The Truth About Us

by Tia Souders

  Go figure.

  Abigail bit her lip as their teacher doled out their assignment for the weekend before dismissing class. When Kaden appeared by her desk, she smiled. He wore a black t-shirt and jeans with a pair of ancient sneakers.

  “Hey. You have lunch now, right?” he asked.

  Abby’s answering smile tightened, her excitement at sharing what she learned with Kaden forgotten. “Yeah, but I need to talk to Mr. Delgado first. If you wanna go on ahead, I’ll meet you there. Save me a seat?”

  He nodded. “Wouldn’t want to make your friend any angrier.”

  “Like that’s hard.” Abby smirked.

  “Did you figure out what you’re going to tell her yet? About everything?”

  “No, but I have some time. I’ll figure something out.”

  When she glanced over at Mr. Delgado, she noted him eyeing her from his seat, waiting. “Catch you in a few, okay?” she asked.

  She watched Kaden nod and turn toward the exit, and she made her way toward Mr. Delgado’s desk on wooden legs. Unused to being reprimanded for her grades, her stomach dropped as she approached.

  Mr. Delgado shuffled the pile of papers in front of him, then glanced up at her from over the frames of his glasses. “Abby,” he said, his tone ominous.

  He stood and rounded his desk, perching himself on the edge of it in front of her. “So, what’s going on? This week you’ve missed an assignment, not to mention classwork, and you haven’t been very present. Then, today, you got your test back with a poor score. I wanted to approach you about it now, while there’s still time to bring up your low scores before the end of the semester. We’ve got four weeks left, and your B in this class has dropped to a low C and is teetering on the edge of a D after your most recent test. I’d hate for it to fall that low. You know as well as I do that just because you got into college doesn’t mean they can’t revoke your admission if all your grades sink. You’re not completely out of the water yet.”

  Abby bit the inside of her cheek. The thought of not going to George Mason in the fall slayed her. Wouldn’t that just be the cherry on the cake?

  But what could she tell him? I’m sorry. I’ve been preoccupied with some mind-consuming scavenger hunt my dead grandmother sent me on to uncover a potentially life-changing family secret? Yeah, that’d clear things right up. I’m sure he’d make allowances for me then.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” she said, then closed her eyes and brought a hand up to her temples, kneading the sudden pain. “This week was rough with my grandmother’s funeral and all. The test was just bad timing, but I promise I’ll do better now. I’ll get back on track.”

  “Have you told your folks you’ve been having problems this last week?”

  Panic surged through her veins, making her head spin. If he called her parents and told them she was struggling, it would be an all-out inquisition from her mom, making Abigail share her feelings, and she’d be forced to spend the next week with “quality family time”. She had a mystery to solve right now. There was no time for family movie night.

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to worry them. I’m fine, and they have a lot on their plate.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Between you and me, my mom’s in a major depression and my grandfather...” Abigail paused for effect, then exhaled and said, “My parents are having a really hard time with him. Honestly, I’m not sure he’s gonna make it,” she said, only feeling slightly guilty for the over exaggeration.

  Mr. Delgado frowned. “I had no idea things were so hard at home right now, but that’s certainly understandable. Maybe you should consider seeing Ms. Mandie.”

  Abby fought the urge to grimace. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  She’d rather poke a fork in her eye than make a visit to Ms. Mandie, their twenty-something-year-old guidance counselor who paid more attention to her social media accounts than the students who came to visit her.

  “Would you like me to make you an appointment?” he asked.

  “Nope. I got it. I can even stop by there on my way to lunch,” she said, hoping her smile didn’t convey the lie.

  “Fabulous!” Mr. Delgado said, clapping his hands together. “If there’s anything I can do for you in the meantime, just let me know.”

  “Will do.” She swung her backpack over her shoulder and headed to the cafeteria as he returned to his spot behind his desk, shuffling around a mountain of papers.

  The second she entered the lunch hall, the scent of pizza and french fries assaulted her, and the cacophony of laughter and conversation filled the large room. Her gaze trailed over the tables, spotting Kaden at her usual spot with a couple of her friends. When she took in his sober expression, head bent over a tattered paperback, she smiled, the poor grade on her calculus test all but forgotten.

  She headed for their table, allowing her gaze to trail over him, noting he looked particularly cute today with his straw-colored hair styled so it no longer hung in his eyes. When he heard the sound of her approach, he lifted his gaze to hers and all else fell away—the voices, laughter, forks clanging against trays. Those chocolate orbs burned into her, sending a bolt of electricity up her spine.

  “Sorry. I had something to take care of,” she said, as she sat.

  She placed her bookbag on the ground and grabbed her lunch, then turned to her friends and acknowledged them with a quick hello.

  Cammie wiggled her eyebrows at Abigail, nudged her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “He’s such a cute nerd.”

  Abby rolled her eyes. “He’s not a nerd.”

  “Whatevs. Regardless, he’s actually kind of a babe in a very, young-hot-college-professor kind of way.”

  Abby laughed. “You’re unhinged, you know that?”

