Liar

by Justine Larbalestier

  My mom freaked out a bit. She was worried that it wasn’t natural. She thought having your period was what makes you a woman.

  I wish I was a man.

  I asked my doctor to explain how it worked, but what he told me about cycles, and uterine lining, and elevated risk didn’t make any sense, so I asked Yayeko Shoji. She’s a biologist, I figured she would know.

  She did.

  She told me that women used to have so many babies they hardly menstruated at all. But now women have only one or two or no babies, and they have them when they’re already old, which means they have too many periods. All that bleeding puts a strain on their wombs.

  I try to imagine being a woman in the olden days, being pregnant over and over again, having a dozen children. But I can’t imagine being pregnant even once.

  Yayeko says that taking the pill to stop bleeding is more natural than bleeding all the time. She does the same thing. She hasn’t had a period in two years.

  Yayeko talked to my mom, explained it to her, and Mom felt better about it, but she still wasn’t happy. “You are my daughter,” she said. “It is difficult to be happy for you to take these très adult pills.”

  Dad didn’t have to be persuaded; he’s against anyone suffering when they don’t have to. Especially him.

  For the price of remembering to take one little pill every morning of my life I get good skin, no blood, no pain, and, according to Yayeko, less chance of cancer. It’s a fair bargain.

  I really don’t understand why my parents don’t trust me to take a pill every morning. I’m the one it hurts if I forget. I’m the one with incentives. Strong incentives. But, no, every morning it’s the same question: “Did you take your pill?”

  “Yes, Dad, I took it. Okay? Like I did yesterday and the day before. I’ll take it tomorrow and the day after that and so on, forever.”

  I take the pill and I don’t complain about their nagging. Well, not as often as I could.

  BEFORE

  That first time, after that first kiss, after the icicle fell and I picked up a broken shard, felt it cold and knife-sharp in my fingers—after that—I dropped the ice and ran.

  That’s what I’d been doing before I paused under the bridge to look at the icicles, before Zach Rubin saw me—I’d been running.

  That’s what I liked to do in Central Park: run and run and run and run as hard and fast as I could.

  Zach took off after me. He caught me, breathing hard to keep pace. I ran harder. He accelerated, too, but was struggling. “Wait up,” he gasped.

  I slowed.

  “You’re so fast,” he gasped, matching my stride. “I’m fast. But you’re faster.”

  “Yes,” I said. I’m faster than anyone I’ve ever run against. Too fast, my dad says.

  To really show Zach, I took off, ran as hard as I could. All the way up and over Heartbreak Hill. Then I stopped at the first empty bench and waited for him.

  He got there at last, dripping with sweat, collapsing beside me.

  “How?” he panted. “You’re not even on the track team.” The school’s track team is as crappy as all our other teams. “I run. I run all the time. How can you be so fast?” He wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his sweater. It was synthetic and not very absorbent. “Do you train out of school?”

  I shook my head. “I just run.”

  “I heard a rumor,” Zach said, more evenly, his breath starting to catch up with his words, “that you were born a boy. I don’t think you look like a boy. But you sure as hell run like one. You should be going to the Olympics. You’re crazy fast!”

  I laughed. Crazy fast. That’s how it felt sometimes. Good crazy. There’s nothing I love more than running.

  “Do you ever compete?”

  “We just did!” I was still laughing.

  “Real competing,” Zach said. “Races. Medals. Ribbons. All that stuff.”

  I shook my head. “Too much fuss. Too many rules.” I wished he would kiss me again. I wondered if I should kiss him.

  “Who are you?” Zach said. He straightened up, wiped his face again. “You’re not even sweating.”

  “I run a lot,” I said. “The more I run, the less I sweat.”

  I leaned forward, wiped the sweat between his upper lip and nose, and then I kissed him.

  AFTER

  Climbing someone else’s fire escape is as easy as climbing your own. They’re all basically the same: the only differences lie in how recently painted they are, how bad the rust, how loose the bolts holding them to the brickwork, how much laundry hangs from them, how many potted plants.

