The Girl You Thought I Was

by Rebecca Phillips

Nausea swirls in my stomach. Most shoplifters don’t steal from mom-and-pop stores and small businesses—I never would—but it’s not like I can say that without sounding like I’m defending thievery.

  The waitress appears and takes Alyssa’s order, then asks if I want another Coke. I shake my head. My appetite—even for liquid—has totally diminished.

  “Does the store have security cameras?” Eli asks.

  “Yeah, one, but it’s not very high-tech. It probably won’t give a clear enough image to identify him.” She droops in her seat, frowning. “New cameras would be way too expensive. We’ll just have to suck it up and take the loss, I guess.”

  Everyone’s quiet for a moment, like they’re contemplating the injustice of it all, and then Zach says, “People are assholes.”

  We all nod in agreement. Even me. There’s no disputing it—shoplifters are selfish, dishonorable jerks.

  “You’re quiet tonight.”

  I slap a mosquito off my arm and look at Eli, who’s barely visible in the dark. After the diner, we all went our separate ways—Alyssa to her house, Sophie and Zach to his house, and Eli and me to the small, grassy park near my apartment building. We’re sitting on wooden bench facing a swing set, which in the year or so since I moved here, I haven’t seen used more than a half dozen times. My neighborhood isn’t exactly family-centric.

  “Am I?” I say, distracted. My mind is still stuck on what happened earlier, the look of disgust on my friends’ faces when Alyssa talked about the shoplifter. I keep imagining them aiming that same disgust at me, and how awful and vulnerable it would make me feel. And how much I’d deserve their disappointment.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  His words wrap around me like fingers, yanking me out of my own head. “No,” I reply, and then lean into him, pressing my lips to his. The park is quiet and dark, and aside from some flying insects and maybe a few squirrels, we’re completely alone.

  At first he kisses me back, but after a minute he pulls away and grabs my hand, stopping its progression across the firm expanse of his chest. “Why do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Whenever I try to get you to talk about something personal, you distract me. You’ve done it a few times now.”

  I slide my hand out of his. “No, I don’t.” But even as I deny it, I know he’s right. Every time he tries to dig past the surface, I kiss him or make a joke or do whatever else I can think of to get back on the fun-and-simple track. I don’t even know why. Maybe because the closer we get, the more I realize the impossibility of keeping secrets from him forever. Someday, I’ll have to reveal all the shameful parts of myself, to my friends and to him, but just the thought of it makes my heart race. I’m not ready to ruin everyone’s image of me.

  “I’ve told you everything about me,” Eli goes on, a trace of hurt in his tone. “Everything about my family too. But I hardly know anything about yours. You never talk about it with me. You haven’t even told me where your mother is and why you don’t live with her. That’s a pretty big thing to keep to yourself, isn’t it?”

  I look away. How long has this been bothering him? I figured the reason he never pressured me for details about my family life was because he thought it was none of his business. But clearly he thinks that since he told me all about his family, I’m expected to return the favor. And maybe I am. I can only stay a closed book for so long.

  Something buzzes in my ear. Another mosquito, probably. Annoyed, I brush it away and turn to face Eli again. He wants me to talk about it? Okay, I’ll talk about it. “My mother lives about a ninety-minute drive from here, in Sutton. She moved there at the beginning of last summer, a month or so after she was caught cheating with this guy named Gary, who was also married, by the way. Plus, he was one of my dad’s best friends. So yeah, when I was asked who I wanted to live with, I chose my father instead of my cheating mom and the man who helped destroy my family. My sister did too, but I guess spending a year away at college gave her a new perspective or something, because now she thinks we need to extend the old olive branch to our mother, who I haven’t seen or spoken to in a year. Like it’s just that simple.”

  I pause to take a jagged breath. God, now I’m crying in front of Eli again. But this time, I’m not just some girl he barely knows sniveling in her car for reasons she won’t share. Now he knows me, or at least a big part of me. And instead of pulling away, like I half expected him to do when he got his first glimpse past the surface, he wraps me in his arms and holds me while I cry.

