Lies I Live By

by Lauren Sabel

  “Let up on her, sweetie,” Richard says, leaning into the living room from the kitchen, his hands covered in soapy bubbles. “Remember being that age?”

  “Maybe.” Mom growls good-naturedly, but I still wonder if I’m going to be grounded. “Fine,” she says. “I’ll let up on you. But next time, call.” She stands up and rubs her eyes. I didn’t realize how tired she looked. “Help Richard with the dishes,” she adds.

  I nod. I can handle dishwashing as punishment.

  “And call Charlie,” she says as she walks up the stairs. “I’ve never seen a kid so brokenhearted.”

  Charlie was brokenhearted because of me. “Yes, Mom,” I say. As I walk into the kitchen, each step feels heavier, as if sadness is creeping through my muscles like black ink. In the kitchen, I pull out my phone, and plug it into the charger. The screen instantly blinks on, showing several missed calls from my mom, and then it quickly fills with text messages from Charlie.

  He waited for me at the noodle shop for two hours. He was late hanging his show, and people arrived before he was finished. Only ten people came, including my mom and Richard. He texted me from the bathroom during the show, and afterward, he waited for me until the gallery owner kicked him out.

  I imagine Charlie, so proud of his photos, sitting alone in the gallery after everyone left. I picture the lights being turned off, and Charlie by himself in the dark room, waiting for me to show up. I imagine everyone asking about me, and Charlie saying, “She’ll be here soon,” and the look of devastation on Charlie’s face as hour after hour went by, with no call, no text, no nothing. And me, miles away, kissing Jasper. How could I do that to Charlie?

  “Some help over here?” Richard says from the sink.

  I glance up at Richard. “One sec, sorry.”

  He nods, and I quickly text Charlie: I’m sooo sorry. I press Send, and then I wait thirty seconds, but there’s no response. “Just one more sec,” I say to Richard. “Gotta call Charlie.” I dial Charlie’s number, but the phone rings and rings until his voicemail picks up.

  “You’ve reached me. If you know who me is, you’ve dialed the right number,” Charlie’s voice on the message says.

  After the beep, I say, “I’m so sorry, Charlie. Something came up that I couldn’t get out of. Call me back,” I start to push the End button, but then I bring it back to my ear. “Love you,” I add, and hang up quickly. I put my phone down and then move over to the sink beside Richard.

  “Hey kiddo,” Richard says, handing me a foamy plate. “You okay?”

  “I guess.” I take the plate and wash it off in the sink while he scrubs another one. “But Charlie’s not. And Mom was pretty mad.”

  “Your mom was just worried,” he says. “To her, not calling is the same thing as you being dead on the side of the road.” He shakes his head and chuckles. “That woman’s got an imagination. Good when doing astrophysics for NASA, bad for late teenage daughters.”

  I nod. “You pretty much nailed it.” He hands me a coffee cup. “Do you think Charlie will forgive me?”

  “I don’t see why not,” he says. “You just missed his show. It’s not like you cheated on him or something.”

  My silence must say more than I meant to give away, because when I put my hand out for another dish, he washes the soap off himself.

  “Go to sleep, kiddo,” he says. “I’ll finish these.”

  I open up my email account as soon as I climb into bed, but I’m not sure what to say. I wouldn’t be resorting to email if he had answered my texts or phone call. It takes me five times to get the wording perfect.

  Please call me. I’m so sorry. I was stuck at work and my phone died, I type, most of which is true. I thought about you all night, which is not completely true, but I did think about him once, before Jasper’s and my conversation. And our kiss. Love, Callie. I hit Send.

  I lie in bed wide-awake, waiting for the ding to alert me that Charlie’s written back, but it never comes. I listen to Richard patter down the hallway to Mom’s room, open her bedroom door, and close it behind him.

  A few seconds later, I hear Mom’s electric toothbrush buzzing through the wall, and I wonder if they realize that I can hear everything when they’re in Mom’s bathroom.

  “Are you okay?” Richard asks her. His voice is slightly dampened by the thin wall between our two rooms, but not by much.

