Believing Lies

by Elizabeth, Anne

  “Just that you were going to the hospital because the lawyer that’s dealing with the guardianship case needs you to,” Marie explained, throwing my phone to me.

  I gulped. “Do you think I’m next?”

  Noelle looked at me with a strange expression on her face. “No. We don’t even know if he’s at fault for all of this.”

  What if he is, though?

  And I’m next?

  “Kyle, we don’t know anything,” Marie said. “Don’t go crazy.”

  The feeling never went away. My gut screamed at me to do something.

  “Maybe we should go to the police.”

  “Are you crazy?” Marie yelled. “Do you have any idea how much trouble we would get in? You knew information about the case and didn’t say anything! We broke into a house and stole things! We’d get arrested before they even looked at the pretty boy with a protest sign!”

  She was right. Marie and I would be far gone before they even thought of Luke as a suspect. Noelle was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. Her eyebrows were knitted together, and her lips were pinched.

  “What does Kyle know about the case?”

  Marie snapped toward me, swearing silently.

  She’s going to know.

  Oh crap.

  It felt like I completely lost the ability to even move my mouth. What was she going to say? Would she go to the police? Noelle was staring at me, with her head tilted to the side.

  Marie turned to face her, smiling. “Luke. That he had the phone and Kyle didn’t immediately turn him in.”

  Noelle’s face dropped, and she gave a slight nod. I knew she didn’t believe us, but for right now, it was okay. Bile bit the back of my throat as the fear of Luke with a gun came into my head.

  “Do you guys think I need protection?”

  I left Noelle’s house about twenty minutes later. They both told me that I was fine and that I didn’t need protection. But it didn’t settle right with me. Something was jabbing at my bones, telling me I needed to protect myself. I tried my best to ignore it. Marie offered to walk me to my house so I wouldn’t be so scared.

  “Haha,” I said sarcastically. “You’re so funny.”

  Noelle was already in her room. She said she needed space and time to process everything. Marie was standing on the porch with me.

  “I’m serious, Kyle,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. It was so curly that her hand got stuck, and she had to yank it out. She sighed, clenching her fists. “If you are this scared, then I’ll walk you home. I, personally, think you are fine.”

  Marie was just staring at me, waiting for a response. To be honest, I did want someone walking with me. I wanted to feel like even if someone attacked me, I had someone there to get help.

  I mentally groaned. “No, it’s fine. Then how would you get home?”

  She looked at me, rolling her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

  My phone started ringing, and Mom flashed on the screen. Marie peeked over my shoulder to see who was calling me.

  “Hello?” I asked when I answered.

  “Hey, sweetie,” Mom said. I heard rustling in the background. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” I muttered. Marie took my phone and put it on speaker. I shook my head at her, but she shushed me. She was always trying to get into my business. I snatched the phone back but left it on speaker so she could hear. I didn’t see the point in trying to hide anything from her.

  “Okay, so I thought I would let you know that Mark has a bowel obstruction, and we need to do surgery.”

  My heart dropped. I didn’t know how severe that was. I barely knew what it was. Marie had a strange expression on her face. She looked at me and shrugged.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Marie started walking around the deck, her boots clicking against the wood. My body was vibrating so much that the phone was shaking in my hand.

  “Yes,” Mom assured me. “It’s a simple procedure. He will be fine.”

  I thanked her for telling me before hanging up. Marie had her nails in her mouth, still pacing the floor. She turned to look at me. “Are you going?”

  I nodded, shoving my phone into my pocket. “I want to be there when he wakes up.”

  Marie agreed with me, saying that it was sweet. Which made me want to hit her, but I pushed my violent thoughts down and just started walking. I had to google directions because I had no idea how to get there from Noelle’s house. Surprisingly, it wasn’t far.

  On my walk, my phone started to ring again. I thought it was Mom calling me about some changes, but the number was unknown. I answered it, anyways.

  “Hello?”

