When I Lied

by Michelle Kemper Brownlow

  “You’re fucking with me, Gretchen. I’m the one that should be livid. You’re sticking me with the whole project. It’s a pretty dick move.” I stood tall. We were eye to eye and nose to nose.

  “No, Kate, a dick move is screwing with my phone and accepting Oliver’s invitation to the Hotel Monaco Ball.”

  “You want to compare dicks, Gretchen? How about you stealing my journal and selling a private conversation between me and Oliver to the tabloids. I hope you’re happy because you could be responsible for something terrible happening to him. He wasn’t very stable to begin with.” A look of shock flashed across Gretchen’s face. I still wasn’t about to let her know how traumatized I was or that I lost Oliver for good. “Or did you forget you left a note under my mattress? You pretty much confessed to that crime. But, whatever. Now, if you don’t mind. I have a project to ace.” I turned on my heel and took a step toward the door when a sharp pain stole my breath.

  Gretchen’s nails dug into the back of my arm. I yanked myself from her clutches and spun around. “What the hell is your problem?” My voice was significantly louder than I’d intended.

  “Just one more thing, Kate.” A wide smile spread across her face and she shook her head and walked down the stairs to the sidewalk. She turned toward me one last time. “Good luck.” I watched her walk away with a little skip in her step. She was certifiably insane.

  I stood up straight, cleared my mind with a few deep cleansing breaths and bid Gretchen, and all the hell she brought with her, farewell and good riddance. I decided in that moment to leave everything that had happened over the last two days outside. I could reconnect and process those things when I left Psych in a couple hours but I needed a clear head and positive outlook to do what I needed to do for our…my project.

  “Good morning, Miss Green! I got word of Miss Adler’s adjustment to her schedule. Do you need more time to prepare?” Professor Woods spoke from where he was perched on the edge of his desk.

  “Thank you, sir. But I have all the information I need.”

  “Okay then. You’re up. Feel free to start setting up.”

  I smiled and walked to the front of the room. I put my backpack on his chair and started to unload my laptop and notecards.

  “Here, let me get out of your way. As soon as the rest of the class gets here, we can begin.” He smiled, nodded and chose a seat at the back of the room. His sincere smile soothed my nerves, which were raw by that point.

  It wasn’t long before the room was full. While Professor Woods prepped the class I took in a few more slow, cleansing breaths. I had nothing to worry about. I had all but re-written our entire presentation the day before. I was good. I could bang it out with the precision that would get me the A I needed.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Adler has dropped my class so Miss Green will be doing the presentation alone. Let’s give her our attention. Miss Green, you’ve got an hour. Let’s see what you’ve got.” Professor Woods nodded in my direction.

  “Thank you, Professor Woods.” I plugged in the AV cord that would project our slides onto the screen at the side of the room. I signed into the website we used to share documents appeared on our screen and clicked on the “Psych 202 project” tab. While our project loaded, I walked to the front of the desk and started with the introduction I’d repeated a thousand times on the way to class. I even spiffed it up a little.

  “How many of you have found yourself in awe of some of the cryptic symbolism in the lyrics of your favorite songs?” I looked around the room and acknowledged the people who raised their hands.

  “Creative people are typically unconventional thinkers; they’re highly motivated and intense. And the way they translate the world around them has the potential to inspire generations. Lucius Annaeus Seneca said, ‘There’s no great genius without some touch of madness.’ And so, we’re—I’m here today to give you a glimpse inside some of the world’s most brilliant minds: Beethoven, Cole Porter, Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel, Syd Barrett and Kurt Cobain.”

  I walked back behind the desk to start the slide portion of the presentation. But my heart jumped to my throat when the tab I’d clicked was no longer showing and the “saved documents” portion of the page was blank. I hit the refresh button and a small window opened on my screen.

  YOUR DOCUMENTS HAVE SUCCESSFULLY BEEN DELETED

  I could hear my pulse in my ears. But I tried to hold it together as best I could. I cleared my throat.