  “Don’t think I’m not still mad at you for not telling me you were hanging out with a boy.” A lascivious smile snaked over Cammie’s lips. “This is so good for you though. You need to let loose, get lost in a boy.”

  Abby’s face caught fire. “Cammie,” she hissed.

  She glanced up at Kaden from under her lashes who appeared to be lost in his book, save for the telltale pinkening of his cheeks which indicated he overheard.

  “Just don’t forget to start carving out more time for yours truly,” Cammie said in a sing-song voice. “And don’t think I’m letting you off the hook with whatever it is you two are whispering about. You are so telling me.”

  Abby mumbled her agreement and opened her lunch, as Cammie piped into the conversation beside them.

  Taking advantage of Cammie’s distraction, Abby turned her attention back to Kaden, whose nose was practically pressed against his book now.

  Abby grabbed a pretzel and threw it at him. “Whatcha reading?”

  When he flashed her the cover, Abby pursed her lips, impressed. “Stephen King? Didn’t take you for a horror guy.”

  He shrugged. “I like the distraction, the escape from real life. A good scare is great for the heart.”

  Abby chuckled. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Kaden set his book aside and unwrapped a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; Abby watched him. “Did you get in trouble with your dad yesterday? Like, once he got home was he mad about us stopping by?”

  Kaden shrugged. “It was nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  For a moment, Abby wondered if maybe she wasn’t being selfish—sharing this secret with him. She had been relieved to confide in someone else, more so than she could’ve ever imagined. Having a partner abated some of the pressure, the anxiety of the lurking skeleton in the closet. But at what cost was this for him?

  “You know, we can just forget it. I can handle this on my own. We can still be friends and—”

  “Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “I want to help you...” His voice trailed off, and he narrowed his eyes as if remembering something. “Wait a second. I was too distracted by the files, and I never asked you what my dad said to you when he pulled you aside. He did this, didn’t he? He said
something that has you wondering if maybe I shouldn’t help you.”

  Abby opened her mouth to...what? Defend Mr. Oliver?

  “Well, sorta. But that wasn’t the only thing,” she said, as Kaden’s jaw hardened. “He realized Lawson was working for my grandmother, and I think he knows we wanted information for more than just a school project.”

  “Crap. I told you. He’s like a human lie detector.” He stared straight ahead, lost in his thoughts, then shrugged. “Eh, well. He’ll have to just deal with us hanging out because I’m not going anywhere. Also, don’t even try to friend zone me with this ‘we can still be friends’ crap.”

  “We are just friends.”

  “Not for long.” He smirked, and her heart jumped under her ribs.

  Swallowing, Abby took a sip of her drink, trying her best not to allow him to completely disarm her. “But what if I get you into trouble?”

  “Abby, do you think the other night at the park was the first time I noticed you?”

  At a loss for words, she parted her lips to speak, but she had no idea what to say. Her words lodged in her throat.

  “Because it’s not.” Kaden spoke slowly, staring off to the side like he was picturing the scene in his mind. “The first time I noticed you, we were in seventh grade. I remember it because we had English together, and we had to write our own poems and read them to the class.”

  Abby groaned. “I hated that.”

  “We all did. But I remember watching you. When it was your turn, you read your poem, and you were so monotone it put some of the kids to sleep. I mean, you sounded like a robot.”

  “Hey.”

  “But the words, they hit me. Here.” Kaden patted his chest. “Maybe you didn’t sound emotional, and your facial expressions might have been tense, but your words...I could feel them like I had written them myself. The whole thing was a metaphor about being numb, unable to feel, and it was like you were speaking right through me. Because everything you wrote was exactly how I felt after my mom died. Your poem, it brought me back to life.”

  Abby sat, stunned, speechless.

  Her throat constricted. She remembered that poem. She had written it about herself. About how she never felt normal, always shoving down how she really felt when people all around her so easily expressed themselves. Even as a child, she loved her family fiercely, but when it came to displays of affection, she struggled.

  She was the flower in her poem, the one that bloomed and came to life after the spring rain. Except the poem was fiction. In real life, she had never fully opened, and she had always felt like she was waiting for that one singular moment to define her and push all her feelings, everything she stored inside her heart, to come bursting out.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” she asked, finding her words.

  Kaden smiled, as laughter lit his eyes. “And have you think I was the strangest kid on the planet? Um, no thanks.” He shook his head. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. At the time, that poem was enough. It got me through. But the other night when I saw you at the park, I can’t deny a part of me wasn’t waiting to talk to you for so long. And then, the next day when you hit me—”

  “Bumped you,” Abby interjected, trying to ease the intensity of the moment.

  His eyes locked on hers, not letting her out that easy. “When you hit me, it felt like it was meant to be. You and I. Like, some outside force beyond our control was throwing us together for a reason.”

  Abby swallowed, trying to stifle the swell of emotion in her chest but only half succeeding. Was that why it felt like he knew her so well? The poem?

  “So, to make a long story short, you’re not getting rid of me that easily. And we’re not going to be just friends. Not if I have anything to do with it.”

  “Do you always say exactly how you feel?”