  The higher you climb, the more likely a window will be open. Most often not directly by the fire escape, unless they’ve left one open for you on purpose. Like Zach used to do for me. When he was still alive and waiting for me.

  This time the kitchen window is firmly closed and the grate pulled across and locked. I crouch on the escape, looking in. Even with no lights on, through a dirty window and the gaps in the grate, I can see that it’s a mess. There are things all over the floor, the kitchen table is piled high with stuff, the sink full of dishes. I don’t think they’ve cleaned anything since Zach disappeared.

  I bet it smells worse than it looks. Even through a closed window I can tell. The place is thick with grief and dust. And emptiness. The kitchen is the heart of Zach’s home but there’s no one in it.

  I swing to the outside of the escape, then step across to the first windowsill. Zach’s brother’s room. Mostly a storage room now that he’s in college. Or has that changed? Has he come home to be with his parents? Wherever he is, there’s no light on in the room. No sounds of movement.

  One foot on the staircase, the other on the sill, I lean forward and grip the bricks with my fingertips, transferring the weight from my right foot to my left. I crouch down to try the window.

  Locked.

  I wipe my fingers on my pants and step across to the next windowsill. I don’t look down. Not for fear of falling but because in the dark my balance has to stay on the horizontal, not vertical axis. I need my eyes focused on here, not there.

  The bathroom window is also dark. It’s open a crack, but it’s too small and too high for me to get through. No one in there either. I step to the sill in front of Zach’s room. The window’s a fraction open, barely enough for me to slip my fingers under. I ease it open, swinging my right leg, then my left, then the rest of me through, dropping to the floor on a pile of Zach’s clothes.

  I wipe my grimy hands on my pants. Bird shit, too, I’m fairly sure. I can smell the phosphate. Though not as strongly as I can smell Zach.

  Even without turning on the lights I can smell that they haven’t changed a thing. Haven’t stripped the bed or changed his sheets. Haven’t moved anything. It’s like Zach is still here. I’m almost afraid to breathe for fear of replacing his breath with mine.

  My eyes adjust, my ears, too. I can hear traffic from the street below. A helicopter overhead. Someone shouting in the apartment next door. But there’s no one but me in this one.

  The pile of clothes extends into the middle of the floor. From the smell they are gym clothes: salty and rank and Zach.

  I step past the bed, not looking at it because I don’t want to think about what’s there, what’s not there, what was there. I knock over water bottles. They’re all at least half full. Water trickles across the floor. I bend down and start righting them, my eyes on them, not the bed.

  My eyes sting. I swallow. I’m here for a reason, I remind myself, but I can’t bring myself to stand up.

  The desk is cluttered with notes and books. I should look at those. My throat feels tight. I haven’t been in this room since before Zach disappeared. I swallow again, stand up, close my eyes, willing them dry. I concentrate on the smells. On the Zach funk. Zach stink. Zach sweat, Zach dirty socks, Zach meatiness. I cringe from the word. Meat is what Zach is now. Meat is a word for a person once they’re dead.

  I’m not entirely sure
why I’m here. I was sure when I started climbing the fire escape. I try to recapture that certainty.

  Was I hoping to find him?

  He’s not here. There’s only the smell of him, his sloughed-off skin and hair cells, clothes that were once pressed against him, bottles he’s drunk from.

  A hundred signs of what he used to be, how he used to be, but not him.

  Not Zach.

  I open my eyes, move to his desk, treading carefully over the clothes.

  I turn the desk lamp on and blink at the brightness. For a moment black spots play across my eyes and then I’m looking at a pile of books. The nearest one has a plain red cover with the word TRAINING printed in caps in black marker. Zach’s handwriting. His training log. All the guys on the team have to keep one. It’s a record of their progress, what they’ve eaten, how many calories, how much they weigh, how many extra hours training they’ve done, how many games won, by how much, and all his own stats.

  I pick it up, turn the first page, it probably won’t tell me much. It occurs to me that the cops must have seen it. Seen this room. Have they taken things away, examined them? The thought appalls me but I’m not sure why.

