Lie to Me (an OddRocket title)

by Brahm, Suzanne

  Addie continued. New topic. "You know Aunt Lucy lives in California part of the year? Near Disneyland, which is so cool. Do you think we'll ever go to Disneyland?" As we walked into the house together, Addie took my hand, a gesture that surprised me and made me feel guilty at the same time.

  "Hello?" we called together, waiting for Mom to answer.

  "Hi." Aunt Lucy stood in the kitchen doorway with a white towel in her hand. From the pink stains on the cloth, I could tell she'd been cleaning up the juice. "You're back," she said to us, her face strained. She must have realized she'd forgotten to smile. She quickly managed a grin that seemed to take effort. "You didn't get my message, Cass?"

  "Um," I looked at my phone. Missed call. This time at least it was genuine. I hadn't been hiding from anyone.

  "Where's Mom?" Addie said, looking around as if she expected Mom to materialize out of thin air.

  Aunt Lucy hesitated and the white towel fell to the floor. "Girls, we need to talk."

  Chapter 20

  Aunt Lucy talked to us in the kitchen while she finished cleaning up. "Your mom's not here right now, sweet peas. She's not coming home today."

  Addie clammed up. Lips pressed together, she sat at the counter on a wooden stool with her arms crossed.

  The pathetic little progress I'd made toward recovering my normal life completely disappeared while Aunt Lucy spoke. I didn't need Addie to tell me she felt betrayed; her expression said everything. She would barely look me in the eyes and, when she did, her eyes narrowed.

  Aunt Lucy used words like metastasized, which means moving around in a really bad way. Transfusion. High-dose chemotherapy. Allergic reaction. The names of drugs I didn't recognize. Aunt Lucy kept talking, but I felt like a kid failing a reading comprehension test. I didn't get it all.

  "Your mother's body hasn't responded as well as the doctors had hoped." Aunt Lucy had one of those green and yellow sponges in her hand. She scrubbed the grout as she spoke, erasing every speck of grime in her path. "They gave her some medicine and it's pretty powerful stuff. Your mother's heart didn't like it."

  "Her heart?" Addie looked up like she'd finally heard a friendly word.

  "Yes. She had a kind of allergic reaction and her heart sped up way too fast.” Aunt Lucy swallowed. "So she needs to stay in the hospital until they say it's safe for her to come home."

  Some things happen in life and no matter how they go down, they don't seem real. I couldn't cry. I wrapped a blanket of numbness around myself right then and I listened to everything Aunt Lucy said, holding the corners tight around me. "Can we go see her?" Addie asked, her voice small.

  "Well, your mom thinks they'll let her come home tomorrow and she doesn't want you girls to have to go to the hospital. I'm going back tonight and I can have someone come over and stay with you girls. Mariah offered..."

  "We'll be okay," I said. "We don't want anyone watching us."

  Aunt Lucy looked at us as if she wondered whether or not we were pulling a fast one on her. "You sure?"

  "Yes." The last thing I wanted was to sit in my own house with someone like Mariah trying to make everything better.

  "Well, then. I'm going back to the hospital, but I'll be home in a couple of hours, okay?" Aunt Lucy hugged us both, the three of us stuck together in an awkward huddle.

  "Addie the Clam" turned and looked at me when Aunt Lucy went upstairs. "You lied," she said. Then she hopped off the tall, wooden stool and walked out of the kitchen.

  Addie wouldn't talk to me. It was incredibly lonely being in that house. I called RD's cell three more times, but he still wasn't picking up. It kept going straight to voicemail. I'd already left messages and texts, so I decided to just wait.

  Maybe he was somewhere he couldn't get to the phone. I got so desperate that I almost called Priya, but I wasn't sure where to begin. We hadn't spoken since we'd fought in the parking lot. Priya always had something to say about emotions and I didn't want a lecture about forgiveness and the path to being present and letting go. The only inner peace I knew how to find was the moment I rested my head against RD's shoulder, the warmth I felt when his arms wrapped around me and touched my skin. That was the only safe place I could think of right now and I felt sick and nervous, wishing I could make RD call me.

