The Best Lies Read online

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  FOR JEN FAN AND AMANDA YAO

  MONDAY // AUGUST 28 // DAY 353

  1.

  You never know when it’s the last time.

  You never think, This is the last time I’ll ever see his smile, shy and full of secrets meant only for me, the last time I’ll ever hold his hand or kiss his face or lose myself in the warmth of his brown eyes.

  Jack’s gone now and there was no time to say goodbye. To share one last smile, a final kiss.

  I’ll never see him again.

  It’s been three hours since I held Jack in my arms and I’ll never hear his voice again, the way he laughed freely, the way he said my name, Remy, whispered like a prayer in the dark.

  Three hours since strangers pulled me away from his body, and I’ll never run my fingers through his dark hair, never feel the heat of his touch against my skin.

  Three hours since Elise pointed a gun at him, and I’ll never taste his kiss again, breathe in the scent of his peppermint shampoo.

  “We need to come up with a story,” my parents tell me. Something to give the police, something to explain what happened, what I was doing there.

  They want me to lie but they won’t say that word, they won’t say lie. My parents, they want to protect me. I can see the fear in their eyes. They fear for me, what might happen to me. But there’s something else too, a different kind of fear.

  They’re not just afraid for me, they’re afraid of me.

  • • •

  Here is the truth.

  I was born Katherine Remy Tsai, but everyone calls me Remy. I used to know how my story would turn out, but now I have no idea what tomorrow will look like. I used to know what laughter felt like, but now I can’t imagine smiling ever again.

  I live in the north suburbs of Atlanta, in a town called Lyndens Creek. There is no creek, though, none I’ve ever heard of, and I was born here. It used to be farmland, just hills and animals. Now it’s a nice town, with nice people, the kind who could never, ever fire six bullets into someone’s chest.

  There are nice schools here, and we went to one of them, Riverside High, known for its terrible football team and soaring SAT scores. The kind of school funded by sprawling golf-course communities where retired lawyers and men of business putter around, and where I fell in love with Jack under a blanket of stars.

  Yes. This is a nice place, and I used to be someone who belonged here.

  In my bathroom now, I look into the mirror to find a stranger staring back at me. Steam from the running water consumes the bathroom until the glass fogs over and I am suffocating.

  The clothes I was wearing only hours ago are stuffed in an evidence bag at the police station. The Superman tee Jack gave me on the first night we met, my favorite pair of jeans, my once-white espadrilles. All ruined.

  My body is an afterimage of the damage, a map of dark red told in streaks and smears. Jack’s blood is on my face and in my hair, on my arms and under my fingernails. There was so much, the paramedics had rushed to me, checking for signs of trauma, but they couldn’t see the hole in my heart.

  My name is Remy.

  I am seventeen years old.

  This won’t last forever.

  Elise taught me that once as a way to keep myself grounded. These are things I can hold on to. A reminder that how I feel now won’t be how I feel forever.

  Standing in the shower, I let the water burn the last of him off my skin, watch the blood swirl down the drain until it runs clear.

  But I can’t get clean. Even with every last drop of shampoo and soap gone, I am still scrubbing, until my skin and scalp are raw and angry.

  Until the only thing left is a shaking, sobbing girl on the shower floor.

  A shaking, sobbing girl who has to face a loss she’s not ready to accept. Part of me knows Jack’s no longer here, but I just don’t want him to be gone.

  2.

  They’re arguing again, my parents. It’s the only constant in my life. The sun will break over the horizon in the morning, and like clockwork, my parents will fight.

  “What are you doing?” Dad shouts, following Mom as she paces around the living room. The phone is pressed against her face as she shushes him. Her eyes hold nothing but contempt.

  “I’m calling a lawyer,” she says, her voice a sharp hiss.

  “No one’s awake right now. It’s three in the morning.” He is exasperation and she is anger. These are the roles they’ve played for years.

  My brother, Christian, and I sit quietly on the couch, my hair dripping, still wet from the shower. The sound of water hitting leather punctuates their screaming, a steady drumbeat to the crescendo of their anger. We don’t look at each other, we don’t look at them. This is so familiar it’s almost comforting. I can’t handle what’s happened, but this I could manage all day long, the shouting and cutting words, my parents at each other’s throats.

  “Hi, hello,” Mom says when someone answers the phone. She shoots Dad a look: See? His mouth flattens into a thin line.

  They pick up right where they left off after my mother ends the call. They argue about the lawyer—when will they be here, who is it, where did you even find them. They argue about how tired they are. They argue about what happened.

  “Did you know?” Mom asks him.

  “Know what, Helena?” Dad says, palm pressed against his temple.

  “Where your daughter was. What’s been going on with her. God, Stephen, how useless can you be?”

  I am right here but I say nothing. Christian peeks over at me. If he’s concerned, he doesn’t say anything.

  I think maybe I’m the one who died, maybe this is my own special version of hell, watching my parents snipe at each other on loop for all eternity. Maybe this is what I deserve.

  A knock on the door finally interrupts them half an hour later and they pause when it grows louder. It’s the lawyer.