  I point the lamp toward the floor next to the desk and sit there, with my back to the bed. I turn the pages, trying not to think of it in Zach’s hands, him scrawling these numbers and words. It’s exactly like any other training log. Calories, pounds, reps, points, wins, losses. His weight stays steady. He increases his calories. His weight doesn’t budge. He writes his frustration at his lack of bulk: Shit. Still 170. 171. 172. 169. 170. Shit.

  The pages are all the same. Calories up. Weight steady or down. Wins and losses. Points and rebounds and steals. Starting. Not starting.

  A punishing inconstant heart.

  More than thirty pages in. It’s scrawled on the left-hand side.

  I don’t know what that means. It’s not anything Zach would say. It’s not even something he would think. I never heard him say those words. Well, “heart” maybe, possibly “punishing,” but definitely not “inconstant.” That word seems so old-fashioned. Who would say that? Or write it?

  I peer closer. It’s definitely not his handwriting. Too spiky.

  I think about tearing the page out. Comparing it to Sarah’s handwriting. She’s poetic and overwrought. It’s like something she might say.

  Does Sarah think Zach had a mean heart? That she does? Is it a message for me?

  I keep turning the pages, but those are the only words that aren’t about his weight and the games he’s played.

  I search the rest of the room, but I don’t know what I’m looking for, so I don’t find it.

  I take one of his dirty jerseys. The number 12 on the back. It reeks of him. I plan never to wash it.

  AFTER

  The rumor that Erin Moncaster is missing rustles through the school. From student to student, classroom to classroom. The teachers, too.

  I’m not sure who Erin is. I don’t recognize her name.

  I hear about it in English, struggling to read a poem about an icebox. Chantal whispers to Sarah.

  “No,” Sarah says.

  First Zach, now Erin. Is she dead? Did they know each other?

  She a freshman, he a senior. It seems unlikely. They look at me. I can hear them thinking how unlikely Zach being with me was. So why not Erin? It couldn’t be a coincidence. Two kids from the same school going missing so close together. How often does that happen?

  Does someone out there hate this school? Will it happen again?

  I can smell the fear. Chantal already carries pepper spray. By the end of the day other girls are saying they will, too. That or a loud whistle. The boys talk about knives.

  I’m not afraid. I sit in Dangerous Words, failing to learn about some code our teacher, Lisa Aden, seems to think we should know. Rules for Hollywood in the olden days. Who cares?

  I won’t be arming myself. The Greats say you should never carry a weapon if you don’t know how to use it. I know how to hunt with a knife. Grandmother’s taught me how to use a slingshot and bows and arrows. Neither of them are as effective as traps. But there’s a world of difference between killing a rabbit, or even a deer, and defending yourself against a person. Besides, I can’t imagine anyone attacking me. I’m too fast.

  “Micah?” Lisa says loudly.

  I look up. “Sorry,” I say.

  “Do you know the answer?”

  “Um.”

  “Do you know the question?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I was thinking about Erin Moncaster.”

  She nods. “Many of us are. But we have to go on with this class. My question was, What are some of the words that are generally acceptable to use now that were forbidden by the Production Code?”

  “Um,” I say again. I have no idea. I try to think of a word that might have been bad in the olden days but isn’t so much now. “Damn?” I ask.

  “Sort of,” Lisa says, and begins to explain. I tune out.

  I’m trying to remember which one was Erin. Was she black or white? Kind of a white-sounding name. I don’t pay attention to the freshmen except to be glad that I’m not one. A few more months and I’ll be out of here; they have years to wait.

  I’ll be honest: I don’t really care about Erin. Maybe that’s why I’m not afraid? Erin isn’t Zach. Her going missing isn’t going to bring him back. Part of me is mad that people are talking about her. As if she’s as important as Zach. As if they’ve forgotten him.

  I hate them. By the end of a day filled with talk and speculation, not to mention rumors that she and Zach were together, I start to hate Erin, too.