  The next evening after work, I settle on my bed with my laptop. My deadline to complete the online theft education class is just a few days away, and I still haven’t finished it. I started it last week but could only handle an hour before shutting it off and watching a movie instead. There’s nothing more boring than a disembodied voice on the computer lecturing you about stealing and its impact on society. Just like I assumed, it’s nothing I don’t already know.

  But tonight I’m going to finish it, finally, so I can get my certificate and send it to the diversion coordinator. Soon, this will all be over and life can return to normal. Obligations complete. No more theft class, no more community service hours.

  No more Rita’s Reruns.

  I ignore the twinge of sadness that comes with the thought of never working at the thrift store again and press play on the third course module: Why Do People Steal?

  I sigh at the screen. Fergus, who’s curled into a ball at the end of the bed, lifts his head and yawns. This makes me yawn, and I think of all the things I could be doing right now. Like going to the lake for an evening swim with my friends, or watching a movie, or hanging out with Eli. Or kissing Eli. Even better.

  But he’s off doing something with his friends, so tonight it’s just me and the guy from the video, who’s droning on about unhealthy thinking and behavior. I’m fiddling with my phone, only half paying attention, when the instructor takes on a deeper, more serious tone.

  People who steal often feel like something has been taken from them. They feel deprived somehow, and stealing provides them with a sense of peace or relief. Life—for a moment, at least—is fair again.

  The words pierce through my boredom. I look up from my phone.

  For some people, shoplifting is a response to what they perceive as an unfair loss—a death in the family, a breakup, the loss of a job. It offers temporary control over a feeling of powerlessness. A person shoplifts for the same reasons someone else might drink, eat, or work too much—because it fills a void.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, like someone is watching me. I put down my phone and hit pause on the video, the instructor’s words churning in my head. I think about how centered I feel when I take something, the sense of power and control it gives me. Like a wrong is being righted every time I pull it off without detection. Like the video said, it makes life seem fair again, if only for a few moments.

  But I’ve always assumed my compulsion to steal came from some small, damaged part of me. An underlying defect in my nature that surfaced along with the anger I felt toward my mother for ripping our family apart. For hurting my father so deeply that he seemed to shrink overnight. For giving me up so easily, like a bag of old clothes that she no longer had any use for. That amount of anger needs some kind of outlet, and since drinking and overeating never appealed to me, shoplifting was the most viable choice at the time.

  Does divorce count as an “unfair loss”? When I remember how we used to be—an average little family, whole and secure—it definitely feels like one. My mother was like anyone else’s. Maybe a little distracted at times, and moody more often than not, but she used to at least try. She was there every day. In the audience for Rachel’s dance recitals. Wandering around the school gym during my science fairs. Watching TV on the couch, her feet in Dad’s lap and a glass of wine in her hand.

  But gradually, all of that stopped. She became distant, unable to focus on anything, even Rachel and me. She and Dad
started spending evenings—and then entire nights—in separate rooms. It was like she was only sticking around out of obligation, because she had two girls who needed a mother. Eventually, not even that was a good enough reason.

  She’d checked out of her marriage—out of her family—but at one point, she was in. All in.

  So yeah, it’s a loss, and an incredibly unfair one. We didn’t deserve to be broken and scattered. She shouldn’t get to live happily ever after while we’re stuck back here, doing whatever it takes to fill the void she left behind.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  RACHEL CALLS THE NEXT MORNING JUST AS I’M getting out of the shower.

  “Hi, Rach.” I pull my bathrobe tighter around me and sit on my bed, wondering if she’s going to start in on her upcoming visit with Mom and if I’ve changed my mind about going with her. It’s too early in the morning for that.

  But all she says is “Hey, Morgan. I just emailed you my flight itinerary for next week. I’ll be getting in at eight twenty p.m. on the nineteenth. You and Dad can pick me up at the airport, right?”