  “I’m Vera Deshpande,” she says once she’s in the living room, eyes searching our tense expressions. “Tell me what happened.”

  Everyone looks to me. When it becomes clear I am too wrecked to speak, my parents start up again all at once.

  “Her boyfriend—”

  “Her best friend—”

  “He’s dead—”

  “She shot him—”

  “Not Remy. Remy didn’t shoot anyone—”

  “That’s what I meant—”

  “It was that girl, Elise—”

  “It was all her—”

  “I don’t even know where she got a gun—”

  They’re talking over each other, and I would feel vaguely sorry for Vera if I could feel anything at all. Finally, they catch themselves and pause.

  “Where did she get a gun?” Mom asks, and all eyes turn to me again. I study the floor, wish I were invisible, wish I were anywhere but here, anyone but me. “This is serious, Remy,” Mom continues. “You could go to prison. Do you understand?” Condescension coats her voice, but there’s an edge there too, sharpened by fear. “Someone’s dead.” They don’t say his name. They don’t care about him, and they don’t care about Elise either, even after everything.

  And I can’t tell if they really even care about me and what happens to me or if what they really care about is how this will look for them, if their daughter goes to p
rison. How this will affect my mother’s nomination to the hospital’s board, the promotion my father’s gunning for at Coca-Cola. How it’ll ruin the perfect image they’ve worked so hard to craft. We never talk about it but this is why they’re still together, after all these battle-worn years. It’s not important that their marriage is a failure, what’s important is that no one knows they’ve failed, and so the charade continues no matter the cost.

  “Remy, please,” Dad says, eyes pleading with me. “We’re trying to help you. We love you.”

  Love, that old excuse. They love me the way they love the Mercedes in the garage, the way they love an expensive timepiece on their wrists. They love me only for what I could be to them. I am to be seen but not heard, to be had but not understood. Love is the weapon they wield when it suits them, the justification for everything they do.

  “Remy,” Dad tries again.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Mom says, cutting him off. “Tell us everything.”

  I hug my knees in and hide my face. It’s a reflex to ball up, shield myself from the world when it’s all too much. Part of me knows they’re right to panic. I have no idea what’ll happen to me, and underneath the shock and grief, I’m terrified too.

  “Remy,” Mom says, her voice like a slap to the face. “This is not the time to play the sullen teenager.” She always knows exactly what to say to get a rise out of me.

  “I’m not playing. This isn’t a game,” I say, head still buried, hidden behind my legs. “Jack’s dead.”

  Words that I haven’t allowed myself to even think now hang in the air. He’s really gone.

  “Yes. And I know you’re sad,” Mom tries again. “But—”

  “Sad?” I can’t believe her. She’s always been like this. Cold, uncaring. I used to think maybe she had to cut off her emotions because she’s a surgeon, but now I think maybe she never had any to begin with and that was precisely why she was such a good surgeon.

  She pushes on. “But you have to think about yourself at this point. There’s nothing you can do for him now. And do you think Jack would want you to—”

  “Is that what you think when someone dies on the table? That there’s nothing you can do for them now?” I am screaming, struggling to contain myself. “You would. You don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself.” I release my legs and grip the couch seats, knuckles white. I start to cry and it’s a capitulation. I’ve lost.

  “Yes,” she says without flinching. “That’s exactly what I do. I have to. Because the next person I operate on deserves my best. You can’t just crawl into bed and shut out the world.” She’s right about one thing—all I want to do is crawl into bed and shut everything out. All I want to do is sink into my pain, let it drown me. “You have to think about what’s in front of you.”

  “Well, of course, that’s you. You’re perfect. A machine. How can any of us ever measure up? No one was ever good enough for you. Not Dad, not me—” This is an old argument, these are all words I’ve flung at her before. It’s a strange comfort, being back here with her. Surreal but almost normal. The boy I love is dead and it feels like the world is closing in on me, but here we are sparring like always.

  “I do what I do to survive.” Her voice has turned deadly quiet and it’s more terrifying than when she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. “I have to make hard decisions every single day. Life-or-death decisions. All you have to do is go to school, get good grades, avoid getting caught up in a murder investigation. How do you fuck that up?”

  Christian’s eyes are wide, but I know he won’t step in on my behalf. He can barely look at me, eyes down on his phone. Maybe he thinks I’m hopeless, stupid, a lost cause—the way Mom sees me. Maybe he thinks I’m something worse, a monster, and he can’t stand to be in the same room as me.

  “Helena,” Dad says.

  Before this escalates any further, Vera cuts in. “Why don’t I talk to Remy alone,” she says. We all stare at her blankly. We’d forgotten she was there. “Let’s go for a drive.”

  In her car, she doesn’t say anything when I lower the window and light a cigarette, doesn’t tell me to put it out or ask me if I’m old enough to have them. My hand shakes as I smoke, my entire body unsteady. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to exist.

  “They’re just worried,” Vera says about my parents as she starts her car. We can still hear them from the driveway, their words faint but heated.

  “No, that’s pretty much how they always are,” I say, my voice flat. I am on the edge of falling asleep but I am also wide-awake. I feel dizzy, spinning between the two states.