  “If you could give me one second. It appears I’ve got some technical difficulties.” I looked up at Professor Woods who smiled and nodded. There was movement by the door at the back of the classroom and for a second my attention was pulled to a familiar silhouette.

  Gretchen.

  She held up her phone, smirked and waved then silently left the room.

  She’d just deleted our entire project using her phone. I guess she felt she hadn’t rattled me enough by dropping the class. So she turned up the bitch switch. The room started to spin. I could feel my body struggle to stay conscious. I blinked my eyes and tried to steady my breathing but my attempts seemed futile when tunnel vision set in. I pulled the desk chair out and practically fell into it. I continued to refresh the screen so it appeared as though I was doing something.

  A heavy hand on my shoulder startled me.

  “Kate, is there anything I can help you with? Do you want to take a minute?” Professor Woods stood next to me and looked back and forth between me and my computer screen.

  “I think I got it.” I lied through my teeth. I imagined Gretchen peeking in again and there was no way I was going to let her see me tank this project. I could hear each step Professor Woods took to walk back to his seat. I used each of those steps as a countdown for myself to get back on track. I knew the information in our presentation like the back of my hand. I pulled our notes out of my notebook and shuffled through them.

  My classmates grew restless and I could hear the sounds of small conversations that bounced around the room. I needed to get my shit together. I spoke without looking up.

  “Thanks for your patience everyone. I’m moving to Plan B since our Power Point slides aren’t showing up.” The classroom went silent as if they were shocked by my predicament. My ears filled with the sound of my pulse as I envisioned tanking the second attempt as well. A hand on my shoulder startled me yet again.

  “Miss Green?” But Professor Woods’s voice sounded too far away for his hand to be resting on my shoulder…

  “Darlin’, I got you. Just don’t let go of me.” A voice that had been ringing in my ears since Friday was accompanied by warm breath on my neck. Goose bumps rose across my entire body and my heart felt like it was trying to escape through the wall of my chest.

  I lifted my head and every girl in the classroom sat with both hands covering her mouth and her eyes focused above me. Tears sprung from my eyes and I stood and turned at the same time and came face to face with the man who held my heart inside his.

  “Oliver.” An exhale wrapped around his name and made him smile.

  “Darlin’…” He reached out and touched my arms lightly. My eyes fluttered and tears spilled down my cheeks. Oliver could wreck every one of my senses with his gentle touch. “I got you. We can do this. I know she deleted your work. I’ll explain everything later. Let’s just do this now.” His face spoke many more words than his mouth and I knew somehow everything would be okay.

  My body started to quake again. But this time it’s wasn’t cold mixed with anxiety, it was Oliver’s hands on me that did me in.

  “Kate, listen to me. It’s about time I start to open up and rid myself of these demons I carry with me. And there’s no one I’d rather do that with than you. I trust you, Kate. Just be gentle with me. Interview me for your project. Can you do that?” A sweet Oliver smile flipped my stomach over itself.

  “But, Oliver—your flight. I thought you left.”

  “Shhh.” He touched my lips with his forefinger and something clenche
d deep inside me. “I want to do this with you, Kate. Please, let me.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “I can’t believe this. Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  I looked over at Professor Woods who tapped his watch, warning me of the amount of time I’d already used up attempting to do my project. I sucked in a deep breath and turned toward my class.

  “Professor Woods, this is Oliver Walt from Phobia5.”

  “I know exactly who he is. Huge fan, man. Thanks for being here.” Oliver and Professor Woods nodded to each other.

  I looked around the classroom at all the wide eyes. The girls, and a couple guys, remained as they’d been the last time I saw them, hands still covering their mouths.

  “Oliver is here in place of our Power Point presentation. So, if you’d be patient with us and respectful of Oliver’s bravery in being transparent, we will begin.” I took Oliver’s hand and led him in front of the desk. He sat back against it and crossed his legs at his ankles and grasped the edge of the desk in his hands. His knuckles went white. My dear, sweet private man. He was terrified. I pulled a tall stool from the other side of room and we sat facing each other in front of the room.

