Loving Lies

by Linda Kage

  Dear Tess,

  Hi. I don’t really know what to say. Sam just told me to write a letter to someone, and she kind of scares me, so I do what she says. Besides, her strange instructions actually help sometimes, so I guess I’ll just keep writing, but mostly because she’s watching me right now to make sure I don’t crap out on her.

  I should probably start at the beginning. Since I left the hospital, I’ve been meeting with a therapist lady named Samantha. She’s a total pain in the ass and doesn’t actually like to be called a therapist. She says we’re just two people meeting for pizza every day, but she is really a therapist. I think she’s a good one too. I don’t feel as shitty as I did before I started “eating pizza” with her.

  She’s helped me deal with pretty much everything. Except maybe you. I still miss you. I miss you so hard it sometimes makes my chest hurt until I can’t even breathe. I haven’t felt right since that day you stormed out of my hospital room.

  Shit. I can’t believe I just wrote that. Pretty corny, huh? But Sam assured me no one—not even she—would read this. We’re going to have some ritualistic burning of the letter after our next pizza session. So maybe that’s why I’m being all lame and honest. I can “purge” as she called it and say any damn thing I want. I can say I LOVE YOU, TESS, in all bold caps, triple underlined and circled 5 times.

  Wow, that did kind of make me feel better. What else can I tell you? There’s so much. I want to tell you about Sean. He was my best friend who was killed right in front of me during the shooting. Then there’s my parents. Einstein. Us. I want you to know why I was such an ass that last day in the hospital.

  Now my mind is spinning, so I think I’ll start over at the beginning again.

  When I woke up in the hospital, I was confused, and lost, and scared. I really did have amnesia for the first few days. And I still had it the first night you came to my room. I knew something was off then, but I was so grateful someone was there to see me, I believed what you told me. Because I wanted to.

  I must’ve wanted to remember you so much your visit jostled my brain into getting my memories back. But the only memory I had of you was from seeing you across an open courtyard walking down the sidewalk with who I now know was Bailey. Your hair is hard to miss, even harder to forget. But I knew I’d never talked to you, and I knew you weren’t my girlfriend.

  If you hadn’t come back the next night to see me, I probably would’ve owned up to remembering everything then. But you did come back, and I just wanted to spend a little more time with you.

  I did wonder why you were doing it, why you were lying and pretending to be my girl, but I knew without a doubt it wasn’t for any reason with bad intentions. You were too good and sweet and innocent for that. With every visit, you made me better, made me fall a little bit harder, made me fake my amnesia just a little bit longer. Any extra time I could get with you was worth a few more lies.

  I hope you don’t hate me for all the liberties I took, but while we were together, you did become my girlfriend. You were the only thing I had and the reason I wanted to keep going.

  When the truth came out and everything went down between us, I lied to you again. I didn’t believe any of the accusations I made. I never thought anything bad about you. And everything we had shared was true. But I was scared, and not just for me. My life was shit. I was falling to rock bottom. When I hit, I didn’t want you to land with me. I didn’t want you to get hurt.

  I knew you’d want to be there with me, though, while they laughed at me on national television and announced to the world that getting shot three times was the least of what I deserved. You didn’t need that kind of attention on you. You deserve to be cherished and loved, not known as the infamous girlfriend of a national bully.

  Yeah, I’ve been told—by a lot of people—that it wasn’t my place to make that decision for you. I should’ve given you the opportunity to make it on your own. But it felt like it was the only thing I could do for you, to pay you back for saving me. I wouldn’t have made it through these past few weeks if I hadn’t had my memories of you. You’ve given me a reason to live. So I tried to save you from me.

  Wow, Sam was right. Letter writing is pretty cleansing.

  So, I’ll start at another beginning. You saw where I grew up, in the Whispering Pines trailer park, right? I still can’t believe you went there all by yourself to see them, just for me. But you were right about my dad. He’s an abusive SOB. He would beat my mom all the time. When I got old enough to defend her, I did. So he’d turn on me and hit me, too.