  Up ahead, an older man was walking his dog. The dog seemed to have been a mixed breed of German Shepherd and Husky. His tongue was hanging out, which looked adorable. The older man was on the phone too, but he gave me a slight wave, anyways. I returned it and continued to walk past him. His face gave me déjà vu. As if I’ve seen him before.

  “Kyle Davis?” a voice asked on the other side. “This is Officer Thomas with the New Hampshire Police Department.”

  My breath hitched unexpectedly, and I froze. “Yes, this is him,” I managed to answer.

  Shivers traveled down my body, and for some reason, I felt like I was back in the forest. With Nick running behind me, yelling. The wind brushing against the hairs on my arms and legs, making goosebumps appear.

  But there was no wind, no Nick, and I was most definitely not in the forest.

  “Good,” the voice said. It was a female speaking, seemed young. “Are you available to come in on the twentieth for an interview? Nothing bad; we just need to ask you a few questions about Nick Walter.”

  I nodded, realizing my mistake soon after. “Sure.”

  They know.

  They know, and they are going to arrest me.

  “Perfect! I’ll see you then.”

  The call disconnected, leaving me frozen in the middle of the sidewalk. I couldn’t move. My limbs refused to work. I could feel sweat building up in my palms and under my arms. It wasn’t until I was moved by another person walking by, bumping into me. They paid no attention to me and continued to move down the street. I needed that nudge to move forward. The rest of the walk was me having to deal with the many thoughts running through my head.

  I finally made it to the hospital and signed in. I noticed Mom at the end of the hallway, talking to some other doctors, when she noticed me. She was in scrubs, so she had just gotten out of surgery. She held a finger up to the doctors and started walking in my direction.

  “Hey, Kyle.” She hugged me, holding on. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good, Mom,” I responded, hugging her back. “Were you doing Mark’s surgery?”

  She shook her head, releasing me. “There are some rules regarding doing surgery on people you know. And with the whole guardianship thing going on, we decided it was better for me not to. I was doing a heart transplant with our cardio head.”

  I listened to her story of how the heart wouldn’t beat at first, then they did something to get it going. I didn’t understand what she was saying, but I was trying to. Sometimes, when Mom told me stories with a lot of medical terms, I would ask her what they meant. She would tell me but then forget where she was in the story, so eventually, I stopped asking and just pretended I knew what a scalpel was.

  “Let’s go wait in Mark’s room. I told the surgeons that I would be in there when they were done.”

  I followed her down the hallway. We passed by the exit doors while there was a shift change. I noticed that the alarms weren’t blaring. I pointed it out to Mom.

  “Yes,” she said, “we switched the cameras for motion detectors that we just shut down during the shift change so it wouldn’t blare all the time. It was starting to make patients want to leave.”

  “Oh.” That was all I said. We continued walking for a while until we finally got to the room. It was empty; no one else was in there. The sun was brightly shining thr
ough the window, casting a shadow on the bed. A TV hung in the corner, a chair sitting below it. I took a seat on it, waiting for some news about Mark.

  A girl walked past our window, peeking inside. Her face was empty as she opened the door and walked in. She was in her scrubs, her red hair coming out a little bit. She asked to speak with Mom privately. They went into the hallway and stood in front of the glass. The girl started talking, and Mom’s face dropped. I read her lips, asking what happened.

  It might not be about Mark.

  Mark will be fine.

  Mom stomped away from the girl and passed the door. I ran outside and followed her.

  “Mom, what’s happening?”

  She was practically running at this point. She stopped, turned, and held my shoulders.

  “Everything will be alright, okay?” she told me, her eyes looking around. “Go back to Mark’s room and wait for me in there.”

  She sprinted off, heading toward the surgery rooms. I stood in the hallway for a bit before the redhead rushed me back into the hospital room. I was convincing myself that it was about someone else. That Mark was okay, and he would be out soon.

  I can’t lose him too.