  I leaned toward him and whispered, “If I ask you anything you don’t want to answer—”

  “Kate, I’m here to give you all of me. I won’t hold anything back.” He blinked away tears and smiled through his pain. We both knew how hard this would be for him, but he was ready.

  “Oliver, if you don’t mind, can you tell us a little about your childhood?” I crossed my legs and folded my hands in my lap. I wanted to appear calm to help Oliver remain in a relaxed state as he answered my questions.

  “I grew up poor in a small, run-down suburb of London. I was raised by a single mum and I was an only child. I have no idea who my father was. My mum and I lived in a ramshackle trailer in the back of a farmer’s field. She was an abusive, sadistic drunk and because of that, I struggled with suicidal thoughts from a very young age. We had nothing and I fought for everything we did have. One of my many jobs was to walk the streets of town early in the morning to salvage anything edible from people’s garbage while my mum slept off the poison she’d filled her body with the night before. School became my escape. Most kids skip school to escape stress. I used school to escape my horrid life.”

  “And how do you find your past affecting your life now?” I wanted to reach out and pull his sweet face to mine. The questions would get harder before they got easier.

  “Well, as you can imagine, I struggle with trusting the people who claim to love me.” That one hurt. “I have numerous irrational fears and phobias.”

  “Like what?” I tilted my head and smiled in an attempt at apologizing for digging deeper.

  “It’s very hard for me to trust anyone, which I assume stems from my mum being the way she was to me. I think, as a child, we expect love to come from the person who gave us life and when that doesn’t happen, when love hurts instead of heals, it really fucks with your head, ya know?”

  “And what phobias do you have?”

  “I’m terrified of solitude. As a kid, when I’d get in trouble, my mum would leave me alone as a form of messed-up punishment. But before she’d leave she’d tell me some horrible story about deranged men who lurked in the woods just waiting for a mum to leave her kid behind. The lock on our trailer was broken so I had no way of feeling safe. I suffer from autophobia, which is quite literally the fear of being alone, which can stem from traumatic events in childhood.”

  “And what happens when you’re left alone?” I cleared my throat so the crack in my voice was something other than sadness tearing at my throat.

  “I find myself feeling like that little boy in a dark trailer just waiting for the doom I was due. My heart races, my mouth dries up, I start to sweat. All of this can throw me into a full-blown panic attack before too long. But, given my career, I’m often with tens of thousands of people at one time so I guess I chose the right path.” Oliver chuckled. There were giggles from the girls around the room. I looked up and some patted their eyes with tissues.

  Oliver lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked up at me through his long black curls and winked. He was letting me know he was okay.

  “Have you ever experienced symptoms of depression?”

  “Of course, all the time. My emotions sit like a fat kid in the middle of a teeter-totter. Any small movement to one side or the other and I tip the scale to that extreme. I struggle with depression and anxiety on a daily basis. It’s become like second nature to me. I’m not sure how to exist without those two demons running through my veins.”

  “Oliver, I get the feeling this is something you don’t talk about often. I think most of us have seen numerous interviews with you and you typically dodge questions like those I’m asking you. Why is that?”

  “Abuse has a way of making you feel inferior and weak. And when you live with your abuser, they prey on your weaknesses. It’s only recently that I’ve become aware of the strength it’s taken for me to be a successful artist. It’s the first time in my life I’ve felt strong. All art is subjective and I’ve always worried about the critical eye of the public. I guess all this time I was afraid to be vulnerable because I associated being vulnerable with being weak. But someone very dear to me has helped me to adjust that thinking. She’s shown me that it takes strength to be vulnerable. Which is what I’m doing now.”

  I hesitated before the next question. It was a raw wound for Oliver but I wanted to give him the opportunity to explain.

