When I Lied

by Michelle Kemper Brownlow

  At the beginning of Phobia5’s current tour, while their flight was delayed in Paris, Oliver messaged me about a breaking news story that was playing out on a big-screen TV in the airport. It was a story of a young, poverty-stricken mom of four from his hometown who worked three jobs to feed her kids. One night while she was at work, their house burned to the ground with her sleeping children inside.

  OliverPh5: She lost her whole world in one night.

  He was a mess that night. He described various levels of pain in three long hours of direct messages.

  OliverPh5: The pain I feel for this mum is so raw, Lexi. Like being gutted.

  I wrote down everything he said in my journal, although I wasn’t sure I could ever bring myself to read through it again. His pain was so vivid.

  He described the fear of the children.

  OliverPh5: Imagine waking and being strangled by fingers of smoke. Hot hands pressed over your nose & mouth that will suffocate you in 3 - 2 - 1…

  He didn’t just empathize with those poor kids; I believe he experienced a level of their terror. In that one story, Oliver felt horror I could never have put into words. But he had no problem expressing himself. I like to think he slept well after getting all that off his chest, most likely with the help of a prescription or two, but I sure didn’t. The imagery and sadness he poured into me was unbearable. I sobbed all night long and thanked God for not giving me the same level of empathy. I couldn’t do it.

  I wondered how he survived on a daily basis without having a full mental breakdown. I ached for him. His heart was too big, if that was possible. And I could only assume that his compassionate nature was just one of the sources of his pain. It was obvious to me Oliver carried something dark within him.

  When a reporter from his hometown asked what inspired his most recent song, “Primal Wound,” Oliver referenced the story with jarring description.

  “When a mother loses a child, it’s got to be a pain void of any possible description. Her baby, body and soul, grows inside her and then through their shared fortitude he’s born and she watches as he takes his first breath. All because an extraordinary entity so much bigger than even the universe entrusted that specific child to her womb.

  “Can you imagine having an appendage torn from your body? Not amputated, all neat and clean with you numbed up with enough drugs to sink a battleship. I mean torn away. Can you feel each layer of flesh ripping apart from the next? Ligaments stretching until they tear. The pain would be crippling. And this mum gave life to four kids—that’s two arms and two legs. Think about it; skin and muscle, bone and tendons would heal over time but she won’t. She is one big gaping wound walking around every day for the rest of her life. So, yeah, I guess ‘Primal Wound’ began as an homage to those who deal with suffocating loss.”

  OliverPh5: Lexi, could you do me a favour?

  The buzz of Oliver’s message pulled me from my thoughts.

  Me: Depends. What kind of favor?

  OliverPh5: Just something that might help me feel closer to you…

  I’m not sending him nude photos.

  I wasn’t sure why my mind lunged into defense mode; Oliver had never given me a reason to think our relationship would ever be sexual. I instinctively adjusted my robe. I realized being naked had me feeling vulnerable and was most likely the reason behind my panic over Oliver’s pending request.

  I’d sent Oliver pictures of Lexi before, but never nudes. The pictures I sent were of innocuous things like my cup of tea in my lap or a photo of my feet in the grass with flowers between my toes. But, each time I sent one it reminded me what a fraud I was by not showing him my face and who I really was.

  Me: Like what?

  OliverPh5: Your phone number? So we could actually text and talk. And I won’t have to open an app to get to you.

  I sat straight up and gasped.

  Oliver Walt wanted my phone number. My heart pounded in my chest. I responded before he changed his mind.

  Me: 910-555-3131, truly an honor, O.

  I threw myself back on my pillows and tried to calm my nerves while I waited for what felt like an eternity for his phone number to show up on my screen.

  07700 900287: I know I can trust you, Lex.

  You can trust Kate, too, Oliver. I wish I could tell you about her.

  Me: Of course you can.

  07700 900287: Make up a cool as shit name for me in your phone. Not my real name. Just in case one of your friends goes through your contacts. And you’ve got to promise to delete all our texts each night.

  Me: Promise.