  In high school, I got big enough that I could actually take him in a fight. Near the beginning of my junior year, he started in on my mom one night for forgetting to pay a bill, which caused the electricity to go out. I thought he was going to kill her. When I came home from football practice, she was already bloody and curled up half-dead in the fetal position on the floor, but he still just kept kicking her. So, I took him down. Both my parents ended up in the hospital that night, and I was thrown in juvie.

  When they released me, I went back home to pack my shit and get my mom. But she refused leave him and wouldn’t go with me. It broke my heart that she chose him over me. As I walked away, my dad yelled at me to never come back. And that was fine with me. I haven’t seen or heard from either of them since. You may think I’m awful, but I have no desire to visit or talk to them again. That door, for me, is closed.

  I went to my friend Sean’s place that night. He lived close, and we’d grown up together. His mom drank too much and barely kept a job, but she was cool with me sticking around until we graduated from high school.

  After focusing all my attention on football, I got a scholarship into Granton. Sean’s granddad had left him some money when he died, so he came along too and was able to rent an apartment off campus, but it was cheaper for me to stay in the dorms with my scholarship, so I went that route.

  He was my best friend—only friend—since kindergarten. I’ve never been good at making friends. I always kept to myself on the football team, which no doubt made the other players think I was looking down on them. I don’t know really. All I know is I’ve never been able to handle stupid people who do or say stupid things, and that’s gotten me called a bigot more than once. But I never thought of myself as someone who hated groups of people in general. I just didn’t care for some certain individuals. Though I have recently come to learn I’ve misjudged actors on the whole! They’re really not as annoying as I used to think. Anyway…

  Until this year, I’d never thought of myself as a bully either. I was too much of a loner to get involved in anyone else’s business.

  Einstein changed all that.

  The first day of my junior year when his parents moved him into my dorm room with me, I was actually ready to be his defender. His mother was a hateful, nasty bitch. She kept saying things like, “I can’t believe you came from my loins; you’re such a freak.” And his father didn’t jump in to defend him. They were only in our room a couple minutes, dumping off all his shit before they left, but it was enough to tell me he’d probably had about as miserable a childhood as I had.

  So, once they were gone, I tried to make a joke of it to make him feel better, to let him know he wasn’t alone and that I understood. I said something along the lines of, “Don’t you just wish you could exchange your parents sometimes?”

  But I guess that was the wrong thing to say. He turned around and glared at me. I don’t think he liked me knowing how miserable he was or how he was treated by his own family.

  He already knew who I was. He must’ve researched me before moving in, because he went off, mentioning things about my life and my parents, my ball playing. He knew everything.

  I probably should’ve brushed it off and not let his words affect me. But whenever someone pushes me, I push back. I can’t seem to help it. Getting up in Einstein’s face, I threatened him and told him to stay out of my business.

  After that, things went from bad to worse
. I’d catch him in my things and when I’d chase him away, he’d run out of the room, so I’d chase him down the hall, threatening to kick his ass. A couple times, I tripped him and he fell down, but I never actually physically touched him. I hope you know that. I never hit him.

  He’d collected an entire crowd of haters, though. After my first couple of times chasing him from our room, other people would join in and help me. But they tormented worse than I ever did, calling him names and throwing things at him. The few times people actually caught him, I’d just turn and walk away, letting them deal with it.

  Sometimes I have nightmares about my childhood. And one night, I had a dream about my mom getting beat. It was from back when I was young and too scared to try to help her. I was hiding under the bed and watching her cry and beg him to stop. I woke up calling for her. Einstein was standing over my bed, watching me. Totally creeped me out. I threw my pillow at him and told him to leave me alone.

  The next evening, I came in from football practice to find jars of baby food and pacifiers and all sorts of infant crap strung all over my bed. Smirking at me from his side of the room, he told me he’d gotten those for me since I’d been missing my mommy. I grabbed up a handful of the stuff and chased him out of the room, throwing them at him.

