The Darkest Lie

by Pintip Dunn

  It was in front of me this entire time, and I never saw it. Until now.

  My heart booms in my eardrums, drowning out Mr. Willoughby and the poor student on whom he’s called. Quickly, I pull out the words with a different font from the rest of the entry. This is the message I get:

  Darling if you are reading this something happened to me.

  Chapter 27

  My hands don’t stop shaking for the rest of the school day. The only time I can keep them remotely steady is when I’m drawing, drawing, drawing. In my notebook. On the backs of old exams. Yes, even on paper towels. Anything and everything I can remember about my mother in the week before she died.

  The distracted way she swept through the kitchen, her English muffin forgotten in the toaster. The lines that magically appeared around her eyes when I asked about her day. Even her extra-tight grip when she hugged me good night.

  Something happened to my mom. Something awful, apparently, because she’s dead. And it’s looking more and more like her suicide wasn’t as straightforward as everyone would like to believe.

  What happened to her? What happened?

  These coded words are just the beginning. The rest of her message is hidden somewhere in the caller database. I’m sure of it. All I have to do is piece together the rest of her message, and I’ll have my answers.

  After school, I press down on the accelerator and zoom through the yellow traffic light on my way to the hotline. The tires crunch on gravel, and bits of rock fly in every direction. Kind of like my feelings. Nerves vibrating like a tuning fork. Dread at the pit of my stomach. And underneath it all, the undeniable soaring of my heart.

  My mother loved me, after all. She wanted me to volunteer at the hotline, and she left me a message coded in the caller database. A final letter. The one for which I’ve been searching.

  I turn into the driveway, expecting to be alone. Instead, Liam’s sitting in his orange sports car, presumably waiting for me.

  My face gets hot, and my stomach feels like it’s sprouted wings. I haven’t seen Liam since Sunday—although I did call him yesterday. I left a vague message about how I’d felt someone watching me, in case my texter was stalking other counselors at the hotline. But we didn’t talk. I’ve barely even thought about him. I’ve been too busy with my own life, too preoccupied with ... Sam.

  Is it obvious? Will he be able to tell, just by looking at me, that I kissed Sam?

  Apparently not. As soon as I step out of the car, he hurries over to me, grinning widely.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. The words are stilted and awkward, and I hate myself. Stop it! Stop making this more dramatic than it really is. I don’t owe Liam anything. We never kissed—even if maybe I wanted to. Even though—if I’m being really, truly honest with myself—if Sam never moved to our town, I wouldn’t mind kissing Liam still.

  He raises an eyebrow. “After you told me about someone spying on you, do you really expect me to let you work here alone?”

  “Oh.” Of course he wouldn’t. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to create extra work for him. But I should’ve known. Liam is way too chivalrous to let the information slide. “You shouldn’t have gone out of your way—”

  “Don’t say that.” He smiles in that way that turns my insides liquid. “It’s not a chore if I enjoy it.”

  I force myself to return his smile, although my limbs feel both too stiff and too loose. I should really tell him about Sam. Right? It’s the decent thing to do.

  Except there really isn’t anything going on between Liam and me. We bonded over our deceased parents. He got Justin Blake slapped with a DUI for harassing me. He rescued my mother’s snow globe, and we spent an afternoon holding hands. I was attracted to him—but who says he feels the same way about me? Maybe he’s just a really nice guy, and he couldn’t care less what I do with anyone else.

  Oh, geez. I have a headache. Why are boys so confusing?

  “I like your necklace,” I say, sidestepping the issue. Trying to fall back into our once easy rhythm of conversation. I peer at the ever-present chain around his neck. Upon closer examination, I can see the pendant is actually a flat locket, and the design I mistook for random swirls actually forms the wings of a creature. “Can you tell me about it?”

  “A present from my dad when I turned eighteen.” His fingers close around the necklace. “When he passed, I put his ashes into the locket, so that his spirit will always be here to guide me.”

  I blink. “You carry his ashes with you?”