  I was disappointed. I wanted to save everything. Then I realized, he said nothing about not screen-shotting them. I changed his number to a name.

  Walter: And no screenshots.

  Dammit! I pulled my journal from the stack of books on the desk next to my bed that doubled as a nightstand. I turned to a new page and wrote Walter in my best handwriting. And like my hand had a mind of its own, it drew a little heart, too.

  Me: Of course not.

  I knew I needed to keep my promise to guard his secrets and private thoughts. It was one of the few things I could promise him. Because Lexi was a liar. Which forced Kate down the same slippery slope.

  Walter: Thanks.

  Me: Where are you today?

  Walter: Sweden.

  Walter: So, what’s my name in your contacts?

  Me: Jackass

  Walter: Are you kidding?

  Me: Yes. Your name in my phone is Walter.

  Walter: Ah. Creative, yet somewhat obvious.

  Me: You headed out after your show?

  Walter: No. Show’s over. You going out?

  Me: Nah. Need to study. You being a party pooper?

  Walter: I’m exhausted, love. I need to at least attempt to sleep tonight. Fighting the insomnia beast.

  Me: Then sleep.

  Walter: Zzzzz

  Me: G’night.

  Walter: Night, beautiful. Dream of me.

  Me: Always.

  Walter: A more stable me, not THIS one.

  Me: I enjoy THAT one…I’m stickin’ w him.

  Walter: As you wish. xoxo

  Me: xoxo

  I couldn’t shake the flutter in my chest and sly smirk on my face even as I showered, changed and climbed back into my bed. I thought about how the tone of our conversations had become even more familiar when we moved to text. I pulled a pile of course books from my backpack and adjusted my pillows all while trying to make sense of the crazy sort of tingly daze I’d found myself in. What the hell was I doing?

  Flirting, Kate. You’re flirting. My subconscious spoke in Oliver’s dialect.

  I hit shuffle on my Phobia5 playlist. Oliver’s raspy tone sang the lyrics to a song that seemed to be coming directly from him, “Truth Be Told.”

  We were still at the point in our relationship where it would be easy to just say, “Hey, I have to tell you something. My name is Kate, not Lexi. I’m socially awkward and can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been drunk or been at a party in the last two years. And I’m certainly not as sexy as you think I am. But…”

  I was living that part in the movies where you actually roll your eyes at the main character because she’s an idiot for not coming clean to her crush before she gets way in over her head.

  Even though I knew nothing would ever happen between us, I still felt a level of companionship with Oliver that I’d never felt with anyone. I felt a closeness that can only occur when someone comes with no pretenses. Being so free with how I spoke to him and never second-guessing what I said or how I said it was liberating, and I didn’t have to fake that. I felt it safe to assume Oliver was experiencing something similar. It was why he invited me inside the most intimate parts of his heart. But I fed him lie after lie each time I attached my own feelings to a person who wasn’t even real. I scrolled to the top of our string of texts.

  Walter: I know I can trust you, Lex.

  Just looking at his words broke
my heart. I was being dishonest with the most honest person I’d ever known. I read through our short conversation one more time then deleted it.

  I decided to wallow in my own self-pity with the help of campus pizza delivery. I organized my week in my planner and turned in early. Full belly and all. I turned the overhead light off and prepared to allow all of the words I’d just deleted take up space inside me with no other distraction. I never wanted to forget a single word Oliver said to me. So, by the light of my vanity, I filled a page in my journal with my own abstract summary of our conversation. I touched the words on the page and hung on to every one inside my heart, each word put there by the sensitive soul of Oliver Walt. No harm could come of making our conversations timeless as long as my eyes were the only ones that saw them.

  Two

  A shrill but familiar sound woke me from a deep sleep and I frantically tried to climb my way out of a dream I didn’t want to leave. I realized it was my phone making the noise but I couldn’t find it. My eyes hung heavy with sleep and I was tangled in my covers. I struggled to keep my eyes open long enough to see my screen glowing on the edge of my nightstand. My hand shot out from under the covers and I blindly dragged my finger across the screen to silence my alarm. I pulled my phone into bed with me and nuzzled down into my pillows.

