The Secret to Lying

by Todd Mitchell

  “Not exactly.” Her hands kept fidgeting with the blanket, twisting a loose thread around her finger. “It’s what happens when you only eat toast and lettuce for long enough. Your body starts to feed off itself. First the fat, then your muscles and joints. Then your brain can’t regulate things. Bones deteriorate. . . . Pretty, huh?”

  I glanced around the room, unable to meet her gaze. An orange cafeteria tray sat on a rolling cart near the side of her bed. It had one of those metal covers on it — the sort butlers used in cartoons to keep food warm. The smell made me hungry. “At least the food here’s probably better than ASMA’s,” I joked.

  “Of course,” Ellie said. “Everyone thinks it’s so simple. All I have to do is eat a cinnamon roll or a hot dog and I’ll be better, right?”

  My face flushed. “It’s not like you need to diet.”

  “Right. Because this is all about looking cute in a hospital gown.”

  “So why do you starve yourself?”

  “Why do you cut yourself?” she countered.

  I hesitated, stung by her question. “Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe it’s not so simple.”

  Ellie scooted over and moved her book — The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. “Here,” she said. “You can sit.”

  I hoisted myself onto the bed, crossing my legs.

  “Chuck says it’s about control,” she explained. “I can’t control my life, so I try to control myself by not eating. And the worse I feel, the more I have to starve myself to be good. Or pure. Or worthy.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Sometimes.” She twisted the loose hospital band on her arm. “The explanations don’t really matter, though. They don’t change anything. I’m still stuck in this cycle, wanting to be thin.”

  “But you are thin.”

  “I’m never thin enough,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

  I thought of all the things she’d written to me — about how she was consumed by image, and how she wanted to be a zero, as if disappearing was the only way to be perfect. She’d kept telling me that she could never be herself in person, but I was too blinded by what I wanted her to be to see what she was talking about. Only now, when I looked at her intense eyes and slender neck, and how lost her tiny arms seemed in the wide sleeves of her hospital gown, it was like some spell had finally broken. Her image dissolved, and I saw her true self — the ghost that was fading away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “Sorry I said you were dead inside. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Then why’d you say it?”

  “Because I was afraid you’d see the truth about me.”

  Ellie studied me.

  There was no point lying anymore — I’d already lost everything. “I’m not who people think I am,” I said.

  “Who is?”

  “This is different. I lied to everyone about my past. The things I’ve done . . . Who I am . . . Everything about me is fake.”

  She grew silent, lost in thought for a moment. Then she nudged my leg. “Thank you.”

  “For being a massive jerk?”

  “For being honest.”

  “But I’m not honest. That’s what I’m telling you —I can’t be honest. I don’t even know what’s real anymore.” I picked at the hospital blanket, pulling off a fluff ball. “These last few weeks, I’ve been trying to act normal and fit in, only I can’t do it right. Everyone takes it for granted that they’re real, but I have to try to be real. And if you try to be real, what are you?”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “You do?”

  “I’m like that all the time,” she said. “I’m constantly obsessing over how I should talk, or act, or eat — calculating the exact number of calories I need to cut to become this idea of who I’m supposed to be. I do it so often, I don’t think there’s anything real left underneath.” She shrugged. “There’s just this empty shell, pretending to be human.”

  “That’s not true.” I wished she could see herself the way I saw her — not some cold, distant model, but the girl who’d IM’d me and kept me from being alone. “You are the most sincere, passionate, real person I’ve ever met.”

  “I don’t think that person exists anymore.”

  “She does,” I said. “I’m talking to her.”

  Ellie grew silent, staring at her hands. I blew on the blanket fluff I’d pulled off and the tiny ball swirled into the air, landing in her lap. She picked it up and smiled shyly, as if I’d given her something precious and she feared she might lose it.

  “Smilet,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “That’s my favorite word. Not ucalegon. Smilet. It means half smile, only it’s not really a word. I think Shakespeare made it up.”

