We Told Six Lies

by Victoria Scott

  He reached for her, but she backed away.

  “I don’t want to be comforted,” she said as tears rolled over her cheeks and fell to her chest. “I want you to finish this. I want you to take away my pain.”

  Blue’s hand dropped to his side.

  “I haven’t been happy in a long time,” she said. “And I’m tired of trying. So just do it.”

  Blue sat down on her bed and put his head between his hands. And as Molly fought back tears and tidal waves of emotion nearly knocked her off her feet, she wondered if she was still pretending.

  THEN

  As we lay in that abandoned house, as my world rocked from what you’d just said, you got up and put on your bra.

  Then you grabbed your shirt and skirt and jacket and boots. I lay on the ground, exposed, confused.

  Angry.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded because I couldn’t repeat it. Repeating it would make it real.

  You shook your head and looked at me directly. Any emotion you might have had on your face while I laid on top of you, pushing myself inside of you, had vanished. You looked like a machine in the moonlight that cut through the window.

  “We just can’t do this anymore,” you said.

  “Do what?” I asked. “Be happy?”

  “I’ve got to go.” You grabbed something from the floor. Your purse? Had you brought a purse in with you?

  You turned your back on me and started toward a door that led to the back of the house, then turned toward the place we’d come in through. I guess you figured you could appear through the front entrance with your head held high. Even after you’d screwed the school weirdo and left him nude on the dirty floor. Especially because you’d left him nude on the floor.

  “Don’t walk out on me,” I said, and I heard the warning in my voice. But what would I really do if you did? I wasn’t sure.

  You stopped in the doorway long enough for me to pull on my jeans.

  Something inaudible escaped your mouth.

  “What?” I asked, afraid to come near you. Afraid you’d run.

  Afraid I’d chase you to the ends of the earth and set the path on fire to ensure you couldn’t double back.

  “Then don’t let me,” you said, louder this time.

  “Don’t let you what?” I ask, stupidly. So fucking stupidly.

  You sighed and made to leave.

  I took your arm and turned you around. “Is that what you want?” I asked. “You want me to force you to stay with me? Are you that fucked up?”

  Tears filled your eyes, and I felt myself drowning. Felt like I couldn’t fill my damn lungs.

  You shook your head. “Never mind. Never mind.”

  I shook mine, too. “‘Never mind, never mind. Don’t let me leave, Cobain. Never mind. Take me away from here. Never mind. Come over to my house and fuck me, but only if you can do it without giving a shit.’”

  I grasped your face, and you cried harder. “I love you, Molly. I fucking love you, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

  “But I don’t love you,” you whispered.

  But the opposite screamed in your eyes.

  You reached up to grab my hands. Pulled them away from your face.

  Then you shoved me, hard. I stumbled back a few steps, startled by your strength.

  “You’re better off without me,” you said, your lip curled in anger.

  You turned to walk out, but I jumped into your path, because honestly, if you walked out on me after what just happened between us on the floor of this house, I’d combust.

  “Tell me you want me to leave you alone and I will,” I challenged.

  “Get out of my way,” you replied.

  “No,” I said.

  “Cobain.”

  “Molly.”

  You shoved me again.

  I didn’t move a fucking inch.

  Your eyes flicked toward the back wall, and I should have seen it coming. Should have, but didn’t.

  You ran.

  You ran, and for all my strength, I didn’t have half your agility or speed.

  You were out the door in a flash, and I was chasing after you.

  In a matter of seconds, you’d cut through the trees, your stocking-free legs ripping through the underbrush.

  Every turn you made, I made. Every stone you leaped over, I flew over as well.

  I didn’t know what I’d do when I caught you.

  But I knew you were crazy. Crazier than me. And beautiful as your white hair sliced through the darkness. I was chasing a toxic addiction. A mindless tornado. A possible sociopath. I should stop, I knew. Let you run until you leaped off a cliff and your broken body lay at the bottom. But I knew I’d never stop. And if that cliff came into view and I saw you fly through the air like a gazelle, I’d leap right over the edge with you.

  “Molly!” I roared.

  Do you remember me roaring your name?

  I remember, Molly.

  I remember growing more frenzied the farther you ran. I remember a new sound.

  Someone else?

  Someone else.

  The ground tore open my feet as I raced after you, but the pain escaped me. All I could think of was catching up to you. All I could think of was holding you in my arms and kissing you and telling you, It’s okay. See? I didn’t let you go. That’s what you wanted. You wanted me to keep you, and that’s what I’m gonna do and is that a sound no it’s just me and you forever, forever.

  I caught you.

  I hugged you to my chest.

  I may have held you too tightly.

  I may have yelled too loudly.

  I pulled you away, and I was so angry and so in love and so full of emotions that needed an outlet.

  “Let her go.”

  My mind cleared, and I realized I was standing—barefoot, shirtless, jacketless—in the heart of winter, and Nixon was going, What the fuck, man?