  “Uh, sure,” I say.

  “Great. And I know you guys live off greasy fast food, but can you maybe stock the fridge with some fruits and vegetables before I come?” She pauses. “Actually, never mind. I’ll just go shopping when I get there. Did I tell you I can cook now? Amir taught me. I mean, I don’t get as gourmet as Mom did, but I’m pretty good. Remember that chicken Kiev she used to make? Man, that was yummy. I should get her recipe.”

  I do remember the Kiev, and all the other complex meals she used to create. She always said cooking relaxed her. The kitchen was her turf, and sometimes when I think of her, I see her standing at the counter, dark hair falling in her face as she chops vegetables and hums along with the radio.

  “Remember the first time she made it? For Dad’s birthday dinner?” Rachel asks, laughter in her voice. “He didn’t end up getting off work until, like, eight, so you and I were dying of hunger. We drove her crazy with our whining.”

  I smile a bit as the memory comes back to me. That must have been about six or seven years ago. “And she finally let us have some crackers so we’d stay out of the kitchen.”

  “But then we ate the entire box, so when we finally sat down to eat, we were too full to have more than a few bites.”

  Now I’m laughing too. “And when you cut into your chicken, butter squirted out and hit you in the face.”

  She gasps. “Oh my God! I almost forgot about that. The butter was hot too. It left a big red mark on my chin. I remember you laughing your head off at me. Jerk.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “No,” she says with a sigh. “I guess it was pretty funny.”

  “Yeah.” My laughter fades, along with the memory, and I’m overcome with this odd sense of homesickness, even though I’m sitting in my bedroom. Rachel has this way of reminding me of the past, of home and how things used to be. I miss her, miss our unbroken family, in a pervasive, deep-down way that’s hard to express in words.

  “How are things there?” she asks when I don’t say anything else. “Dad mentioned that he met your new boyfriend. Will I get to meet him too? Maybe we can all go out for dinner one night.”

  I stand up, letting the wet towel fall from my hair, and move over to my dresser to dig out a clean bra. “Maybe,” I say, distracted by the sight of the striped bikini that I stole so many weeks ago, still nestled among my underwear. I barely notice it anymore, but sometimes, like now, it’s all I can see. I slide one of the string ties between my fingers until I reach the turquoise bead on the end, remembering the way it dug into my skin. “Rach?”

  “Yeah?”

  I drop the string, tuck it back into the padded cups. “How did you stop?”

  “How did I stop what?”

  “The drinking and the pot and all that,” I say, shutting the drawer without taking anything out. “How did you stop?”

  She doesn’t answer right away and I squeeze my eyes shut, instantly regretting the question. Maybe it was different for her. She probably didn’t drink to fill a void, or to get relief. A lot of people have vices they’re ashamed of, but stealing isn’t like smoking or drinking or gambling or any other thing that’s vilified but still generally accepted. Stealing is a selfish crime that hurts other people. I know this, but knowing it doesn’t seem to matter.

  “I told you this already, Morgan,” she says, and I can almost see her tilting her head, like she does when she’s concerned. “I realized how stupid I was being, so I stopped. That’s basically it. Why?”

  I sit back down on my bed. “What if you realize how stupid you’re being and it’s still not enough to make you want to stop? What then?”

  Another pause. “Why are you asking me this? What’s going on?”

  The confusion in her voice makes me want to suck the words back in. Not even she understands. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “You’re not—please tell me you’re not still shoplifting. Even after getting caught. Please tell me you learned your lesson and won’t ever do that again.”

  I wind the bedsheet around my finger, unsure how to respond. I haven’t stolen from a store since the sunglasses, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to, constantly. Every time I’m buying something—milk or tampons or even a pack of gum—I imagine slipping something into my bag. I don’t do it, but the urge is always there, in the background, in my fingers, in the part of my brain that craves the rush of release.