  “I like it. It should be a word.”

  “As in,” I added, “‘You have the prettiest smilet in the world.’”

  “Or, ‘Wipe that smilet off your face!’”

  She said it in such a mean voice that we both cracked up.

  We talked for a little while after that about school, and our parents, and our hometowns, but we didn’t have much time left before Chuck came to take me back.

  Instead of saying good-bye, I pointed to a crease in the blanket between us.

  “That’s the gap,” I said. Then I held out my hand and reached across.

  Ellie reached back, wrapping her slender fingers around mine. “So are you disappointed that I’m not the perfect girl you thought I was?”

  “No. I like you much better now — bed-head and all.”

  “You, too,” she replied. “It’s good to finally meet you, James.”

  IT WASN’T ANYTHING LIKE normal sleep. I felt the familiar change happening, my mind descending into forbidden corridors. Again and again I went to sleep, diving deeper into darkness until I landed in the core. The mucky ground gripped my ankles, pulling at me with its promise of oblivion.

  “You didn’t need to come back here,” Nick said. He leaned against the stone wall of the cavern, cradling a jar full of hundreds of glowing sparks. “There are no more demons. You’ve won.”

  I glanced around the cave. All the smaller jars were gone, leaving the wet stone walls drenched in shadow. In the center of the cavern stood the pod where my other self slept, like a great black heart surrounded by sticky cords. I certainly wouldn’t miss this place. Still, something about what Nick had said didn’t make sense. The last time I’d been here, things had gone horribly wrong. How could I have won?

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  Nick held out the jar and shook it. The sparks swirled around, tinking against the glass. “The Thief.” He grinned, flashing his perfect teeth. “She thought she had you, didn’t she? But you weren’t fooled. You tricked her.”

  I thought of how the Thief had sacrificed herself to save me. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Sure you didn’t,” Nick replied. “I knew, first time I saw you, you’d be the one to catch her. She was the last demon.”

  I rubbed my forehead. My face was covered, same as usual, with a scarf to hide my identity. From whom, I didn’t know. The core appeared empty except for Nick and the jar cradled in his gloved hands.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “With the rest of them.” Nick flicked the jar. Sparks scattered, hitting the glass and sliding into a glowing pile at the bottom. “This is it — all your problems.”

  I stepped closer to get a better look.

  “The Thief was the one who kept letting the other demons out,” he said. “She was the reason some of them came back. It never would have ended as long as she was free.”

  I nodded, recalling how she’d busied herself stealing jars when we were here before. At least that part of Nick’s story fit.

  “Can I see that?” I asked, reaching for the jar.

  “Careful with it. They’re angry buggers.”

  I cupped the jar and stared at the sparks. A few fluttered like lightning b
ugs, but most lay still at the bottom, their yellow glow growing dull. “She’s in here?”

  Nick nodded. “She won’t be causing you any more trouble.”

  “Now what?” I asked, giving the jar a shake. Some sparks brightened momentarily.

  “Now it’s over. You’ve become what you wanted to be, and you don’t have to worry about this mess anymore.” Nick nodded to the jar. “It’s all under control.”

  “Control,” I repeated. The word tasted metallic. This was what I’d fought for. It felt so quiet. So dead.

  I let the jar fall from my hands.

  For one hushed moment it turned in the air in perfect silence. Then it exploded against the stone floor. Sparks swirled around me, expanding, filling the cavern with their angry buzzing. Several whirled off, landing at the base of the stone walls where they glowed like embers. Others shot past Nick and disappeared into the darkness.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Nick said.

  I watched the sparks. They pulsed and grew, becoming more solid, taking on hideous, familiar forms.

  Nick backed away. “Better run.”

  Instinctively, I started for the elevator, then I saw the Thief crumpled near the base of the pod where my other self slept. I hurried to her side and tried to help her stand, but she was too weak.

  Several demons around us had nearly re-formed. They stretched their limbs and licked their wounds, glaring at me as they regained strength.