  And you were going, We had a fight. It’s okay, Nixon. It’s okay.

  And I was going Molly, listen to me.

  “I’m sorry, Cobain,” you said. Those were the first words that really stopped the world from spinning.

  “Let’s go back to the house,” Nixon said.

  I started to come, too, one hand on my head, and Nixon said, “No, man. You stay back here for a while. Give her some space.”

  And I looked at Nixon, who was applying for a weight-lifting scholarship at the Air Force Academy where he’d be third-generation alumni, and said, “I’ll tell Coach what you’re taking.”

  Nixon’s brow furrowed and then smoothed in one heartbeat. “You can be a real asshole, you know that?”

  “Only if pushed.”

  He touched your back and said, “Come on.”

  “Molly,” I tried.

  But you didn’t even look at me.

  I stayed in the trees longer than I needed to. Long enough that my skin went numb from the cold, and I wondered if maybe I ought to just stay out there forever. Then I remembered what you said—

  But I don’t love you.

  And so I took a breath and headed out of the trees because I needed to hear the truth slip from your mouth. Just once.

  Except that was the last time I talked to you, Molly. The last word you heard from me was your name. Remember how I said it? As if my heart had grown too big for my body?

  And you know what? The last word you said was my name, too.

  I’m sorry, Cobain.

  After you disappeared, I thought of the way you said it. Like you truly were sorry. Like you loved me, but that wasn’t enough. Or maybe it was too much. Yeah, I think that’s closer.

  But don’t worry, Molly, because I know why you left without me.

  It took me a while to get there, but now I know.
>
  MOLLY

  She’d planned to betray him.

  Her Cobain. Her heart. He didn’t have her devotion at first, of course. She’d protected it well. She told herself sacrifices had to be made if she were to escape her mother, and her father’s bloody, manipulative legacy. But first, she had to succumb to his ways. And so on the first day of school, she searched for someone who would help her escape this life she despised so deeply that her bones wept.

  She thought she’d found that person when she met Rhana.

  But then there was Cobain with his sad eyes. With his Herculean size and hands that seemed like they could be soft or lethal, depending on who he turned them on.

  She’d waited for someone like him for fourteen months as her mother’s obsession with her grew, as she drowned in her mother’s home with the reminder of her father lingering in every last corner, and then there Cobain was on the first day of her new school.

  So she’d grasped his face and said, “There you are.”

  His cheeks felt rough in her hands. She’d wanted to kiss the look of surprise off his mouth. She would have done anything to put a leash on that beast. But it was her in the end who wore the collar. Because she fell in love with him. She fell apart for him.

  That heart she protected so fiercely—her compass—guided her to him now. Every day. Every night. And so after that night in the abandoned house, she knew she couldn’t manipulate him any longer, even if it meant heading out on her own without the resources she needed. Even if it meant forgetting her plans to take the cash he planned to steal and disappear.

  She could have gotten away with it, too. She’d already told everyone they’d broken up. His insistence that they were still together would make him seem untethered. The police would believe the strange, quiet kid had taken the money, and that his ex-girlfriend had left, in part, to get away from him. Even if they did believe she was involved, she’d be long gone, and they’d have a perfectly good suspect to take the fall.

  The thought made her feel like shit, like maybe she was her father’s daughter after all if she could let this happen, but she was fighting for survival. Because if she’d stayed with her mother in that house, well…the dark thoughts that plagued her would have eventually done her in.

  In the end, she had left the city, left Cobain, because she was slowly ruining him. She’d seen the changes. The silent, forgotten boy changing into someone who would stop at nothing to pursue her happiness, and his own.

  She’d seen the way he looked at her.

  At first, with fascination. And then lust.

  And then…with something fiercer.

  Protectiveness.

  Love.

  For once, Molly had cared about something more than her survival. She cared about the way he smiled, though he hated when she forced it out of him. She cared about the way he chewed his fingernails to bits, and the way he’d grab her face and scratch it with the dark stubble on his jawline until she squealed. She cared about his genuine heart. And his hands, warm on her body. And his addiction to ketchup, even though the stuff was mostly sugar, and she’d told him that a dozen times.

  She cared about the guarded way he looked at the world.

  And the way he’d trusted her so entirely, though she’d done little to deserve it.

  She cared about Cobain.

  She loved Cobain.

  And so she had left him before he did something disastrous. It seemed that she wasn’t her father’s daughter after all. At least not in totality.

  What had it accomplished, though?

  What had she done to them both by leaving?

  Blue placed his hand on her arm and led her up the stairs and into a room she’d never seen before. Her eyes fell on the bed, blankets rumpled, a bedside lamp made of glass that reflected her numbness. There was a pile of clothes on the floor, and an oil painting of a nude woman that would bring Cobain both happiness and frustration—happiness because he loved art, frustration because he didn’t understand it and feared he never would.