  The theft education class talked about identifying feelings and behaviors and challenging automatic thoughts and finding alternative emotional outlets, but I have no idea where to even start. For the past year, shoplifting has been my only outlet. If I stop, what will happen when all this anger builds up and has nowhere to go?

  I’ll implode.

  “Morgan,” Rachel says when I don’t respond. “Exactly how long have you been doing this? When you got caught . . . that wasn’t the first time you shoplifted, was it?”

  I should have known she’d catch on; she can usually figure out what it is I’m not saying. “I have to go,” I tell her, then hang up before she can ask any more questions. Maybe she’s not the one I should be talking to about this. I don’t know who is, but I do know one thing: I don’t want to implode, and I need to start looking for a new method to prevent it. Something that can fill the void for good.

  I know the moment I walk in the door after work that Rachel voiced her suspicions to Dad while I was gone. He’s sitting on the couch and staring at nothing, just like the day we got the diversion letter.

  “Morgan, sit down,” he says without looking at me. His face is flushed, his nostrils flared. I haven’t seen him this pissed since he picked me up from the mall security office.

  “I’m leaving to meet Eli in a half hour. Can it wait?”

  “No.” He gestures to the chair.

  Great. What is wrong with Rachel lately? We never used to tattle on each other to our parents. She kept my secrets, I kept hers. I guess the rules changed without my knowledge.

  I sit down. “Dad, I don’t know what Rachel told you, but I’m not still shoplifting. I swear.” I figure the metal penguin doesn’t count as shoplifting, since I didn’t steal it from a store. Though in a lot of ways, what I did was even worse. I stole it from someone’s house, and I feel more shame over that damn penguin than anything I’ve taken so far. But admitting that to Dad isn’t going to help anything.

  “I really hope you’re telling me the truth,” he says, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “I need to be able to trust you, Morgan. I can’t be constantly worrying about you and wondering if you’re going to steal something again.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. Or wonder. I promise, I have not shoplifted since the sunglasses.”

  “The sunglasses,” he echoes, finally looking at me. His piercing gaze makes me want to squirm. “And that’s the first thing you ever stole, right? Like you told the police officer? Like you told me?” />
  Shit. My mind scrambles for something to say that won’t make him enraged, but there’s nothing. “I . . .” At a loss for words, I clamp my mouth shut and swallow.

  “The truth,” he says when I don’t finish my sentence. “You’ve done enough lying already.”

  He’s right; my first instinct was to lie. Sometimes, with me, lies feel almost automatic. But as the video said, I need to change my automatic thinking, replace my lie and steal impulses with something else. So for the first time in a long time, I try the complete truth.

  “The sunglasses weren’t the first time. I’ve shoplifted before.” I address my confession to the floor, unable to look at my father’s face as the words sink in.

  “How many times?”

  I glance up at him. He’s gazing at the floor too, his forehead creased with stress and disappointment. I can’t believe I keep doing this to him, over and over again. Shame floods through me and my eyes fill with tears.

  “I don’t know the exact number,” I say quietly. “It was a lot.”

  “A lot,” he mutters. He leans back, shaking his head. “So this is what you’ve been up to while I’ve been busy trying to keep a roof over our heads. Stealing anything you can get your hands on. Great. What else have you been doing?”

  I blink the tears away and meet his eyes. “What?”

  “What else have you been doing that I don’t know about? Drinking? Drugs?”

  “No,” I say emphatically. “I don’t drink or do drugs.” That was Rachel, I almost say, but decide against it. There’s no need to bring her into this. “There’s nothing else. You know everything there is to know, I promise.”

  “And how do you expect me to believe anything you say after this, huh?” He springs off the couch and starts walking away, then pauses at the threshold to the living room. He turns to face me again, his expression stony. “I thought I was doing the right thing, letting you stay here with me,” he says in a low voice. “But maybe you would have been better off living with your mother.”

  His words sting like a slap. He’s never said anything like that to me before. Maybe he’s thought it, but he’s never made me feel like he didn’t want me. You’re no better than her, he seems to be saying. You two deserve each other.