  Aunt Lucy was gone longer than expected. She called and told us to go to sleep and we'd see her in the morning. Lying in bed, I tried not to think about Mom, but my head felt so mixed up that all my thoughts eventually led to her. She was like a big magnet in my brain. I wondered what she looked like lying in her hospital bed. Could she hear beeps and noises around her? Was she sedated or in a coma? I'd read somewhere about coma patients who claimed they could travel the world untethered to their bodies. Could Mom do that? Did she know what I was doing? Did she know I had a note from RD hidden in my dresser drawer?

  Rap.

  I sat straight up in my bed.

  Rap. Rap. Rap.

  It was eleven o’clock at night.

  It sounded like raindrops were hitting my window, but it wasn't raining. I got out of bed and peered through the shutters.

  RD stood at the base of the chimney wearing a black t-shirt and a dark baseball hat. He flipped a flashlight on and held it under his face and grinned. He looked like a spooky camp counselor about to tell a ghost story. He pointed the flashlight beam on his cell phone and then flipped off the light. He disappeared in the darkness and my phone rang.

  "Dropped my phone in the water," he said. "I got a new one today. Sorry I missed your calls."

  I wanted to ask him why he'd waited so long to call me, but I was just so happy to hear his voice. "I got bad news today. About Mom."

  "I heard from Mariah. She said your mom and Lucy are at the hospital."

  I tried not to have my feelings hurt that he'd taken his time calling. He was under my window now. He'd come for me and that was all that mattered.

  "Can you come outside?" he asked.

  "I don't know." I thought about Mom's wrath the last time I’d crawled out my window. Getting caught again would mean getting grounded. Getting grounded would mean no Hideaway, which would make finding ways to meet with RD practically impossible. "I probably shouldn't," I mumbled.

  "It's okay. If you can't come outside, that's fine. I just wanted to give you a hug. It made me sad to think of you all alone."

  I peered outside my bedroom window. He'd turned off the flashlight, but I could still see his shape in the darkness just inside the woods. God, I wanted to be outside with him.

  "Cassandra, are you there?"

  "Yeah. One sec." I opened my bedroom door and stuck my head down the hall. The house was quiet. Addie was an extremely deep sleeper and Aunt Lucy's door was open. I wondered if she'd decided to sleep at the hospital, she still wasn’t home. "Give me five minutes. I'll be right there."

  Chapter 21

  RD swept me up in his arms right away. I smelled beer on his breath, thick and heavy.

  "You've been drinking," I said.

  "I am a very naughty boy," he said, pulling me toward him, his mouth warm and his body firm against mine. "I'm destined to disappoint you with my drinking and my badness. I warned you from the start." It was like a scene from a movie, the way he kissed me and held me in the dark. It almost felt too good to be real.

  "Walk with me," he whispered. Taking my hand, he led me down the winding pathway toward the water away from our house. Somehow, I knew where we were going. He led me straight to the empty boathouse at the tear-down house by the beach. It was the only boathouse of its kind on the island. Most people just had plain docks. But this building was a real cabin with a workshop inside right on the end of the dock. I knew it was unlocked because Addie had hid in there one night while we'd been playing hide and seek.

  The door creaked opened and RD let me inside. The smell of musty life jackets and damp wood hung in the cool air. "How'd you know about this place?" I asked him.

  "I didn't," he said.

  I reached for th
e light and RD stopped me. "Don't." He pulled me toward him. "We don't want anyone to know we're here."

  My legs trembled. He wanted to stay hidden which meant he wanted to touch me. I couldn't wait for him to take me in his arms. Inside the boathouse, moonlight filtered in through the dirty windows. A blue light filled the space and, after a few minutes, my eyes adjusted and I could see details like paint cans and some old blue float cushions stacked up in the corner.

  And I could see RD. The crinkled corners around his eyes and the way the light hit the stubble on his chin. I reached up and touched his cheek. I noticed that his breath seemed shallow like he couldn't breathe that well, either. "You are trouble," he said.

  "Who, me?" I smiled and stood up on my tiptoes to kiss his chin. His skin felt rough under my tongue.

  "Oh, don't do that." He gave a low laugh and I liked knowing that my touch did this, that I could make his breath change. "You know how crazy you make me."

  I looked at him as innocently as I could. "I was just kissing you."