  Blue led Molly to a closet and threw open the doors. He pulled a string, and light poured over a closet packed with T-shirts, blouses, slacks, a few pairs of jeans, and then…a dozen or more dresses. They belonged to an older woman—she could tell from the fabric and patterns. But there were a few that even a young girl like herself would worship.

  Molly wished she could meet the woman who would keep such lovely things at a cabin in the middle of the woods. Did Blue know her?

  Molly’s eyes shifted to him. He waved a tired hand toward the closet, indicating she should pick for herself this time.

  How kind.

  She was allowed to choose her own funeral garb.

  She thumbed through the hangers until she found an emerald green dress. It was floor-length with an empire waist and capped sleeves. It would match her eyes.

  She pulled off the dirtied striped dress she wore and threw it to the floor. And though she didn’t care if he was, she glanced over to see if he watched her.

  He did.

  Her eyes moved to the bathroom. “I want to take a shower.”

  He tilted his head as if in a question.

  “Without restraints,” she clarified.

  He thought about her request and then nodded. When she tried to close the door between them, though, he grabbed it and shook his head.

  He turned around, indicating that he wouldn’t watch.

  When she removed her underwear and bra and stepped into the warm water, a gasp of ecstasy escaped her. She was able to wash her hair and her body without wrestling plastic cords like some marionette in a stage comedy.

  The terrycloth towel felt like a cloud around her torso when she was done, and she felt—for the first time in a long time—happy. Because by giving him the control he sought to regain, she was actually taking a piece for herself. It was a gamble, she reminded herself. But where was the fun in living without it?

  That was her father talking.

  Molly slipped on the dress and took her time braiding her hair off to one side. Then she pulled open a drawer and rummaged for the makeup she suspected she would find. It was old and caked, all of it, but the pigment remained strong, and so she rubbed blush into her cheeks and swept lipstick across her mouth. She even found eyeliner with enough life left to give her the dark, dangerous look she sought.

  When she appeared in the doorway, Blue rose to his feet.

  That was the reaction she needed, but she realized as she dressed that she was doing it more for herself than for him. It felt therapeutic, to do something for her own happiness versus trying to affect someone else in some way. Was this the first time she’d done that?

  Blue left the room and went to the kitchen, and she followed him out. He’d set a table for them with white dishes covered in indeterminate meat drowning in black sauce. Stiff green beans and mashed potatoes lay beside the meat, and two goblets of wine sat proudly above the plates.

  There were cloth napkins. And polished silverware. And two pillar candles with flickering flames. As Molly took her seat, Blue put a record on the player and laid the red needle on its spinning face.

  Molly smiled, because what else could she do?

  As they ate in silence, Molly looked through the window. Her eyes fell on the white van. If she died tonight, would they ever find her body? Or would they only find that blasted van? This claustrophobic cabin? The room where he’d kept her?

  “Where do you get this food from?” she asked, trying to make conversation.

  But he didn’t respond, and she didn’t really care about the answer anyway.

  When they were done eating, they left the plates where they were, because what was the point of cleaning them?

  Molly took Blue’s hand, and they danced in the living room as they had done several nights ago. But this time, Molly didn’t do it for any oth
er reason than to cling to the last person she might ever touch. Her concept of what was right and what was wrong was slipping, she knew. All she could focus on now were her immediate needs.

  I need to feel cared for.

  I need to have human interaction.

  So they danced until the record skipped to a stop, and Blue flipped it over. Then they joined hands again and took more turns around the room. When the record stopped a second time, though, they lifted their heads and looked at each other.

  It was time.

  They both knew it.

  And so Molly took his hand and asked, “Are you ready?”

  He watched her for a long moment before nodding.

  She took his hand and led him toward the door. He unlocked it quietly and led her out into the night in silence, over the snow. Long before they reached the pond, Molly’s body shook from the cold. When they stood with their toes at the edge of the water, she turned and looked at him.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked.

  She knew she shouldn’t push, but when he didn’t reply, she said, “I know this was the reason you found me. I needed to do this with someone else. I’ve thought about it for so long. I’m just so tired of being sad.”

  His eyes fell to the ground, and she added, softly, with her gaze landing on the cabin, “They’ll find us eventually, and then we’ll have lost this moment.”

  He raised his head.

  “This is our choice,” Molly said.

  He looked out at the water and removed his shoes.

  She did the same.

  They were still holding hands.

  Molly turned to him and said, “Once we’re out there, you’ll have to take it off.”

  Blue looked at her and then back at the water. He swallowed. Even in the moonlight, she could see how nervous he was. How ridiculous, she thought. They were about to kill themselves, and he was worried about how she’d react when she saw him.

  He shouldn’t have worried, though, because she already knew.

  It was in the way he walked.

  In the way his shoulders moved.

  It was in the way he lifted a fork to his mouth, and the way he stared at the sky when he was thinking. It was in the way he clapped his hands together when he was angry, and the way he held her when they danced.