  Oliver was the first thing on my mind, in that familiar sense you have when you’ve just been dreaming about someone. For a moment I even thought I could hear his voice. I pretended he was lying next to me. I smiled in my dreamy state. My eyes fluttered, offering to take me back to him in my dream.

  “Lexi? Please be there. Lexi?”

  I pushed myself up onto my elbows and looked around; it wasn’t morning—it was still dark outside. I grabbed my phone when I saw my screen was still lit. It really was his voice.

  “Oliver?” I cleared the sleep from my throat and flipped onto my back. Apparently in my attempt to silence the noise I thought was my alarm, I’d inadvertently answered a call. Oliver called me.

  “I’m not taking you away from a party, am I?”

  His voice was lyrical. The way his Cockney accent stole the “t” right out of the word “party” warmed me inside. Oliver was a form of familiar I’d never known. That made me smile.

  “No. No party.” I yawned. “Oliver? You okay?”

  “No, Lexi, I’m not. I just need you to talk to me.” His voice was so slow and sad. Oliver needed me. That ache was evident in his voice; his accent somehow amplified the despondency in his soul. At that moment, I wasn’t sure I could be all he needed. A pang of uneasiness hit me from the inside out.

  “Hey. Shhh. You’re okay. Take a deep breath and tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Oh, Lexi. Your voice. Just your voice alone settles me. Lexi, just talk to me, love.” He sniffled and a chilling pain hit my heart. He was crying.

  “I’ll talk to you, Oliver, but you need to help me understand what you need.”

  “I just need to know you’re there.”

  “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” By that time I was sitting straight up in bed, leaning back against the wall with my legs pulled up in front of me. I was warm but my body quaked. I was terrified for Oliver’s fragile soul.

  “Lexi, I just… I don’t know how…” He wrestled with his words.

  “Oliver? What happened?”

  “Lex, I couldn’t sleep so I was scrolling through my social media. Love, this business is wretched. No one is sincere. Everyone is out to find your faults. We went from regular guys to super stars almost overnight. Nothing came on slowly. We got hit with all of it right away. The lack of sleep, being homesick and the fact that we have so many haters is really starting to wear me down. And the dishonesty within this industry is sickening. You can’t trust anyone. If I didn’t have you to turn to these last few months, I’m afraid of what could have happened.”

  My heart choked and tears stung my eyes. How could I ever tell him the truth now?

  “What do you mean when you say, ‘what could have happened’?” At that moment I wished I could take it all back. I wished I didn’t need a pseudo-reality for balls big enough to feel safe opening up socially. Because now I’d singlehandedly created two liars. Lexi lies to Oliver because she’s not even real. And I lie to him every time I speak, text or tweet as Lexi.

  “Oh, sweet Lexi.” He breathed out those three words like they were a precious gift. It broke my heart even further. “I shouldn’t be tainting your sweet, clean heart with all my pollution. You need to get your rest, beautiful. It’s time to sleep.” It was that moment I knew he was re-thinking opening up to me. He was trying to protect me.

  “Don’t you dare hang up on me, Oliver Walt!” I pounded my fist on the bed next to me.

  “Lexi, look, love…” He slurred through the three words.

  “Oliver, listen. You don’t need to protect me. I’m a big girl. You need to not put boundaries on the freedom you have to be open and honest and bare with me.”

  “I want to be bare with you, Lexi. In every…sense…of the word.” His voice was a low growl by the end of his staccato sentence and it stirred something deep inside me.

  I heard him suck in a slow breath which gave my body even longer to react to those last six words. And I wasn’t sure how to respond. That kind of flirting I didn’t do.

  “I’m sorry, Lex, that was completely inappropriate. I’ve had a little too much of…well, I’m under the influence of a couple things right now and my mind and body are in a crazy state. This is the state that takes me out to the clubs in search of meaningless sex to fill the void. So, my mouth was quick to reveal what I should’ve kept to myself. I’m very sorry.”