  “Max!” I screamed. The dark water made it hard to see. It was nighttime, so that didn’t help. In the ocean, I could make out a figure of a little boy. His face was staring at me. Looking peaceful, but I knew better.

  Max was drowning. His pale body was just floating in the water. I reached to grab him, but every time I got close to him, he would be washed away by a wave. I kept screaming for him, yelling for him. But nothing worked. I couldn’t save him.

  When I woke up, the nightmare was replaying in my mind. It was mocking me, telling me it was my fault my little brother was dead. I started shaking, tears streaming down my face.

  “Kyle?” a voice reached out to me. I turned to see Mark lying on the floor. His head was on a pillow while he was snuggled with a blanket. “Are you okay?”

  I sniffed, wiping my face free of snot. “Yeah, just a bad dream.”

  Mark sat up, pushing his blanket off. He climbed up to the bed and lay down next to me. “About Max?”

  I nodded, placing my head on the pillow. He sighed, closing his eyes. “I’ll distract you. Try to go to sleep while I talk about different things.”

  I tilted my head to him, furrowing my eyebrows together. I was confused by what he meant. He opened one eye, glancing at my face.

  “Just close your eyes and listen.”

  I followed his orders, shifting to my side and closing my eyes. Max came back into my head, his dead, drowned body screaming for help.

  “There was a girl named Julie…” Mark started. Max disappeared from my head.

  “She had long red hair and pretty blue eyes. She was a warrior…”

  I didn’t have another nightmare that night. I had a dream about a warrior named Julie. I woke up the next morning with Mark lying by my side.

  I was okay.

  I leaned down on the bed and did something I hadn’t done since Max died.

  I prayed.

  I had no idea to whom or what. Maybe the universe. Whatever was listening, that’s who I begged and pleaded to for Mark’s life. I asked them to spare him. He was the only person I had left that genuinely loved me and cared for me. Sure, there was Noelle and Marie, but they didn’t know me as well as Mark did. They weren’t holding my hand as Henry screamed from his bedroom when Max died. They didn’t see me cry for days on end and never left my side. They never rambled on about some fairytale to make sure I didn’t have nightmares about my dead little brother. Mark was there for all of that. He knew me at my worst when I was only eight, and he stayed. He was one of the ones that stayed.

  I knew nothing of God, but it seemed like it was the only thing I could’ve done to help at that moment. I folded my hands like I did when I was younger. Images flashed in my head. Mom sobbing. Dad consoling her. Henry yelling in my ear, blaming me for everything that happened to Max. Tears were running down my face as I prayed that Mark would be okay.

  I’m useless.

  My hands felt a hard plastic board in the sheets of the bed. I pulled it out to see it was Mark’s writing board. The message wasn’t erased.

  —Thank you so much. I am so grateful for you, Mrs. Davis, and Kyle to be in my life. I’d probably be dead without him.—

  Tears formed, and I didn’t even try to hold them back. I had done awful things in my life, and Mark slipped up a couple of times, and I just abandoned him? I was disgusted with myself for leaving him on the ground, obviously in pain. Nick and I could’ve helped him. Instead, we dropped him like he was trash.

  I waited for what seemed like hours. Not a single person passed in this hallway. I even stood outside the door to see if people were avoiding me, but there wasn’t a doctor in sight. I almost fell asleep when I heard the door opening. Mom walked in with her head low and her surgical cap in her hands.

  “Mom?” I begged.

  “Kyle,” she said, leaning down beside the chair I was sitting in. “He had a rupture from a direct artery during surgery. When I got to him, everyone told me it was too late.” Tears brimmed in her eyes, and she wiped them away. “I tried, but they were right. It was too late. He’s gone.”

  She held me in her arms; my face burrowed in her neck. I felt the sobs try to climb their way out of me, but I muffled my mouth with my fist.

  Why does everyone keep leaving me?