  He’d always watch me changing clothes, too, and once I caught him opening the bathroom door to peek at me in the shower. That shit creeped me out the most. I know I shouldn’t have tortured him. I should’ve recognized that he had problems and needed help instead of me chasing him off and cussing him out, but I just couldn’t stand him.

  Sean liked to laugh about it and tease me that Einstein was going to steal his spot of being my best friend. But damn, some nights, I’d get so tired of his shit I’d go bunk on Sean’s couch. I kept some stuff over there so Einstein wouldn’t get into it. And Sean let me keep my gun there too, since there’s a no-firearms-on-campus policy. That was fine by me. But I do like to hunt, and I compete in some shooting competitions.

  The last one I entered, I didn’t get the gun back to Sean’s house that night. He was a photography major and had been helping the drama department get ready for their play, so he was gone a lot. I couldn’t think of any reason anyone would need to look under the backseat of my truck, so I kept it locked in its case there until I went to Sean’s again. And then I just kind of forgot about it.

  I must’ve mentioned it to Sean in some phone conversation I had with him that I needed to get it back to his apartment. That’s the only reason I can imagine Einstein even knew I had it. It wasn’t even loaded. I have no clue where he found bullets for it.

  The day it happened, Sean called me up and asked me to meet him down at the burger joint in the food district, saying he needed to tell me something important. They sold my favorite hamburgers there, so I went. I remember it being cold; I complained because we had to sit outside so he could smoke.

  His big news was that he was gay. That completely blind-sided me. I felt betrayed because he’d waited so long to tell me. I seriously hadn’t had a clue. It made me wonder what else he’d never told me, what secrets he didn’t trust me to keep. And it hurt that he’d been afraid I’d feel any differently about him. But despite all that going on inside me, I knew I had to step up and convince him he could be whatever he wanted to be without losing me. That is one thing I actually did right. I’m glad I supported him in and told him he was still my best friend no matter what. Because ten minutes later, he was dead.

  At least he died knowing I was still his friend. That’s something Sam has helped me deal with the most. We’ve also touched on my parent issues. But we’ve also talked about you. You’re the hardest to talk about.

  I still think about those days you visited me in the hospital. They’re the happiest memories I have. You talked to me and confided in me. I just wish I had done the same in return and let you see the real me.

  My biggest regret is that I never really got to confide in you and that you probably hate me right now. It’s a daily struggle not to go to Grammar Hall and just beg you to forgive me. I actually did a few months ago. I limped to your dormitory and waited outside for you. I knew you probably wouldn’t give me the time of day, but I just…I had to see you. I had to do something. I was going crazy.

  God, I should’ve stayed away. When I saw you with that other guy, I don’t know, something inside me just broke. I had thought getting over Sean’s death would be impossible, but this is almost worse. Because you’re still out there somewhere. You’re happy. With him. That just feel wrongs to me.

  I keep telling myself I should be happy for you because you’re happy now. This is exactly what I wanted for you. You’ve moved on. Not that there was anything for you to move on from. Being my girlfriend wasn’t real for you. But it was real for me, and I’m not happy. I feel fucking gutted, and I hate him. He has what I want. He has you, and if he doesn’t treat you like a queen and worship the ground you walk on, I may have to kill him. Not really, but maybe. Damn it, I really do want you to be happy. That’s true. I wish it could be me with you, but I know that’s not possible. So, I…fuck. I think I’m getting emotional. And Sam just ate the last piece of pizza. I don’t think I can write any more.

  I love you. I want you to have a good life. I want you to find reasons to laugh and be silly and carry on, because there IS good left in this shitty world. You’re proof of it.

  Forever yours, Jonah.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A SOB BURST FROM TESS’S LUNGS as she read the last word. She flipped over the last page, hoping to find more on the back. But that was all he’d written.