  Kaden shrugged. “We both know I don’t have much practice with this, but I figure I might as well be honest. What’s the point in hiding what I’m really thinking? All I’d be doing is depriving myself and everyone around me of the truth. And how can you ever really know me if I pretend to feel any way other than how I really do? That would just be like pretending to be something I’m not.”

  His words sunk inside her like an anchor, tethering her to reality. Maybe the reason she never quite felt like herself was because she didn’t allow herself to be. She deprived herself of every intense emotion. She shelved anything overwhelming, anything that required too much of her energy, and maybe that was the problem. By keeping everything bottled up inside, she had deprived, not only those around her of getting close but she hadn’t allowed herself to grow and know herself in the way she should’ve. Her feelings scared her. And rather than face them head-on, she hid them. Not only was she lying to everyone around her by shoving her feelings down, but she was lying to herself, too.

  She met his gaze again. “How do you do it?”

  “You just...do. You shove all fear aside, and you lay it all on the line. There is no other way. Being yourself and putting yourself out there is like taking a leap of faith.”

  “What if you let the wrong people in?”

  Kaden smiled. “You’re not taking the leap of faith in others. You’re having faith in yourself. Because you trust yourself enough to know who you are, to admit to yourself how you really feel, all others be damned.”

  Abby’s chest grew heavy as she nodded, then focused on her lunch, saying nothing. She mulled over everything he said, wondering if she’d go her whole life only half living and afraid of feeling. The thought depressed her.

  Her thoughts ran circles around everything Kaden told her—how he had noticed her years ago and unwittingly touched his life. A warm ball settled in the pit of her stomach, warming her from the inside out, and she found herself wishing she had noticed him back then, too. Because talking to Kaden these past few days had made her feel more alive than ever. And though she had no idea what these feelings were blooming inside her chest, there was a part of her that didn’t want to push them aside. She wanted to feel them, and although that wasn’t a life-shattering realization, it was something. The thought occurred to her that maybe this was what GG did for her grandfather. Maybe this was how she had made him feel.

  Remembering him brought her back to the present. “Oh!” Abby sat up in her seat, catching Kaden’s gaze with her own as he crumpled up his paper bag, already finished with his lunch. “I almost forgot.”

  Leaning across the table, she scanned the faces around her to be sure no one was listening. “You’ll never believe what I found out. When I got home yesterday, my mother and grandfather were arguing because she found out he’s been leaving the house. He’s not supposed to be driving. Anyway, apparently, two days ago, my grandfather took a little road trip. To Newberry.”

  Kaden frowned. “Wait. Isn’t that?”

  “Where Lawson’s body was found? Yep.”

  His eyes widened. “Wow.” Running a hand through his thick blond hair, he exhaled. “So...”

  “So, there’s no way all this was a coincidence. The very day we go to look for the safety deposit box key GG wrote to me about, he beat us to it. Then we find out he went to the town Lawson was murdered at the day before?” She pursed her lips. “No way. Too much of a coincidence.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking my grandfather is following GG’s trail, whether through letters of his own or something else. I also think there’s something in Newberry. And we’re going to find out what it is.”

  DECEMBER 18, 1943

  I feel my time here coming to an end. Not because we will be liberated. I hold no such hope. For believing in freedom has become a thing of the past. A thing of fairytales. One cannot hold on to such dreams in this wretched place and survive. Instead, you are forced to think of only the day. Only the hour. For our lives are now counted in minutes, in breaths. That is how little time any of us have left at any given moment.

  No, I fear I will not be here much longer because I
find myself weakening on every level, my will to survive fading with every passing hour. Today, I stand aside the throng of Jews—my people—as they stand before Dr. Mengele, awaiting the selection. As I watch, I know I will soon be responsible for stripping the newcomers of their valuables and clothes, then waiting as they are killed before I can resume my job of burning their bodies.

  They called them to line-up, and the familiar process of the selection begins. They purge the newcomers first, then move on to the others. They strip them before they are forced to run, while Dr. Mengele, with his clipboard, decides their fate based on several factors which come down to an assessment of “health”.

  I can no longer smell my body odor nor that of those around me. My filth no longer appalls or shames me as it did when we first arrived. I wait as one man fails while another survives to live another day in this wretched place. My nerves strike discordant notes inside my body, and I watch as a man I recognize struggles to remain on his feet before he is even called.

  Kuni, a boy I know from my cattle car journey here, prods him on, pulling his arm, calling him ‘Papa’, inconspicuously trying to prop him up. The scene makes me think of my own father, and I wonder if he had survived the initial culling if we’d be in their position today. If I’d be struggling to keep both of us alive, instead of only myself. The thought forms a weight in my chest, not only because I miss my father but because I realize the burden of having to care for another in here would be nearly impossible.

  It is Kuni’s turn, and he takes off, pumping his arms and legs. To avoid selection, you must out-do yourself, find your will to live from deep within. You must run as fast and as hard as you can. You must set aside your body, your hunger, your thoughts, and practically fly past the officers. And that is what Kuni does.

  He is directed to the throng of men who passed, when his father falls to the floor with a thud. His emaciated form lies prone on the floor. The one guard, The Butcher, hollers for him to get to his feet and run, but it is everything he has to simply stand on wobbling legs.