  Zach hasn’t even been buried yet.

  BEFORE

  I only did the DNA testing because the results went to our homes, not to the school. Because Yayeko promised that we didn’t have to share the results with the class if we didn’t want to. I probably shouldn’t have done it. I was curious.

  But when the results came, I hid them in a drawer unopened. I didn’t want to see the proof of the family illness in black and white. I certainly wasn’t going to share the results with my biology class.

  But I was there for the day everyone—except me—shared their results.

  No one was 100 percent anything.

  I could have told them that without the expensive testing.

  The whole class buzzed with it. Calling out their results. Laughing. Only a few of us sat quiet. Me, one. Zach, another. He was in back. I was toward the front. But I could hear his quiet.

  Brandon didn’t believe it. Or said he didn’t. But his 11 percent African made him happy. He started joking about basketball. As if a drop of African DNA would suddenly give him a crossover dribble.

  “Oh, please,” Tayshawn said, looking at Brandon as if he were something foul stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

  “Eleven percent!” Brandon said.

  “Which makes you 89 percent dickhead,” Tayshawn said.

  Everyone laughed. Brandon started to respond but Tayshawn was louder. “Says here I’m 23 percent white. That mean I’m gonna be a stockbroker who can’t dance? Please.”

  Brandon laughed like it didn’t bother him. But it did. The look he gave Tayshawn was savage.

  “What do you think these numbers mean?” Yayeko Shoji said into the brief silence.

  No one put a hand up.

  I knew what it meant: that no one is exactly what they think they are. We all have every kind of DNA floating in us: black, white, Asian, Native American, human, monkey, reptile, junk DNA, all sorts of genes that do not express.

  I have the family illness. My brother doesn’t, nor my father. But who knows what will happen if Jordan has kids? His genes are as tainted as mine.

  “You think these numbers are meaningful?” Yayeko looked around the room, making eye contact with each of us.

  “Well,” Lucy said tentatively, “I guess not. Because even though it says here 10 percent Asian and 3 percent African, when I fill in the next fo
rm that asks for race I’ll still write ‘white.’ ”

  There were murmurs of agreement around the classroom.

  “There’s no space on those forms for percentages,” Tayshawn said. “You only get to be one thing.”

  Yayeko nodded. “Indeed. Additionally, these tests are not currently reliable.”

  The murmurs got louder. Brandon squawked. “Why’d we do it then?”

  Yayeko held up her hand. “The test’s ability to identify your DNA is dependent on what DNA is available to the company.”

  She turned to the board and started drawing a DNA spiral. The light caught particles of chalk floating in the air. I could smell it, taste it on the tip of my tongue.

  “This test was done,” Yayeko said, “by comparing your DNA”—she pointed to the spiral she’d drawn—“with the DNA in that particular company’s database. What percentage of the world’s DNA do you think they’re likely to have? Five percent? Ten? Fifteen?”

  Brandon looked at Will. No one said anything. I couldn’t imagine it would be a very big percentage. The world is so big. There are so many people in it.

  “Less than 1 percent,” Yayeko said at last. “Considerably less. So they have a very small database of DNA. A database that does not contain the DNA of everyone in the world.”

  She waited a moment as we digested that. I was wondering how they could tell us anything at all about ourselves if they had so little data. I still wasn’t going to open my results.

  “They take their DNA from ‘pure’ sources—African, European, and Asian groups where there’s been relatively little marrying into different groups. But there are very few ‘pure’ people left in the world. Many people argue that these tests work from a faulty premise.”

  The class was silent. What was Yayeko saying? That the test couldn’t tell us anything? That there was no such thing as race? I looked around the room and saw lots of frowning faces. All except Brandon, who was doodling on his hand.

  “The company looks for markers in our DNA that they have identified as African or Asian or Europe an or Native American. But with so little of the world’s DNA mapped, the odds that they are correctly identifying the markers in your DNA are not high. Say they identify one of your markers as African. It may be that they are identifying your unmapped marker from another part of the world with their mapped marker from somewhere in Africa.”