  "I don't ever want to let you go, Cassie. This is a serious problem. Do you know that? Every day I tell myself that today is the last, that today I can't touch you, that today you are just a girl and I'm a guy and you can't belong to me." He murmured and dropped his chin on my head, tilting me just a bit so he could kiss my forehead. "Tell me what's going on with your mom," he said. "What can I do to help? What do you need?"

  And all of my worries about Mom rushed up from my stomach to my head, making me feel dizzy. I wanted to escape it all; I didn't want to think about anyone in my family. "She's in the hospital right now."

  "They admitted her?"

  "She had an allergic reaction to her medicine." I swallowed, feeling my eyes swell with tears. He held me close, his fingers traveling up and down my arms. "She's coming home, but Aunt Lucy told Addie and she didn't know before."

  "You have the weight of the world on your shoulders." He kissed my neck. "You are so strong, so much stronger than me."

  "I'm scared, RD," I said.

  "I know," he said. I felt his tongue slide across my neck, giving me shivers. "I wish I could make everything better for you."

  "Make me forget," I whispered. "Please make me forget for a little while."

  So I let him.

  RD took some blankets someone had left stacked up on a shelf and laid them on the ground by the old boat cushions. He took my hand and pulled me down onto the ground beside him.

  I let him touch me everywhere. He touched me with his hands and his mouth, always talking to me, telling me I was beautiful, telling me he couldn't believe how amazing it was to be with me. It was way more intense than before, maybe because the water bathed us in a strange, green glow or maybe because every time his skin brushed against mine, I wanted to pull him toward me and I did. I felt reckless and strong. I wasn't as afraid to touch him back and he seemed to like that, stopping to smile at me, whispering in my ear when I did something he liked.

  I wished I'd worn something besides my stupid sweats, but he didn't seem to mind. He carefully unzipped my fleece and pulled my sweats off, taking the time to fold them and set them beside my head. I could barely breathe. This time, he didn't leave on any of my clothes. He stripped me bare. There was so much heat between us that I didn't feel cold even though the night air held a chill.

  Naked, I lay on the blankets. RD stopped and leaned back on his ankles, his forehead sweaty, and breathe shallow. "Look at you," he said.

  I wanted to say something, but I had lost all my words. I couldn't find a single syllable each time I tried to speak. It felt so good to kiss him, to be touched, to have someone tell me I was perfect.

  "Cassie, I don't want to stop." RD's voice shook. "I just can't stop touching you." He buried his face in my neck as he moved over me. His shirt was off and I loved feeling my hands on his back. He hadn't taken off his pants, but I could feel him pressing against me and I wanted to disappear into our warmth. He pressed harder. "You feel so good. It's amazing." He stopped moving and stared at me, cupping my face with his hand. "God, you're beautiful and you have no idea."

  "We should be careful." I whispered. "I've never... I've never done this." I knew about sex. I just wasn't sure we were going to have sex. I didn't really know what I wanted. I just craved that heat and that light I felt being next to him. I wanted to feel beautiful. I wanted to do whatever he needed. I wanted to keep him right there, shining above me.

  With one hand, he reached above me and his eyes never left my face. I heard the sound of him unwrapping something. A condom. A crinkle in the darkness. I looked away, embarrassed.

  "I'll be slow," he said, and I think I nodded. I don't remember saying "yes" or "no."

  But slow still hurt. It had felt so good to be next to him, but as he pushed into me, I swear it felt like he wasn't supposed to be near me at all. Was sex supposed to hurt this much? I wanted to ask, but I was too scared to say anything.

  "You okay?" he whispered. I could feel myself opening up to let him in and it felt like something was tearing. This did not feel good at all.

  "Uh huh." I couldn't really speak; it felt so awful. And RD looked so needy and happy as he gazed at me and kissed my face and forehead. I tried to be brave, but my eyes teared up, so I just shut them tight. I didn't want to cry. I wasn't supposed to cry. And he moaned as he pushed into me and, suddenly, I realized that this was it. Sex. He was inside of me. I could feel him and it felt awkward and painful all at the same time, but I could tell he liked it.

  "Is this right?" I managed to breathe. "Am I doing this right?"