  “That sounds weird, right? Maybe even borderline creepy. But it’s my way of feeling close to him.” He grins sheepishly, but it’s also lined with sorrow and longing and pain. “I don’t admit it to most people, but if anyone could understand, it would be you.”

  “Of course I understand.” Who am I to judge another person’s grieving process? I can’t even bring myself to visit my mom’s grave. I’m tearing the hotline inside out searching for a letter that might not exist. “I think it’s lovely.”

  “Thanks for saying that.” He opens the front door of the cabin and gestures for me to go inside. We walk into the main room and sit on the lumpy sofa.

  He shifts forward, his knees nudging mine. The heat climbs my neck, and a zip of electricity shoots through me. He’s not Sam. There’s nothing between us. And yet, the look on his face is so searching, so familiar, I can’t help leaning forward, too.

  “You and me, we know that grief is a double-edged sword.” His voice is low now, and it reaches every aching part inside me. “Everyone was so sympathetic when my father died. Relatives poured out of the woodwork, and I had enough frozen casseroles to last me a year. The attention got to be so suffocating that I had to move here, to Lakewood, to my grandparents’ lakeside cabin. Because they didn’t know him like I did. They didn’t know, as much as I loved him, I hated him, too.”

  He picks up my hand, engulfing it in his palm, and I can’t pull away. I can’t move at all. Because he’s spoken words I’ve never dared speak out loud. Not to Dad and not to Gram. And certainly never to myself.

  I’ve been mad at my mother. Given the circumstances, that emotion is justified, even expected. But sometime in the last six months, at some point between my failure to find a final letter and Justin Blake’s harassment, the anger twisted inside me. What was loving and good turned ugly, dark—and just as dead as my mother.

  That’s when I realize why I’m drawn to Liam. I could never show Sam this part of me. He’s been through the hell of his father’s beatings, but he’s a good guy through and through. If he ever saw this hatred inside me, I’m pretty sure that’s the last thing he’d ever see.

  “I know exactly how you feel.” My voice starts out as a whisper, but it gets stronger as I see what’s reflected in his eyes: me. “My mom didn’t think of me when she slept with Tommy. She didn’t care how my classmates might harass me. She only thought of herself when she took her life. Never me. And sometimes I . . . sometimes, I hate her for it.”

  My lungs balloon with too much air. There. I said it. I laid the deepest part of myself out for him to judge. And his expression doesn’t change. His grip on my hand doesn’t loosen.

  “I could tell you so many stories.” He laughs a stuttering-motor laugh, the kind that comes out when there’s nothing funny at all. “He used to lock me in my room without food all day, for missing my curfew by five minutes. Wallop me until I was black and blue for not acing a test.”

  “Liam, that’s awful.” My throat tightens, and I want to punch something, preferably his dad. But he’s gone now, and we’re only talking about the past.

  I squeeze Liam’s hand, the one I’m already holding, but it feels insufficient. So I pick up his other hand, and we’re connected through a circle of our arms.

  “It was my fault, mostly,” he says. “I was too slow, too clumsy. I made stupid mistakes in school. He knew what I was capable of achieving, and he refused to let me fall short of that. His methods were just a littl
e too rigid, that’s all. But I forgive him for that.” He lifts his head and looks at the wood-beam ceiling, as though he’s addressing his father’s spirit. “I forgive him for everything. He always said I would be grateful to him someday, and in retrospect, I am. He raised the bar on my expectations. Because of him, I feel like I can do anything.”

  “I’m glad, then. But I’m sorry you had to go through his version of discipline.”

  We sit like that for several minutes, fused together through our hands, and then the phone rings. I turn my head toward the mechanical briing as though in slow motion. “Should I answer that?”

  “Of course. Our callers need you, too.” He gives me a crooked smile. “You have a gift for listening, and as much as I’d like to be selfish and keep you to myself, I won’t.”

  We pull our hands from each other slowly. My palms are sweaty from being in his grip.

  “I’m going to get some air,” he says. “You want me to bring you a coffee?”