  “Leave,” the Thief said.

  I shook my head. “I’m not not running away anymore.”

  Demons hissed and growled as I stood. I drew my sword, but there were too many to fight. For the first time, I thought of surrender. It had never seemed like a choice before. Until now.

  My hands shook as I laid my sword on the ground and turned my back on the demons. Stepping toward the pod, I reached to touch the sleeper within. Deep in that shadowy heart, I could barely make out his eyes moving beneath closed lids.

  Several demons charged — flashes of movement at the edge of my vision. They slammed into me and pinned me against the pod wall. I opened my mouth to scream but couldn’t draw breath. Claws tore at my gut and teeth pierced my neck. Then a searing pain scorched through me and all thought blazed out to an ashy darkness.

  I CAME TO IN A FOREST. Sunlight, the smell of pine trees, and the trill of crickets flooded my senses.

  “You’re free,” the Thief said. “You found a way out.”

  I felt my teeth with my tongue and touched my cheek. My face seemed to be there. My body intact, but different. Heavier. More present. “What happened?”

  “You were eaten. Devoured, actually. It was pretty disgusting.”

  “Did I die?”

  “Yes and no,” she said. “Who you were died. Who you are is very much alive.”

  I tried to piece together my memories. Some images came to me as if I’d been standing before myself, watching my body get torn apart, except it wasn’t exactly scary. From where I’d stood, it seemed like the demons weren’t attacking me — they were me. They’d been part of me all along, only my fear hadn’t let me see it. They were the things I’d tried to cut away from myself. The parts I wouldn’t allow or couldn’t accept.

  “You were broken,” the Thief said. “Now you’re whole.”

  “I don’t feel whole. I hurt. I’m confused. Scared . . .”

  “Wonderful, isn’t it? To feel so many things again.”

  I squinted at her. All at once, I realized whose perspective I’d seen myself from. “The other — am I him?”

  “Are you the dreamer or the dream?” the Thief replied. She smiled and kissed my forehead. “Perhaps you’re both.”

  When I woke in my dorm, everything wasn’t better. It wasn’t easy like that. There was no magic potion to make me right. Instead, I ached. Deeply. I thought of Ellie, Jess, Moms, Dickie, the school year ending, the trill of crickets in the morning light, and I cried. I wasn’t even sad. It was more like I cried for the people I’d miss and the wonder and beauty in the world — all the things I’d lost, and all the things to come.

  Maybe I only cried because I wanted to. Still, it felt real, and that was a start.

  THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL, there weren’t any classes or finals or anything. We were supposed to pack our stuff and clean out our dorm rooms. My parents were coming that evening to pick me up. I’d called them a few days before to arrange things, which pretty much stunned my mother speechless. It might have been the only time I’d ever called them first. It’s not like I was looking forward to spending the summer at home, but I’d decided to declare a truce with my mom and try to accept her for who she was with the hope that she might do the same for me. To her credit, she said I sounded good on the phone. Then Dad said he was proud of me for finishing the semester.

  I’d packed most of my things that morning, except for my posters, which I wanted to keep up until the last minute since bare walls depressed me. I probably should have spent the afternoon cleaning — the crickets still owned my room, and there were bits of moldy bread and rotting lettuce under the bed — but everyone else was at the square signing yearbooks and I didn’t want to miss out.

  I wandered campus, trading my yearbook with people, even people I hadn’t been friends with. The hard part was that every time I asked someone to sign my book, they asked me to sign theirs, and I couldn’t think of what to write.

  Some people signed next to their pictures, adding a funny word bubble to candid shots of them at the dance or studying in their dorms. There was only one candid shot of me in the yearbook, though, and I didn’t want to sign next to it. I kind of wished it wasn’t in the book at all.

