zach, I'm thinking about what happened between me and Sarah and Tayshawn after the funeral. Would Zach be mad at me if he knew? I know he's dead. But I can't help thinking that he knows, that he cares. I'd undo what we did, I'd undo
anything
, if it would make him alive again. I'd stop lying. Tell everyone about the wolf within.

I miss him.

The ache of where he isn't is so large that sometimes I can barely manage to stay upright. Even with his coffin lowered into the ground, with soil on top of him, I cannot believe he's dead.

“Micah?” Sarah asks. She puts her hand on mine. Hers is warm, a little dry. Her touch makes me tingle. I wonder if it makes her tingle, too. I'm about to say something stupid when Tayshawn joins us.

Sarah pulls her hand away. “I was asking Micah if she'd help me with bio.”

“Uh-huh,” Tayshawn says. He pulls up a chair, sits. His eyes are red and he's a little sweaty, as if he's been running. I brace myself for what he's going to say. Is he mad about finding us alone together with Sarah's hand on mine? Does he think we're leaving him out? Is he going to be weird?

“Erin Moncaster isn't dead,” he announces, looking at both of us.

AFTER

Erin Moncaster was found in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with her skeezy eighteen-year-old boyfriend. Now she is back in the city and back in school.

In class they're not talking about me. Erin the slut replaces Micah the liar and possible killer.

I see her later that day between fifth and sixth periods. She's dressed the part, walking down the hall with too much paint on pale white skin, making her look as garish as a clown. Her short skirt and low-cut top are supposed to be clingy, but she's so skinny they hang off her, like the white boy, but she looks fragile, not fearsome. She keeps her head high like she doesn't care, but her eyes are red, and her lips tremble.

Everyone is staring at her. The whole whispering, giggling thing that I am so used to. It belongs to Erin now.

“Hey, Micah,” Tayshawn calls, coming down the stairs.

I wave. To my right I see Brandon “accidentally” knock into Erin.

“While your boy's in jail,” he breathes at her, “you can get some from me.” He's licking his lips the same way he did at me that day under the bleachers when he was making me the same offer.

I don't remember moving.

My hands are around his neck. I'm pressing Brandon into the wall. The Amnesty International poster behind him tears, leaving barbed wire floating at his left shoulder. My face is inches from his. He's gone red. He's coughing, struggling to breathe, clawing at my fingers.

I step away, dropping him.

“Bitch!” he screams, sliding to the floor, rubbing his throat where my fingers have left red marks. “Fucking bitch! Is that what you did to your boyfriend?”

My urge to hurt him floods back. I step forward.

Brandon cowers. “Bitch,” he whispers.

“Don't,” Tayshawn says, grabbing hold of my upper arm, pulling me away. “Leave the wuss on the floor. Beaten up by a girl again, Brandon? How many times is that this week?”

Several people laugh.

“Fuck off. She's no girl,” Brandon says, but he's mumbling, looking down. “Girls don't fight like that.” The bruises are starting to show on his neck. “Bitch.”

I'm realizing what I've done. Shown how fast and strong I am. In front of everyone. Any doubts they might have had about my ability to kill Zach are gone now. I've done what Dad's always told me not to do. I'm lucky no teachers saw. Now it's down to whether Brandon tells or not. But at least he will respect me.

“Stop looking at me,” Brandon says quietly. I doubt anyone but me can hear.

“Why would I look at you?” I say. “There's nothing to see.”

“Come on,” Tayshawn says, pulling me farther away. The hall has thinned out. Classes must be starting.

We pass Erin. She's staring at me. I wonder if she's grateful that I pulled Brandon off her. Though that isn't why I did it. I don't feel sorry for Erin; I just hate Brandon. After all, Erin isn't dead, is she? Her boyfriend isn't dead either. She's not a wolf. Her life is fine.

“That was amazing,” Tayshawn says. His hand is still around my upper arm. “Where'd you learn skills like that?”

“Dad used to be a boxer,” I lie.

LIE NUMBER FOUR

What I told the police isn't what really happened the last time I saw Zach.

School was out for the day. We were in the library. Both of us on giving-back-to-the-school duty. Brandon and Chantal weren't there. They'd forgotten.

“How did you find those foxes?” Zach whispered. We were in front of the fiction shelves. Zach was shelving and I was pulling out the books that did not belong.

We weren't the only ones there. The librarian, Jennifer Silverman, and a handful of freshmen, working on a project that seemed to involve a lot of loud talking and giggling.

“Wasn't a big deal,” I said.

Zach wasn't listening. “I saw how you followed them. I've never seen anything like that. The path was lit up for you:
this way there's foxes
. I never saw a fox in the park till you showed me. You're like magic or something.”

I looked down to hide my grin.

“What?” he asked. He was paying attention now.

“I kind of cheated.”

“That's a shock. She lies. She cheats.”

He touched my forearm. I tried to ignore it. Just pheromones. Chemical receptors. Biology. Controllable. Ignorable.

“It looked real to me,” Zach said. “How'd you cheat?”

“I'd seen the burrow before,” I confessed. “So I knew where the fox was going.”

“Ah. Okay. You already knew? Damn.”

“You should see your face.”

He looked mad, annoyed, and kind of impressed all at the same time.

“You're a piece of work, you know.”

I did know.

“You suck. You can't track shit. And here was me thinking you were some kind of wild girl of the woods! Damn.”

“I am. I could have tracked those foxes, I just didn't have to is all.”

“Why would I believe you?” Zach asked, and I could tell he was really angry. “You lie about everything.”

“Not about this. I know a lot about tracking animals, hunting. Every summer I'm upstate with my grandparents. We hunt together all the time.”

“So you say.”

“Scout's honor,” I said.

“You're not a scout and even if you were I wouldn't believe you. You're a liar, Micah.”

“I could track you,” I said. “You go hide yourself in the park and you'll see how damn easy it is for me to find you!”

“Shhh!” the librarian said, walking over to us. “I know school's out but there's no need for you to be yelling.”

“Sorry, Jennifer,” Zach said.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

She walked back to her desk.

“How do I know you won't cheat?” Zach said.

“I can't cheat on this one. I won't know where you're going.”

Zach considered, shelved the book in his hand, turned back to the cart for another. “Alright,” he said. “How you want to work it then?”

Jennifer the librarian walked over again and handed Zach some more fiction to shelve.

I ducked down and straightened the lowest shelf. She smiled at both of us and returned to her desk. Two of the books were mis-shelved: one about censorship in the USSR and the other an inorganic chemistry textbook. Neither of them belonged with novels written by people whose names began with Q or R.

“We'll both come in on the Columbus Circle side,” I said to the shelf. “Me a half hour after you.”

“What's to stop you following me?”

“I won't.”

Zach didn't bother to answer. He was still angry. I wondered if it was weird of me to really want to kiss him. He returned to shelving.

“Okay then. I'm leaving now. You come and find me in the park when Jennifer lets you go.”

He kissed my mouth quickly and I almost blushed, looking around to make sure no one had seen. He walked over to Jennifer's desk and started sweet-talking her into letting him go early. It was three thirty. We were supposed to be shelving until four.

She let him go. Zach almost always got what he wanted.