  I wasn’t sure my heart could take it. This poor, tortured soul was hurting so badly that he regularly resorted to drugs, alcohol and sex in an attempt to quiet the reminders of the demons he carried around with him every day. Which I’m sure wasn’t all that unheard of in the music industry, but he felt like he had no one else. Lexi was it.

  “Oliver, tell me who hurt you.” I’d been to enough psychology classes thus far to know that a pain so foul often stems from a deviant betrayal.

  There was a quick, short gasp on the other end of the line and then silence. I waited for a response but got nothing. I counted to ten. Nothing.

  “Lexi…” his voice was barely audible. “I refuse to take you down that road with me, beautiful. I can’t bear to be the one to feed you that poison.”

  “How am I supposed to help you, if you don’t tell me what’s hurting you?”

  “Let’s change the subject. Tell me what you’re wearing, Lexi.”

  “Oliver, I’m not—”

  “Not in a phone sex way.” He chuckled a little. “I need a distraction. Tell me about your room, your bed, what you sleep in. I need a distraction. I need to stay in tonight. Things could go badly if I go out and catch up with the rest of the guys. And you make me want to be better than that.”

  It was as if he reached inside my chest, ripped out my heart and clenched it in his fist until it begged to be let go. I made him want to be a better person? Me? The liar?

  Oh, Oliver, you need to raise your standards. I shook that notion from my mind and breathed in a cleansing breath.

  “My dorm room is painted boring white. Standard issue. My bed is against the wall my door is on, lengthwise. My desk is at the head of my bed and my fridge and microwave are on a stack at the foot of my bed. I have pictures of friends and my mom on the walls, a couple posters and some twinkling lights on the ceiling. Oh, and I have a futon-couch-bed thing on the other wall. The mattress on the futon is a dingy brown color so I tuck my old punk-rock polar bear comforter around it.”

  “Punk polar bears?” I could tell Oliver’s question came through a humored smile.

  “Yeah, it’s cute. They have colorful Mohawks and everything.”

  I assumed there was no harm in being honest about my dorm room. It’s not like he’d ever see it anyway. Not to mention, there
was a small amount of pride in being able to tell him the truth about something.

  “And your roommate?” Oliver’s tone had changed a little. I supposed the distraction was working.

  “I don’t have a roommate. I live in the honors dorm, which means single rooms.”

  Shit. I never portrayed Lexi to be the brainy type.

  “Tell me more.”

  I wasn’t sure why he didn’t pick up on that flub. It made me question if he hadn’t pieced Lexi together the way I’d intended.

  I decided right then to start pulling back on the party-girl thing when I told him things about me, then if it ever came down to it, I’d only need to admit to not telling him my real name. I wouldn’t have to break the news that nothing about Lexi was real.

  “I have white blinds at my windows. And—”

  “No, babe, not about your room. Tell me more about you. I want to hear everything about you.”

  SHIT.

  “I’m really not all that exciting. I could tell you more things about my room than I could tell you about me.” I rubbed my forehead and squeezed my eyes.

  “See, that’s odd because I happen to know that you’re a pissload of fun. You’re hot as hell. And you can party like nobody’s business. Just those three facts alone tell me you’ve got plenty of stories to tell. I’m doubting your room is more exciting than you.”

  Oh. My. Lord. How did this happen so fast? This lie went from harmless to destructive in just a matter of months. It was a snowflake not too long ago, but if I didn’t tell Oliver the truth it would hit him like an avalanche and I would solely be responsible for his careening out of control.

  “Well, there are some things you don’t know about me. But, I’m not sure they’re worth telling.” What the hell did that mean? I needed to just shut up when I was uncomfortable instead of running my mouth to fill the silence. That was a Kate move. I just wish he’d gently fall asleep and I could pray he didn’t remember anything when he woke up.

  “Let’s start with…who sleeps in that comfy bed with you?” I was shocked at his question. It was more of an assumption. But I couldn’t be offended. I’d originally built Lexi to be the exact opposite of me. It would take me a while to undo what I’d done and bring Lexi back down closer to Kate level.