  “Can you tell us a little about your teen years, Oliver?” His eyes searched mine as though he needed some reassurance. “What sorts of things did you overcome?”

  “Well, if any of you read The BOOM, the infamous British trash mag, you know about the underground fight club I was a part of.” We both looked up at the students who listened so intently. Most nodded. “That was not my choice of occupation. I was sold into that scene by my mum when she’d had enough of me. My fellow teen fighters and I were fed well and we had a warm place to sleep every night, which were two things I’d longed for my whole life. At the time, my heart was broken by the thought that a mother could sell her child. But, I’m not sure I would have survived if I’d have stayed with her. And, I’m happy to report that I did not kill anyone. Our manager has found the young boy I feared I mortally wounded and he is alive and well and living the good life surrounded by a loving family. I’m looking forward to heading back to the UK and meeting up with him.”

  I was so thrilled he’d gotten the news about Pierce and even more thrilled that they would connect at some point. But I reined in my emotions and moved on to my next question.

  “Would you say you’re happy, Oliver?”

  “I would say I’ve known happiness a couple times in my life. But, the actual state of being happy is fleeting in my mind. It’s a learned response to the world around you. If you grow up with someone who wants to rid you of all joy, you are less likely to find joy in anything because through cause and effect you learn that with joy comes extreme loss.” My heart ached in my chest. The man I loved more than anything in the world was crippled by fear and heartache every day of his life.

  “How would you describe your state of mind?”

  Oliver opened his mouth to speak a couple times but no sound came out. Tears filled his eyes and I could see his hands shaking.

  “Desperate.” He sucked in a slow, deep breath then let it out. “Broken. I’m plagued with confusion and the fear of being damaged for the rest of my life.”

  I took a slow, deep breath. He was wrecking me.

  “And how does your emotional state affect your music, Oliver?” It probably wasn’t professional but I reached out and touched Oliver’s knee signaling we were almost done.

  “It’s complete perfection, Kate.” A huge smile spread across his face. “Like Kurt Cobain said, ‘Thanks for the tragedy. I can use it for my art.’ I’m
not a religious person, per se; I don’t know how much I understand about God and Jesus and the afterlife but I do believe that everything happens for a reason. If we all had childhoods that played out perfectly, what would musicians write about? It would be impossible for movie producers and directors to scare the hell out of us with their villains if they grew up devoid of pain and tragedy somewhere in their lives. The world needs pain and tragedy to create balance.” Oliver stood up and walked toward the class. A couple girls in the front few desks gasped as he closed in on them. “People always say, ‘In a perfect world…’ But, in a perfect world, what? How could we measure anything in a world devoid of all negatives? I’d be more terrified of a perfect world then I ever was in the dysfunctional hell I grew up in.”

  I was speechless. This beautiful soul before me had once again pushed all my thoughts aside, because I needed my whole brain to digest the deep thoughts of Oliver Walt.

  “So, in summation, Oliver, is there a connection between psychological afflictions and musicians?”

  “In my experience, there is a definite connection. Artists, writers, musicians, actors and the like are cursed, so to speak, with a deeper level of emotion and some with a sixth sense that the general public does not experience. Look up the word ‘empath.’ It describes most of us perfectly. We feel things deeper, we read between lines most people can’t see, we pick up on nuances and vibes that many overlook. And we’re pained by the things we see and feel. In a way, we experience more of what happens around us than others do. I believe that living in that way can easily cause one to suffer with psychological afflictions. Can I give a couple examples?”

  Oliver looked back at me from where he stood. I nodded and smiled. The pride I felt at that moment filled me to the brim. I was so proud of Oliver.

  “Most people drive to and from work twice a day and it becomes like second nature. You go on what we like to refer to as autopilot. But, for me, personally. I don’t have autopilot because I soak up every detail around me. So there is no mundane repeat of the day before. And each time I do the same thing, all the details have changed. I don’t get déjà vu like most people because no two scenarios are alike in my life. There are too many variables.