  “No,” she said, her voice frantic. “What other guy? There is no other guy!” Who the heck was he talking about? How could he say he loved her and write such beautiful things about his feelings for her and then drop such a confusing line about another guy?

  If he was only staying away because he thought she’d moved on, then she needed to set him straight. Immediately. Scrambling for the bathroom door¸ she flung it open and raced to Paige’s room.

  “We need to find him,” she blurted out as she exploded into her suitemate’s den.

  Paige and Logan were tangled together on Paige’s bed, without shirts on, and not even that fazed her. Logan ripped his palm off his girlfriend’s breast and jerked upright. The scar on his chest was an ugly purple pucker, but nope…not even that caused her pause.

  “Well, put your clothes on,” she said, helpfully bending down to scoop up their tops and tossing the clothes at them. “We have to find your friend Sam and get her to tell us where Jonah is. He has to be somewhere in Granton, right? If she’s still talking to him.”

  Logan tugged his shirt back on, but Paige paused and sent Tess a sad cringe. “Tess, we can’t go to Sam about this. Logan stole that letter from her. We’d get into big trouble if she knew what he’d done.”

  “But…” Tess shook her head. They were so close. They knew someone who could lead them to Jonah. They couldn’t just give up now. “He said he loved me.”

  She thrust the letter toward Paige. Reaching out with an uncertain slowness, Paige hesitantly slipped the letter from Tess’s hand and smoothed it flat before reading it. Logan leaned over her shoulder to read with her.

  Tess chewed on her fingernails as she watched them, certain they’d love Jonah just as much as she did, just as soon as they saw his beautiful words. How could they not? She wanted to hug herself and laugh and cry and scream and smile and just spill out every emotion ever made because reading his heartfelt words made her love him hard. Her heart soared with how good his confessions felt. But being kept from him turned it all inside out until she ached.

  Paige set her hand over her mouth. “Wow, this is just…wow. I want you to write me a letter like this.”

  Logan frowned and shook his head. “I’ll work on it.” Then he looked up at Tess. “What other guy is he talking about? I’ve never seen you around another guy. You can’t even talk to them.”

 
; “I know!” Tess cried, taking the letter back to scowl at that part. “I have no idea what he’s talking about either. That’s why I need to find him. I need to set him straight. I need to tell him I love him, too. So, you guys have to help me find him.”

  When Paige and Logan exchanged wary glances, Tess growled. “You have to! You’re the ones who brought me this letter. You gave me hope.”

  “We’ll see what we can do.” Paige bit her lip and glanced at Logan again. “But…”

  Tess had a bad feeling Paige wouldn’t do anything to get her boyfriend into trouble, so she held up a hand. “Wait. I have an idea.” Turning on her heel, she raced back into her room.

  With shaking hands, she scrambled for her bag and yanked out the first notebook she found. After writing, I have no idea what other guy you’re talking about. There’s only you, so please come back to me. I’m waiting. I love you too, on a blank page, she tore the sheet free of the binder, folded it into thirds and scribbled his name on the outside. Biting at a fingernail with chipped polish on it, she returned to Paige’s room and thrust it forward.

  “Could you give this to Sam? You don’t have to tell her you know anything about the missing letter or how you know she’s talking to him. Just…see if she can pass it along.”

  Paige hesitated, but then she nodded. “Okay.” She took the note and looked at Tess.

  Even though Paige’s gaze was leery, as if she didn’t think it would work, Tess gave her a watery smile of thanks. “I owe you, big time.”

  Tess wasn’t sure how she made it through classes the next day. She only knew when they started because the professor began talking. And she knew when they ended because that was when everyone stood up to leave. But other than that, she wasn’t aware of much else. She didn’t realize she skipped lunch; she was too busy stalking Paige’s room to hear back from either her or Logan.

  She was lying on her bed, hugging Jonah’s letter when the lock on her door clicked and the handle turned.