  22

  Day Thirty-Seven

  I ignored everyone for a while. Marie and Noelle found out the same day from Mom. She thought having friends by my side would help. I heard them down the stairs and locked the door. They sat by it for a while, talking through it. Marie told me about how her therapy appointments went, while Noelle just told me about school. She decided to go back because she couldn’t stand being home alone for so long during the day.

  Mr. Finn told me that I could take more time off because of Mark’s passing. I emailed him back, thanking him for it. My parents didn’t try to make me leave my room. I heard them talking about it in front of my door, then deciding against it.

  I cried a lot. About Mark, Nick, and Max. I lost all of them. I didn’t get to go through the sad stage with Nick and Max because of everything that was happening. Henry whispering into my ear, telling me it’s my fault. Me watching Nick die in front of me and not doing anything. Now with Mark, they were all hitting me at once. When I would stop crying about one, the other would pop into my head, and so on.

  I tried to watch shows to distract myself, but nothing was working. My days consisted of sitting on my bed crying to the sound of The Simpsons in the background.

  One day, Mom appeared at my door. She told me Noelle was here to talk to me. I heard her footsteps walking away, then smaller ones coming toward my door.

  “Hi, Kyle,” she said. “It’s Noelle. I wanted to talk to you.”

  I shut my TV off so I could listen.

  “I thought a lot about what you said.” My door pushed a little forward. It wasn’t open, but I could tell she was leaning on it. “About me needing a boyfriend. I realized you were right. I was scared of being alone because I hadn’t been in so long.”

  I crawled out of my bed and onto the floor. I leaned my back against the door and rested my head on it.

  Go on.

  “I don’t love you. Not like that, anyways. But I care about you a lot. So, I’m not leaving because you need a friend.” She slid something under the door. It was a piece of paper. When I opened it, she had written the word hug on it with a heart.

  “You just lost someone close to you within an awfully close time frame of losing your best friend. You shouldn’t be alone.”

  I wrote on the note, thank you, before sliding it back under. I could see her smile in my mind.

  “You’re welcome, Kyle.”

  She didn’t lie either. She never left the door. She kept talking about random things, never leaving a space of silence between us.r />
  “I never knew Mark like you did,” she confessed. “I know you guys went through a lot. With him doing drugs.”

  I coughed. “I should’ve been there for him.”

  She paused for a moment. “You were there when it really mattered.”

  I stood up, holding onto the knob. I heard shuffling on the other side. The cool metal tormented me. I unlocked it; the clicking echoed in my ears. I slowly turned it to reveal Noelle grinning brightly on the other side. Her hair was down, and she was in pajamas. She held her arms out to hug me, which I gladly accepted. Her head was sitting on my shoulder. Mine was resting on top of hers. After a few seconds, she let go.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. I just nodded.

  Noelle stayed for a few more minutes before having to leave. Her dad wanted her home for dinner. She said that she could skip it and stay with me if I needed her.

  “No, I’m okay,” I assured her. “You don’t want to get in trouble, do you?”

  “Guess not.” She laughed.

  Mom had offered to drive her home, which Noelle gladly accepted. I didn’t go for the ride, but Mom arrived back home after ten minutes. She asked me how I was holding up.

  “It just sucks.”

  That was all I could bring myself to say.

  Dad’s car pulled up in the driveway, and Mom told me to go upstairs because she had to talk to Dad about something. I figured it was about me, so I made my seat right at the top of the stairs. I heard Dad walk in the door and Mom greeting him. Everything got faint, so I crawled a few more steps down the stairs to hear better.

  “He needs this,” she said. “Anger management could help.”

  “No,” Dad disagreed. “He doesn’t need to go to some class that teaches him to be less of a man.”

  Dad is standing up for me?

  “Being a man is breaking stuff in a therapy office? Really?”

  I heard a loud noise, like someone slamming their hands onto the table. I almost jumped and ran up the stairs.

  “Being a man is getting angry at people who deserve it!” Dad shouted. I could imagine the vein popping out of his neck. I’ve seen it a couple of times myself before when he would get mad at me. I’ve never seen it happen with Mom, though.