  “It was like Callie didn’t care,” Mom says. But I do care, too much actually. One of the problems with not letting anyone in is that people you love think you aren’t feeling anything, when you’re actually feeling so intensely you’ve just pressed the mute button to survive it.

  “She does care,” Richard says. “You’re reading too much into this.”

  I turn over in bed so I’m staring at the wall. I spread my fingers and push my hands against the wall, like I’m holding it up with my own strength.

  “I’m just worried,” Mom says.

  I bury myself deeper into the covers, having heard all of Mom’s worries before. But then, through the bathroom wall, I hear Richard say, “Maybe it’s time—”

  The roar of the hairdryer covers whatever he says next, and I guess whatever she says back, too. It goes off right as Richard says, “Just talk to her about it.”

  “She’ll tell me when she’s ready.” I hear Mom walk out of the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

  My mind races round and round, chasing its own tail. Ready to tell her what? Could Mom know who I work for? I grip the metal sides of my bed frame, refusing to allow that thought to go on one second more. Not only would Mom know I’ve been lying, it could make her a target. It’s not possible, I decide, forcing the horrible thought out of my mind. Even though I couldn’t tell Charlie the truth either, I wish I could talk to him. Just hearing his voice would make me feel better.

  I dig my phone out of my back pocket and text Charlie again: R u home?

  After several minutes pass and there’s no answer, possible answers start gnawing at me. I imagine Charlie hanging out with another girl, laughing and talking and . . . kissing? Fear strums through me, making my whole body vibrate, while above me, the stars on my ceiling twinkle something fierce. Why are my stickers twinkling like real stars? And why do they look so close?

  It takes me a second to realize I’m floating above my bed.

  I’ve never tried astral projection before. I’ve heard about it, sure. But it’s totally different from what I do every day. I usually think intensely about a target, and then my mind allows me to see the target, and sometimes even imagine myself into the scene—but this is taking my actual spirit body to a physical location. Most people call it an out-of-body experience because that’s exactly what it is: a real experience out of your body.

  “Just because you can travel out of your mind doesn’t mean you can travel out of your body,” Indigo said when I asked him about it, and he should know. Indigo has wandered all over the world, looking in people’s windows, finding out government secrets that even closed doors can’t shut out. But I’ve never done this before, mostly because Indigo said I should never use my powers to spy on someone I love.

  “It will destroy you,” he warned me time and time again. But this time I can’t stop myself. I don’t know if it’s because I missed Charlie’s show and I’m afraid he’s never going to forgive me, or because I kissed Jasper and I am weighed down with guilt, or because I watched a guy not much older than me die earlier today and I haven’t even had a chance to figure out what I feel about it—but the next thing I know, I’m guiding myself further into it.

  Lie down and relax fully. Picture yourself somewhere else. I tighten all the muscles in my body at once, and then release. There’s this disassociated feeling that washes over my body and mind, but instead of it being frightening, like I thought it would be, it’s really nice. Like detaching from the heavy weight of my body, and lifting into the air, beating heart first.

  Below me, there’s a long silver cord trailing between my ghost body and
my real body. Now think of where you want to go, I instruct myself. I want to go to Charlie’s house.

  I watch the silver cord stretch through the ceiling, and soon I’m floating above the house, and then above the neighborhood, and then the cord is trailing across the city in a string so thin it’s almost transparent. I move toward Charlie’s house. Beneath me, the train whizzes by, or rather, I’m whizzing by, and then it’s several trains I’m seeing, block after block, all blending into each other.

  Does Charlie like someone else? Have I been so busy with work and Jasper that he’s found someone else, someone who has more time for him?

  I cross the city in under twenty seconds, but strangely, nothing ever gets blurry. It’s crystal clear from the roof of my house to his doorstep.

  I float through the open window in the living room, but to my surprise, he isn’t home. I don’t have to descend to his basement to figure that out. There’s something missing, something decidedly Charlie, and the house feels like a floating object without an axis. Inside, Colin is asleep in bed, and Grace is checking something on her phone, but otherwise, the house is empty.