  “Sure.” My pulse quickens, and I remember the reason I was so anxious to come here. I need to look over my mother’s call logs. See if she left me any more messages to decode. I’m going to dive in—as soon as I’m done with this caller.

  “Take your time,” I say to Liam. “I’ll be right here.”

  * * *

  For the next fifteen minutes, I field call after call. A girl who’s been struggling with anorexia, a gay teen who cuts himself instead of coming out of the closet, and a woman in the community who’s simply lonely.

  I ask questions and refer the callers to the appropriate resources. But mostly, I just listen. It doesn’t take a lot of involvement. A few murmured words, a sympathetic noise or two. All my callers want is connection, a single point of human contact when they need it most.

  I should’ve started volunteering here a long time ago. It’s such a weird thought that my hand tightens on the telephone. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been caught dead here—especially since my mom, literally, was.

  But no matter what happens with my mom’s investigation, no matter what answers I find or don’t find, part of me is glad it led me here. The crisis hotline. A place where I can help others even when I feel helpless myself.

  When there’s a lull in the calls, I hop onto the computer. Just as I finish logging the last conversation, the lights flicker.

  My fingers pause over the keyboard. This kind of thing happens all the time. Right? The same way houses settle, lights go on and off during inclement weather.

  Except . . . there’s no thunderstorm.

  I look out the window. The late afternoon sun bathes the trees in a warm glow, highlighting the vibrant colors of the leaves. The scene is as picturesque as a painting. And just as still. There’s not even a trace of wind. So why did the lights flicker?

  My breath quickens, and every nerve in my body screams, Run! But that’s silly. I’ve already overreacted once, two days ago, when I was convinced that the texter had broken into my house. That was just the wind, and there could be hundreds of reasons for the lights to act this way. Thousands, even. And none of them have to do with the weirdo who keeps texting me.

  But I feel it again. That unnerving silence pressing around me. The feeling someone’s watching me. Oh god. What if I wasn’t imagining before? What if I’m not imagining now?

  Maybe the texter is out there, snapping more pictures of me. Maybe he or she will do more than take photos this time. Maybe he’ll . . . come . . . inside.

  A cold sweat breaks out on my neck. Ridiculous. Even if he is out there—which he’s not—he’s not going to come into the hotline. He’s not stupid. We’ve got a bank of phones with direct dials to every emergency service in Lakewood. And Liam will be back any minute.

  Which reminds me . . .

  I glance at the clock. Liam’s been gone twenty minutes. Lakewood is tiny, with only one decent coffee shop in town. If I want to look for additional messages from my mom, I’d better stop being so freaking paranoid and get to work.

  I square my shoulders and log in as Bea. I pull up the record after Lil’s original one, and the breath explodes out of me.

  Sure enough, a few words in this entry are set in a different font. And in the one after that. And the one after that.

  I was right. My mom’s left me an entire letter, coded in the caller database.

  The lights flicker again, but I barely notice. I select the entire field and then click the “print” button. And then for good measure, I perform another search for the word “photo” within Bea’s entries and print those, too.

  As the printer spits out the final document, the power goes out. Just like that. One moment, I’m sitting under glaring artificial lights. The next, the only illumination comes from the sun outside. Every sound shuts off—the computer, the printer, even the air conditioner—and I sit in complete silence.

  My mouth goes dry. It’s funny. I’ve never thought much about the background noise before, those faint whirs and hums. But now that it’s gone, I want it back. Desperately.

  Faulty wiring. It’s got to be faulty wiring. There’s no other answer. But then, why do I feel like someone’s wrapped an icy hand around my throat?

  The silence is too quiet. Too eerie. Every sound is magnified. The honking of the geese outside. The occasional splash of the lake. The sound of someone breathing.

  My heart stops. The sound of someone breathing? But I’m the only one inside this cabin. Aren’t I?

  I don’t care if I’m imagining things. I can’t wait another moment. I seize the papers, grab my backpack, and run. I might be the world’s biggest fool, but at least I’ll be alive.

