Lie to Me (an OddRocket title) (18 page)

"I know, I know," RD said softly. "I'm here this summer because my life is a mess, Cassie."

"Mine, too."

"And I haven't had a lot in my life lately to make me feel good. I've had a lot that makes me feel like a disaster. I screwed up college, my dad died thinking I was a waste of space and my family life has pretty much followed the handbook of things you should do if you want to end up a miserable, angry old man."

"But you're not miserable or angry." I hiccupped.

"Around you, I'm not," he said. "When I'm with you, I believe that I'm different, a better version of myself. It's like you change things and I know it's wrong to take that from you and I'm sorry."

"You haven't taken anything from me," I said.

"You sure?"

"I need you, RD," I said. "I need you and I don't know what I would do if you hadn't screwed up your life and ended up here for the summer."

He laughed. "I need you, too, Cassie," he said. And I believed him.

After Mom's hospital stay, everything changed in the house. Mom didn't come downstairs anymore. Addie wandered around glassy-eyed. She tried to follow me everywhere, so I constantly ditched her in order to see RD.

"Where are you going?" she asked, cornering me in the entryway.

"To see Priya." I'd try to duck out the door. My latest pack of lies revolved around my reconciliation with Priya. It was a good excuse to disappear for a few hours every couple of days and Mom was relieved that I had a friend again.

"Can I come?" Addie said. I moved to pass her and she blocked me with a quick step. She was a great soccer player.

"No, not today." I had a date with RD. We were going to take the boat for a sail. He was going to pick me up not far from the ferry dock. We'd been careful to not spend too much time at the marina in case Mariah or Bill noticed.

"You said you'd let me hang out with you this summer, Cassie. You promised and you never take me with you."

"Later, Addie." I'd told RD I'd meet him in twenty minutes and we only had a few hours before my shift. I knew every minute I wasted was one less minute I'd have sitting beside him with the wind blowing over us. I didn't have time for this hallway dance.

"Later! Later! Later!" Addie exploded and screamed at me. "You always say
later
. Forget it. You never let me go with you. You never keep your promises." She stood there seething, her face bright red, her breath shaking.

"Mellow out, Addie. Seriously." I looked upstairs. "You're going to wake Mom."

"I don't care if Mom hears me. She should know what a bad sister you are. Mom should know that you never keep your promises." She turned and ran down the hall, slamming the door as I stood there wondering how long she would hate me.

"Everything okay?" Aunt Lucy called from upstairs, leaning over the banister.

What a stupid question. Of course everything wasn’t okay. I felt bad about Addie, but my hours with RD were like a drug. I wanted that high more than I cared about my sister. "It's Addie. She's just mad at me. Again." I picked up Mom's keys from the bowl on the windowsill. Aunt Lucy never put them back where they belonged in the kitchen, which I hated. "I'll be back in a couple of hours." I left before Aunt Lucy had an opportunity to ask me any more questions.

RD picked me up on a dock at Cody Landing. This was our new routine. We'd make a plan and he'd pick me up from different locations. It was my idea. After the whole paycheck fiasco, I knew that staying too close to the Hideaway was a mistake. There were enough beaches and parks on the island that we could rotate through a new one every week.

I looked for RD's envelope for about a week before giving up, figuring someone had pinched it from the register, maybe someone who didn't notice RD's note. Not knowing what he'd left for me made it easy to assume it was cryptic or innocent. I finally forgot about it all together; our routine replaced that worry.

We'd sail. We'd work on the boat. We'd kiss when we were alone. Sometimes we did more. I lied. I quickly noticed that Aunt Lucy went to the Hideaway as little as possible, so I could keep adding hours to the start or finish of my shift with no consequence. If I thought anyone was getting suspicious, I made up a fake outing or two with Priya to mix things up.

The moments before I saw RD were always the same. My body felt so warm, legs shaky, skin aching for his touch. As Mom faded, the secret I shared with RD became the only part of my life that I could bear to think about. I lived for the moments when he'd take my hand and pull me toward him. I'd stopped wondering whether we were right or wrong anymore. The only place I felt whole was there with him.