  The picture was of me after the ultimate freak. My head lay cocked to the side, purple hair in a crazy tangle, eyes half shut, and tongue lolling out the side of my mouth. One arm clenched my chest while the other hung limp near Jess’s feet. Ketchup splotches covered my shirt, but since the picture was black and white, it looked more like grease stains than blood.

  People kept saying to me, “Nice picture, J.T.” Then they’d nod and smile, or wink or something, like they wanted me to know they were in on the joke.

  No matter how many times I looked at the picture, I didn’t recognize it as myself. I mean the T-shirt, ripped jeans, and wild hair — it all looked like me, and I remembered lying there. Except the person I’d been then seemed strange to me now.

  The old me would have dissed the whole yearbook-signing thing. Or if I did sign someone’s yearbook, I would have written something ridiculous, like:

  I’m just glad to be here. — John Lennon

  or

  Next year I’m going to kick your ass!

  — Mahatma Gandhi

  Now, I took it seriously. A few times, I even snuck off to see what people had written in my book. Mostly it was lame, shallow stuff:

  You’re a noble adversary, but you cannot defeat the power of Steve squared. Chirp, chirp! Steve squared wins again.

  Put sophomore year up your butt, baby! We rule! — Heinous Man

  Good luck with Ariel. You’re one strange cat. Try not to burn down your house over the summer.

  — Frank Wood

  Eat me! — Rachel Chang

  Dear Man of Mystery. Soon you shall have the power to drive (legally). Very scary. I wish I’d gotten to know you better. Next year we should go bowling together. — Sage Fisher

  Here’s an equation for you. Zaftig hottie + my head = OOO (I’m the one in the middle). Keep the lamp on and the moths will come. Mmmm . . . Cheese

  Stay cool, dude. Don’t jump out any more windows. I hear flying’s overrated. — Dickie Lang

  I don’t know what I was looking for in people’s messages. Some sense of who I was, maybe? I even asked Ralph, aka Muppet, to sign my book. He wrote, I’m glad you didn’t get kicked out. Next year I hope we can be physics partners again. When I read that, I got so choked up I nearly lost it.

  Ellie had come back from the hospital a few days be
fore to finish the semester. I kept an eye out for her as I wandered around campus, but I didn’t see her. No one I spoke with had seen her, either. Eventually, I got a pass to her wing and knocked on her door.

  Her roommate had already left, so Ellie was alone, packing her things. The walls were totally blank, and most of her stuff sat in boxes. One of the boxes near the door was filled with textbooks I’d already returned. The teachers probably gave Ellie an extension on finals. I felt bad for her, knowing how hard it was to have work left to do when everyone else was done.

  “Hey,” I said, “want to sign my yearbook?”

  She gave me a funny look and kept folding her shirts, getting the creases perfect before she set them in her suitcase. “Why? Are you going for a record? Amber Lane already has 102 signatures — some steep competition there.”

  “I prefer quality over quantity.” I handed her my yearbook. “Tell you what, I’ll even sign yours. And I’m picky about this sort of thing. Amber Lane would kill for my autograph.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Okay. So maybe she didn’t ask me. But that only makes me more of a rarity.”

  Ellie flipped through my book, looking for a blank spot. “Mine’s on my desk,” she said.

  I sat on her desk and opened her yearbook. Every page I turned to was completely blank. I was the first person to sign it.

  “You have to promise not to read what I write until you get home,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah. I promise.”

  She smiled and went back to writing.

  I tried to come up with something heartfelt and witty to put in her book, but I couldn’t think of a thing. Eventually, I scrawled a few lines about how we should write each other old-fashioned letters every day over the summer, and I couldn’t wait to see her next year. Then it hit me why her book was blank. “Are you coming back next year?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Depends how things go over the summer. My mom thinks the cafeteria food is why I don’t eat. I keep telling her that I really like pancake enchiladas, but she doesn’t believe me. She wants me to be closer to home so she can keep an eye on me, which means my dad wants me to be closer to him, so he can prove that he’s the better parent.” She tapped the pen against her lips. “What about you? Are you coming back?”