  My elbow slams against the doorjamb, but I ignore the throbbing. My feet slide on the hardwood, but I find my balance and keep going. Are there footsteps behind me? Is he here? Is he here? Is he here?

  I don’t stop. I can’t look. I reach the front door and grasp the handle. It doesn’t turn. IT’S LOCKED, DAMMIT. WHY THE HELL IS IT LOCKED?

  I fumble at the lever, but my hands are slippery, and I can’t grasp the narrow latch. I wipe my hands on my pants and am about to try again when the handle begins to twist.

  Oh dear lord. He’s not inside the cabin, after all. He’s outside, and he’s coming in to get me.

  I stumble backward, my breath coming in pants. A black haze spreads over my vision, and I can barely see. No. I don’t want it to end like this. I don’t want to die in the hotline like my mother. Like my mother. Like my mother.

  The door opens, and I bump into the wall. I scream, long and loud and never-ending, and then a pair of hands grabs my shoulders.

  “CeCe! What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  It takes a moment for the voice to register, and then I open my eyes. I didn’t even realize I had closed them.

  “Liam.” Every bone in my body melts. He holds a Styrofoam container with two coffee cups, and the sun shines brightly outside. I have never been so happy to see anybody in my entire life.

  He puts the cups down on the hall table and wraps his arms around me. I dig my cheek into his chest, pressing closer and closer. I might be giving him the wrong impression. I might have forgotten to tell him about Sam. Doesn’t matter. Because in Liam’s arms, I feel safe. The texter can’t get me here, and neither can my imagination.

  “I thought I heard something,” I say weakly. “And the lights were flickering. A lot.”

  “There’s no one here but me,” he says, stroking my hair. “I’ll get an electrician in to look at the lights. It’s okay, CeCe. I’m here now. It’s going to be okay.”

  And for one fleeting moment, with his heartbeat strumming reassuringly in my ear, I actually believe him.

  Chapter 28

  After my shift, I drive to Sam’s house for our pizza date. My stomach rumbles uneasily, but I’m done pushing the feeling away. Damn right I should feel guilty. I was plastered against Liam for a good five minutes. Sam’s the one I actually like. Isn’t he? I mean, sure, he doesn’t understand the ug
ly parts of me, the way Liam does. But he’s the one I kissed. The one I daydream about. The one who eats away at my darkness with his goodness.

  The moment he opens the door, I throw myself at him, rising on my toes and pressing my lips against his. I can still feel Liam’s chest, warm and solid against my cheek, so I pour myself even more into the kiss.

  There. Better. And if that makes me a flirt or a tease, well . . . I’ve been called worse things, just for existing.

  I push Sam against the wall. He touches my face, brushing his fingers on my cheeks, along my earlobes, over the sensitive skin at my neck. I shiver and move my mouth against his until the floor drops and my insides go whirling into space. Until I can barely remember Liam’s name, much less the reason why I was ever drawn to him. Until I’m nothing but a jumble of sensations and tastes—hot lips, moist tongue, the silvered remains of a peppermint candy.

  I could kiss Sam forever.

  And maybe I do. Because it feels like an eternity passes before I finally, reluctantly, regrettably ease back. “Sorry about that. I, uh, was trying to figure out if I can trust you.”

  He takes his glasses off and polishes them on his shirt. His eyes are wide and his breath is short—and dammit, he gets more adorable by the minute.

  “By all means, investigate away.” He puts his glasses back on and pretends to leer. “I have it on good authority I’m kinda shady. So, maybe you should check again. Just to be sure.”

  I swat his arm, giggling. I don’t think I giggled once in the months after my mom’s death. But ever since I met Sam, it’s an almost daily occurrence. “You’d better not be shady, Sam Davidson, especially when you’ve got a date this Sunday.”

  “Oh, geez. You heard about the auction?” He grimaces. “So embarrassing. Please tell me you’re going to bid on me. Save me from having to go on a date with a stranger.”

  I shake my head. “You’re on your own, buster. Not my scene.”