Mom couldn't touch us here, with her shaking hands and disappearing body. Aunt Lucy couldn't interrogate me, her blue eyes looking at me with distrust. I never worried about Priya or Nick or the fact that Addie reminded me on a weekly basis that I was no longer invited to her birthday party. On that bunk below deck, it was just RD and me. No secrets. Only us.

I finally caved and agreed to meet Priya at Starbucks for real, mostly to make my other imaginary outings with her seem credible.

"Hi," she said, sitting across from me, her face strained. "I'm really glad you decided to talk with me."

"We're not talking about what happened," I said, taking a sip of my Frappuccino. Looking at Priya felt like sitting across from a long lost friend I hadn't seen in years. We'd had things in common long ago, but if our paths crossed today, we wouldn't be friends, not without our shared history.

"Okay," she said. "I think that's okay. We may want to talk sometime."

"No," I said. "Those are my rules. I don't want to hear any excuses. You don't get to feel okay about what you did."

"All right," Priya said softly. She opened her mouth and then clamped it shut, staring out the window into the parking lot. In that growing silence, I had this horrible feeling that we had nothing to talk about any longer. "Your mom?" she asked, her voice even softer.

I shook my head.

Priya nodded. "Things got pretty messed up this summer, I guess."

"Yes, they did."

"Nay Nay Taylor is having a party at her house this weekend," she said, brightening. "At least, that is the rumor. You should go, the girls have all been asking about you. Everyone misses seeing you. I miss you."

"Might be fun," I said, swirling my straw in my melting drink. I had no intention of going to the party.

"I heard the Taylors are out of town and Nay Nay's been secretly planning the party for months." Priya didn't care about this stuff. I couldn't believe my friend and I had nothing to talk about but parties that a year ago we would have mocked.

"Sounds pretty crazy," I said, trying to make this seem normal. Nay Nay Taylor was one of the most popular and despised girls in the school, but she had unbelievably cute clothes. And I couldn’t have cared less about getting inside her house for a party.

"We should go then," Priya said. "I think it's important for you to go out, you know?"

"Definitely, we should go."

Priya seemed encouraged by my false enthusiasm. "I heard the theme is going to be 'Jamaican Me Crazy.' Supposedly, the cheerleaders are going to run a full bar and there's probably a band."

"Who's playing?" I asked, immediately regretting the question.

"Nick, I think?" Priya cringed and stared at her drink. "Maybe you don't want to..."

"He doesn't bother me," I said. "But if his band is playing, the party is going to be shut down in about five minutes. They are loud." I looked around the coffee shop. Neutral browns and greens covered the walls. San Sebastian students were crowded around tiny cafe tables drinking icy drinks. Everyone looked so familiar, so boring. I felt like I'd stepped through a portal to my old life. No one knew anything about the world I shared with RD.

"You know, Cass. I just don't feel like you're listening to me. I mean, I know you have stuff on your mind and I'm trying to get past everything."

"Sorry." I said it in a way that told Priya I really wasn't.

"So how are things going with that new guy you're seeing?" Priya asked. "Nick told me..."

My whole body tensed at the mention of my imaginary boyfriend, followed by a swift wave of anger. "Glad to hear you two are talking."

"Nick just mentioned him. We don’t talk like you think."

"How nice.”

“So, does this guy go to a different school or something?"

"No." I closed my eyes, my mind reeling. My lie to Nick had seemed like such a good idea at the time, it was time to clean up the little mess I’d made. "Nick’s wrong. I don't have a boyfriend."

"Right," Priya laughed. "That's why you never hang out with me, never answer my calls."

"I don’t call because you made out with my boyfriend."

Priya stared at me, her green eyes wounded and glistening with tears. "You’re still angry, but you don’t want to talk about what happened." She pushed her chair back. "I'm sorry I hurt you, Cassie, but we need to talk about this stuff if it’s ever going to get better. Will you at least think about going to the party? Please?”

"I will think about it,” I said, taking a noisy slurp of my coffee drink.

"All right." Priya smiled. "It’s a start."

I told RD about my conversation with Priya that afternoon, but not the part about her thinking I had a boyfriend. I kept that minor detail secret.