  For some reason, the dark beckoning of the lighthouse pulls me forward. Our place. I move toward it, more quickly now, watching the ocean waves pound the shore below me. Seconds later, when I reach the lighthouse, I can instantly feel Charlie’s presence, and my heart relaxes.

  Charlie’s solid form takes shape in the darkness, and his hair blows in the heavy ocean breeze. Watching him, I realize that he never needs to know about Jasper. I’ll apologize for missing his show, he’ll forgive me, and we’ll go on like we did before. Maybe I’ll even move to New York with him.

  But then, from behind him, another figure emerges, blending the one dark shape into two. This one has long hair that snaps in the wind, and a lean bare belly. The girl from the pier. My heart sinks. What is she doing here?

  My stomach clenches; I’m uncertain what to do next. Below me, Amber moves toward Charlie and places her hand on his neck. She runs her fingers up his smooth skin, and then her fingers are in his hair. Charlie dips his head forward and looks at her, and even I can see the desire in his eyes.

  As Charlie leans toward her, I try to push my thought into his mind. YOU DON’T WANT TO KISS HER, I think with all of my force. I know I’m crossing a line by attempting to get inside his head, but I don’t care.

  Below me, Amber presses up against him, and two things seem to happen at once: Charlie’s phone rings, and he abruptly jerks his head back.

  Charlie pulls the phone out of his pocket and puts it to his ear.

  “Soon, Mom,” he says. “Just hanging with Amber. I’ll be home soon.” Charlie shoves the phone deep in his pocket, and I can’t decide which happened first: the phone ringing, which made Charlie pull away from the kiss, or Charlie pulling away from the kiss, and then the phone ringing? Was the kiss averted because of the phone call, or because I forced my thoughts into his mind?

  Before I can stop it, the silver cord zips through the air, yanking me across the city, through the roof of my house, and back into my belly button. I emerge back in my body, gasping, and feel the strangeness of my fingers, the fleshy skin over my bones. I rub my hands over my face, over the physical contours of my nose and mouth. What was she doing there with Charlie? Is he cheating on me? I know I’m a hypocrite for even worrying about it, but I can’t help it.

  I bury my head under my pillow, willing the image of Charlie and Amber, and of what they were doing together out of my mind. I slowly count down from ten to one, relaxing more fully with each number.

  Eventually, I sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  As I crawl out of bed the next morning, I’m still wondering if Charlie pulled away from Amber’s kiss because the phone rang or because I convinced him not to kiss her. If it’s the latter, then I influenced him, but when I replay the scene in my head, I’m almost positive that the phone rang first, which just means that his mom called at exactly the right time.

  Even though I know it was wrong to spy on Charlie, and even worse to kiss Jasper, I’m still upset that he took Amber to our special place and almost kissed her. He wanted to kiss her, and I want to know why, but I can’t ask him—there’s no way to explain what I saw. A normal person couldn’t have seen them together at the top of the lighthouse. From up there, you can see someone coming for blocks, and he would have heard me on the stairs anyway.

  I get out of bed and grab my jeans, which are bunched in a pile on the floor. It’s not fair of me to be mad at Charlie, but I can’t help it. I yank the jeans on and pull a sweatshirt over my head, then I shove my feet into my sneakers. The laces are knotted. Figures.

  From my nightstand, I pick up my phone, meaning to text Charlie, but find myself shoving it back in my pocket. I need to see him today, but Indigo said he’d pick me up at eight, so I’ll just go to the Musée Méchanique after work and surprise him. And that way, if I lose my nerve, I won’t be letting him down again.

  I grab my backpack and follow the smell of coffee to the kitchen.

  “Have you heard from Charlie?” Mom asks when I walk into the kitchen.

  I shake my head. “Nope. He won’t even return my calls.”

  “It’s not your fault you had to work,” she says. She grabs a granola bar and places it in front of me on the counter. I shove it in my backpack.

  “I should’ve known the Bernsteins would be out later than they said,” I respond.

  “Well, I’m glad you have a good work ethic,” Mom says. She hands me a to-go cup of coffee.