  "Oh, yes. It's perfect." He kissed my forehead, my cheeks. "It's perfect. You're perfect, Cassandra. So perfect." Even though it hurt, I wanted to hear this. I wanted to be perfect.

  So, this was sex. The great mystery. The thing that everyone whispered about. Lying on that wooden dock on a musty pile of blankets with RD, moving inside of that searing pain and me, I was having sex. This was what all those people did together? I wanted this, didn't I? This was what RD wanted, so I would do this. I would let him show me what I needed to do to make him happy, to give him what he wanted. Then why did I feel like my body was no longer mine?

  "Are you okay?" he whispered. His voice so low, he sounded strained.

  "Uh huh." I couldn't manage more than that.

  "You are so good." With every word, his voice grew stronger and I felt him push against me harder and faster. Then he shuddered and stopped moving. I felt his weight press into me and I tasted the salt from our bodies on my lips.

  We'd just had sex. Oh, my God. I felt like I couldn't breathe. What had I done? I could get pregnant. What if something had gone wrong? RD kissed my eyes, my forehead and my face again and again as I started to cry. My pulse throbbed between my legs.

  "Are you okay?" He moved which made me wince.

  "I'm okay. I'm okay," I said, but I wasn't okay. "Were we safe?" I had heard him open something, but I hadn't touched him, didn't know for sure. What was wrong with me? I should have checked to make sure.

  "I was safe. You wanted this, right? Are you okay?"

  I nodded.

  "I couldn't stop. I just couldn't." He slowly moved away from me and I could feel him slide out. It was such an odd sensation. I looked over at him naked. His eyes closed, he had this smile on his face. He looked so happy and I couldn't believe that I'd done this. I'd made him feel this way. He rolled over and pulled my head onto his shoulder. "Do you hurt?"

  "A little," I whispered.

  "I'm sorry." RD pulled one of the blankets over us and I tried to stop crying. I'd thought it would feel different, that making love to someone felt like two people becoming one. Mom had told me that during the "talk." Making love might be something else, I thought. Sex hurt. "Was I all right?" I asked.

  "You were more than all right. You were amazing and it was just impossible to stop. I needed you so much."

  "I know." I did one of those horrible, gasping hiccups.

  RD held m
e even tighter. "You're okay. It's all okay."

  "No, it's not," I stammered. "I don't know what I'm doing." I looked at him. "My mom is so sick, RD. I have no friends and the only one who understands me is you. You're the only one who listens to me. Promise me you'll never leave me. Promise me."

  RD turned my face so our noses almost touched. "Hey, I'm not going anywhere, okay?"

  And we just looked at each other like that for a moment. I looked right into his blue eyes, wondering how this had happened. A few weeks ago, my whole life had belonged to someone else.

  "Now, let’s get you home before I get you grounded," RD said, kissing me before we put on our clothes. "So, this happened and it's okay. It just means we need to be more careful now."

  He held my hand as we walked up the pathway through the Forgotten Woods. "You okay?" He took me by the shoulders and looked right at me. "Are you cold?"

  "No. I don't know. Maybe. It was cold in the boathouse." I hurt and I didn't know what I felt. Suddenly, I wished I hadn't left my bedroom. I wished I'd just kissed RD, nothing more. We should have stopped before he took my clothes off, because now we had even more to worry about. I knew the law. I was too young for him. But I'd started this. It was my fault I was out here, wasn't it? No one had made me sneak out in the middle of the night.

  "If you need to talk to anyone, call me, okay? Don't call anyone but me."

  "I'm fine. I promise."

  "If I don't answer, it just means I'm somewhere I can't talk, okay?"

  I nodded.

  "What we just did back there, Cassie, it was amazing, and I wish I could tell the world about you. About the way you make me feel, about how it feels to be with you." RD's voice changed and he sounded serious. "About how it feels to love a girl like you." He kissed my forehead.

  RD loved me? Had he really just said he loved me? He kissed me again on the lips and something about the warmth of his arms made me calm. It was okay, wasn't it? So, I'd had sex. Secret sex. Big deal. So had half the girls in my high school. At least I'd done it with a guy who thought I was beautiful and amazing. I'd had sex with someone who loved me, not a guy who wore black concert t-shirts and broke out because he never washed his face.