"Maybe you should go to the party. Your friend misses you," RD whispered, pulling me close. He traced a finger up and down my back giving me chills. We were anchored away from shore. There was no real wind, so the boat rocked slowly in the waves. "And speaking of missing you, I need to go out of town early Saturday morning. You can call me after the party and tell me all the high school gossip."

"You're leaving me?" I reached for him.

"So dramatic."

"What?" I laughed. "I don't like those kids anymore. They just seem so silly now. They aren't like you."

"But they are like you," he said, softly. "I don't want to be the reason you lose touch with your friends, Cassie."

"I can't tell them about you."

"No, but you might end up having fun. You should go to your party." He kissed me in between every sentence.

"See how you've ruined me?" I said. "I look at Nick and I can't even figure out why I ever wanted to be with him. He's so boring, so ordinary. He's not you."

"Don't say I ruined you."

"Well, you have."

"Seriously," RD sat up, untangling his arms from me. "Don’t say that. You need to be okay without me, all right? I'm going to be gone a week this time and I won't have a lot of free time to talk. I've got a lot of meetings to go to and my cell coverage is so bad on the mainland."

"Is this another one of those stupid conferences?" Over the past few weeks, RD had been heading back to the mainland for the weekends. It was no big deal since I usually worked, but I hated the days we were apart.

"You don't need to worry about my boring, screwed-up life." He kissed my neck, making me giggle; his stubbly chin felt like sandpaper sometimes. "Stuffy professors have no lives, so they schedule things over the weekends. I have to take care of these things before school starts in the fall and I have something for you to make up for being such a jerk," he said. He handed me a small box.

"A present?" I sat up, my heart hammering as I opened the lid. Inside was a pair of delicate silver earrings. Round, dangling circles with a swirling pattern in the center that, when I looked closer, reminded me of a Native American drawing.

"They are Orcas," he said, lifting them out of the box and holding them next to my ears. "I saw them at a gift shop in Seattle and they made me think of you. They are supposed to carry the spirit of the water with them."

"They're beautiful," I said, sliding them into my ears. The only present I'd ever gotten from a boy had been the gumball ring from Nick and I'd thrown that into Puget Sound. "I love them. Thank you." I threw my arms around him.

"I thought it might make it easier, when I'm away," he said, pressing his nose against mine.

"I still wish you could take me with you. I could make up some kind of a camp, tell Aunt Lucy I'm going. She wouldn't know how to check."

"No," RD said. "You know we can't hang out together on campus."

"Because..." My voice trailed off.

"Because you know why."

"Because some people would say that it's wrong for us to do this?" I said and slid my body on top of his and moved my hands the way he'd taught me. "That it’s wrong to do this? Or this?" And this time I kissed him. He gave a soft moan and I felt like the most amazing girl on the planet.

Nothing but this
, I thought. These waves. This place. This silence. Our secret hideaway where we couldn't be touched. Except secret hideaways don't really exist.

The party location was announced by text at about five o’clock Friday night. Priya was right. Nay Nay Taylor's. 205 West Island Drive. Priya called twice to make sure I was going. I don't know why she cared if I was there or not since we had nothing left to talk about. RD wanted me to keep my friends, but my mind was a virtual minefield of secrets. RD and Mom dominated everything, both unspeakable for very different reasons.

Nay Nay's house was basically a mansion. Her father owned Taylor's department store and I think he was on wife number five at that point. I was kind of curious to see how wife number five had re-decorated the place; I'd heard Italian Renaissance from Priya. The truth was RD said he had to pack and he wanted me to hang out with my friends, so I had nothing better to do but spend the night partying with a bunch of stupid high school students. And I needed to have some normal activity in my schedule to balance out my pretend life.

Aunt Lucy let me take Mom's car the night of the party. She handed me the keys and a strict curfew all in one breath.

"Home by one a.m. Call if anyone's drinking."

What planet was she from anyway? It was more like, "Call if no one's drinking and it's the most boring party in the history of San Sebastian."

"Is Mom awake?" I looked at the ceiling in the kitchen as if I could see into her bedroom, the bedroom she never left.