  Vera doesn’t respond, pulling out of our driveway. It’s almost four in the morning and we’re the only car on the road. The world seems both dead and infinite. We have four hours, five tops, before we’re due at the police station. Elise was held for questioning, but they released me into the custody of my parents. I was covered in blood, I wasn’t the shooter, so they allowed me to return for questioning in the morning.

  “So, Remy, why don’t I explain what we can expect this morning when we go in?”

  Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember that today is Monday. I have a physics test I didn’t study for, on classical mechanics, the laws of gravity and motion—the laws that govern how the stars in a galaxy move and how a gun discharges.

  “They’ll start by reading you your juvenile Miranda rights.” Vera briefly recites the lines that remind me of crime shows on TV, and I can’t believe this is real life. “Then someone will take your statement,” she continues. “A detective, usually, but possibly a police officer. It’s important to remain calm. First impressions do matter.”

  Her voice comes in and out of focus as I smoke and stare at the streetlights that glide past us. The air is cool on my face and the tears fall freely. I am wrung dry, inside and out, incapable of feeling anything and overwhelmed all at once. My mind has shut down in self-preservation. I feel nothing but still the tears come.

  “Tell me what happened. All of it. Don’t leave anything out. I’m on your side,” she says. “What you say to me stays in this car. But you have to tell me everything.”

  I don’t answer.

  “Remy?” Vera says, her voice a soothing balm. I turn to face her. She looks tired but her thick, dark hair is pinned into a knot and her blouse is free of wrinkles, lipstick perfect. I wonder where my mother found her, why she picked up the phone at three in the morning, why she’s here with me instead of in bed. “I know we just met but I need you to trust me. I need you to help me help you. I need you to tell me what happened.”

  “Okay,” I finally say, swallowing. I wonder where Elise is now. If they took her to the police station, if she’s at the Pink Mansion, all alone, if anyone’s called a lawyer for her too. If anyone’s looking out for her. I’m scared for her, I realize. I’m scared for both of us.

  “And don’t lie,” Vera says. “I need to be prepared. The truth always comes out with these things.”

  3.

  At the heart of every good lie is the truth, that’s what Elise told me once. The best lies are at least half-true, she said, like it’s just a matter of mixing paint, two different colors swirling together until no one can tell where the truth ends and the lie begins, a new color emerging.

  When the police pulled me away from Jack’s body, they sat me at the back of an ambulance, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and asked me what happened. I don’t know, I said. They didn’t believe me, but I wasn’t lying.

  The answer the police are looking for does not contain multitudes, the answer they want leaves no room for interpretation. They want cold, hard facts where none exist. Everyone does, Vera included.

  Yes, it’s a fact that late Sunday night Elise, Jack, and I were at her house, known to most in the area as the Pink Mansion, named for its blush painted exterior and its massive grounds. It’s a fact that Elise, with her grandfather’s revolver, shot and killed Jack. It’s a fact that I called 9-1-1, kneeled by his side crying as I hel
d him in my arms, as if I could keep him there if I only held on hard enough.

  These facts tell a story, but not the whole story—the real story.

  Trauma has a gravity of its own, powerful enough to distort everything that came before and everything that comes after. Each wound a landmark on the road of your life. Each wound a signpost marking an end, a door slammed shut, forever closed to the person you could’ve been, the life you could’ve had if only, if only—

  But then there is the first one, the very first trauma, and isn’t that where everyone’s story begins?

  • • •

  For Elise, it began eleven years ago, at the age of six, when her mother packed her bags at Christmastime and left. Elise didn’t see her again until seven years later, at her funeral. She was gone forever, no calls, no emails or letters, and then she died on impact when her car hit a highway median at ninety miles per hour. Elise was only thirteen.

  The night her mother left, never to be seen again, was the night Elise discovered that the person who was supposed to love her best in the world was capable of driving away without ever looking back, excising Elise out of her life like a tumor.

  For me, it was a voicemail. I was four, maybe five, hiding with Christian in his closet. We’d been watching TV when it began—low, irate voices turned into loud, angry yelling. Christian took me by the wrist and we went upstairs, closed his bedroom door, and sat on the floor, leaning against the foot of his bed to wait out the storm. Eventually, we ended up in his closet, comforted by the small, dark space, the softness of his clothes piled around us like blankets. Outside, the hurricane raged, but in there, we were sheltered.

  Despite the cold, clammy fear that ran through me, I managed to fall asleep, waking only when the house settled into an eerie silence. I tried to leave, thinking it was all over, but Christian tugged on my sleeve and shook his head.

  I had to go to the bathroom but I sat back down, hugging my knees in tight. Then I heard her voice downstairs, so far away but all too close, my mother: “It’s me. Pick up the fucking phone, dammit. It must be nice being you. It must be nice to go on business trips and sleep with other people’s wives. It must be nice to just leave whenever you want. Leave me with the children. You know, I used to watch all those pathetic mothers on TV, the ones who were in orange jumpsuits because they’d drowned the kids in the pool and I used to think, Who the fuck does that? And now I think I know. Now I understand. Their husbands were off fucking other women.”