  I take a sip and smile. It’s hard to stay so grumpy when I’ve got sweet, creamy coffee like this. “I got it from you, Mom.”

  “What did you get from your mother?” Richard asks, coming into the kitchen. He throws his big arms around Mom and plants a slobbery kiss on her cheek.

  “Work ethic,” I say.

  “Are you talking about the letter?” Richard asks Mom.

  She shakes her head, and then turns to me. “I wasn’t snooping around your room or anything, I promise,” she says. “I just needed a pen, and I opened your desk drawer and saw your letter from NYU.”

  Relief pours through me; so that’s what they were talking about last night. “And you figured I’d tell you when I was ready?”

  She nods. “You guessed it.”

  “Well, I’m ready. I got into NYU, but I’m not going,” I say. “I want to keep nannying, at least for a while, and get some college credits before I do something big like move across the country.”

  “What about Charlie?” Mom asks.

  “Can you imagine me following a guy somewhere?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.“Of course not. But—”

  “Did I tell you congratulations on your engagement yet?” I ask Richard, eager to end the NYU conversation.

  He shakes his head. “You’ve been a little busy.”

  “Congratulations,” I say. “Welcome to our crazy life.”

  “Glad to be here,” he says. He pours himself a cup of coffee. “You work it out with Charlie?”

  I shake my head, mentally replaying Charlie and Amber’s almost-kiss. “Still waiting for him to call me back.”

  “He’ll come around,” Richard says.

  “I hope so.” I put a lid on my to-go cup and throw my backpack over my shoulder. As I head out to Indigo’s waiting car, I realize I’m fine with Mom knowing about NYU. I can’t go anyway, not with my Branch 13 work. And besides, Charlie might want to be in New York with Amber, not me.

  “Callie? You okay?” Indigo asks me from across the bunker’s viewing room.

  “Just dandy,” I reply. As far as I can tell, Indigo doesn’t seem upset about pretending to be Mr. Bernstein, so it probably wasn’t him on the phone to begin with. Dodged a bullet there. I’m relieved, because my brain can’t handle worrying about anything else right now, not after betraying Charlie by kissing Jasper, and Charlie almost betraying me by kissing Amber. I’m already so distracted
today by the thought of Amber worming her way into Charlie’s heart that I’ve barely heard Indigo guiding me off my mental boat into the water, taking me further into my vision. Keeping my eyes closed and my head firmly against the couch cushion, I add, “Fine and dandy.”

  “Then we’ll start when you say you’re ready,” Indigo says.

  “I’m ready,” I insist, although I’m not sure that I am. I may have dodged a bullet with Indigo, but I’m still distracted by Charlie’s almost-kiss, and I’m also trying not to focus on the fact that Indigo is monitoring me today instead of Jasper. Maybe after our movie-worthy kiss, Jasper didn’t want to be partners anymore? A knot forms in my throat. Or maybe he regrets ever being attracted to me in the first place? I know I shouldn’t care about Jasper, not with all that’s going on with Charlie, but is it possible to be equally attracted to two people?

  “Okay,” Indigo says, “then focus this time.”

  I lean back, pack my worries into a suitcase, and drift deep into the ocean in my mind, listening to Indigo’s voice counting down to one.

  “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

  This is the part I like best: the letting go. The moment when nothing seems to matter, when the world rushes away from me like the drawing of a tide. When even the thought of losing Charlie to a blue-eyed blonde doesn’t bother me.

  “Seven . . . six . . . five . . .”

  I get very relaxed, my body releasing its grip on the world. My mind is still awake, but pleasantly unconcerned, and my body has given in to what it knows will happen. I almost forget Amber’s name. And her tiny T-shirt.

  “Four . . . three . . . two . . .”

  My mind lets go of Amber and Charlie, and what they may have done together, and my thoughts break apart, scattering into the dust cloud of my mind.

  “One.”

  And then the dust lifts and flies away, and I’m left with a wide open space, a plain to play on, to receive colors and images. Like an empty field, or a blank canvas. Waiting for what’s to come.