The Best Lies Read online

  Over the years I grew familiar with the types of voicemails Mom left for Dad, designed to get his attention, to get him to come home. But back then, I didn’t know any of that.

  Back then, I only knew that I wasn’t safe, that the person who was supposed to love me best in the world spoke of destroying me like it meant nothing at all.

  It was my first memory, and in some ways, my beginning, the first brick in a long road that’s led me here.

  I’m as alone now as I was then.

  4.

  We are driving aimlessly through the area and I’m not sure where we are or how we got here. Everything is a blur in the dark. Vera’s car has a moonroof and I stare up at the sky but all the stars are gone tonight, tucked behind a thick blanket of clouds. There’s electricity in the air, it’s going to rain soon.

  “Remy?” Vera asks, bringing me back.

  “I don’t know. I don’t really remember what happened,” I say, and that is the truth. It was all only hours ago but the night comes in and out of focus. Brightly lit, then shrouded in darkness.

  “I wasn’t there,” I tell Vera, and that is also the truth. Snapshots of the night dance in my mind, a broken record on repeat. Little moments shuffling and reshuffling themselves, everything chaotic, tangled.

  I close my eyes and I can still hear the gunshots ringing in my ears but they sound muffled, far away. I remember Jack at the front door of the Pink Mansion, saying, “Maybe it’s better if I talk to her alone.” Blink. Elise is out on the balcony and I’m sitting on the stairs and we are not speaking. Blink. Elise puts a comforting hand on my shoulder, saying, “Everything’s going to be okay, Remy.” She says something else, but it’s too quiet, just out of reach. It’s all jumbled, out of order, and I feel disoriented. I’ve been awake for over twenty-four hours, I realize, shaking my head hard. No, it’s been longer, thirty hours, forty maybe.

  “Which is it?” Vera says, frowning. “You don’t remember, or you weren’t there?” The rain begins to fall softly, little sprinkles from the sky. Tossing my cigarette out before I close the window, I look up through the moonroof and watch as rain hits the glass, as it obscures everything.

  “I wasn’t there when it happened.”

  “When did you arrive? After he’d been shot?” Vera’s voice is detached, clinical. She could be ordering a turkey sandwich, not asking about a fatal shooting.

  “No.” I have to focus. I will my mind to focus. I feel untethered, swept into a storm of uncertain memories. I need the truth. I need something to hold on to. I try to rub the sleep from my eyes, and finally, the moments stop shuffling.

  • • •

  Here, again, is the truth.

  We were arguing, the three of us, about the pranks. It always goes back to Elise’s pranks.

  At that point, Jack and Elise were no longer pretending to be friends, not even for my sake. They couldn’t even stand in the same room without setting off an explosion. She was gunpowder and he, a lit match.

  I acted as an intermediary, defending one to the other, keeping them apart. If you’d asked me Sunday morning, not twenty-four hours ago, I would’ve told you it was just a rough patch. A spat, a series of misunderstandings.

  “It was harmless,” I told Jack over the phone on my way to Elise’s house.

  “You know it wasn’t, Remy. It never is,” he said, and I could just picture him shaking his head sadly.

  “No one got hurt.”

  “That’s not the point, and you know that,” he said, sighing.

  “It was an accident.” It was. “Fireworks can be dangerous.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “They’re dangerous. And she knew that.”

  Silence stretched tight between us.

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “Remy—”

  “I have to go,” I said, ending the call.

  Elise was outside when I arrived at the Pink Mansion. “Did you talk to Jack?” she asked.

  “I did.” We entered the foyer and I slipped my espadrilles off by the door.

  “What’d he say?”

  “He hasn’t changed his mind,” I said, not meeting her eyes. “But he will. I’ll explain and—” It was all just a big misunderstanding, I thought. If I could just get them to listen to each other.

  “You told him it was an accident?”

  “I did.” We walked out onto the balcony, the air thick with humidity and still warm from the day.

  “Why did you even tell him?” she snapped at me. “If you’d only—” She saw the surprise hurt on my face and exhaled in frustration.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  She looked out at the water below. It’d been raining a lot recently, leaving the river swollen, its violent current a symphony filling the air.

  “You’ve put me in an impossible position,” she said.

  • • •

  At a stoplight, Vera glances over at me. My fingers play with the lighter Elise gave me for my birthday, flipping the top open and closed. Heavy in my hand, the metal feels warm to the touch, and I am itching for another cigarette.

  “I was there first and it was just me and her.”

  “You and Elise,” Vera confirms.

  “Yes.” Elise had put her hand on my shoulder, told me everything would be okay. “We got into an argument. Over something stupid.”

  “Something stupid?” she asks, studying me.

  I nod slowly. “I don’t even remember what it was,” I say, but I do. The last prank, our big finale the night before. What happened after we split from the group. What we did when it was just the two of us. But I don’t want to tell Vera about it.

  She accepts my answer, at least for now. “And then?”

  Then Elise went out to the balcony alone, staring down at the river below. I sat by the front door, at the foot of the staircase. We were fighting, too angry to speak.

  “When Jack came, I let him in. He told me to go home, that he’d talk to her. So I left.” He’d kissed me on the forehead, his hand lingering in my hair before he let go.

  “Elise was out on the balcony. Maybe the door was closed and she didn’t hear him come in, and when she came back inside—” I break off, choking on a sob, the tears coming hard and fast. My eyes ache and burn, swollen and sore from the never-ending tears.

  Vera pulls over to offer me tissues and turns on her yield signal even though no one else is around or awake for miles. She doesn’t put a hand on my shoulder or squeeze my elbow. She doesn’t touch me, and I’m grateful. The drizzle outside begins to slow, so she cracks open the windows and the cool air helps.

  “He must’ve startled her,” I say. “I’d just turned on my car when I heard the gunshots.” It happened so quickly. All within the span of a minute or two. I rushed out, leaving the car door open, my keys still in the ignition.

  Vera stares at the road ahead. She’s not taking notes but I can see the wheels turning in her mind, taking the words I say, the threads I spin, and spooling them together tight.

  “So it was an accident,” she says finally, but she doesn’t sound convinced.

  “That’s what must’ve happened.” I nod immediately, lighting another cigarette with a shaky hand. I wasn’t there. I didn’t see it. But this is the only explanation I have, the only one that makes any sense. She has to believe me, she has to.

  It was a horrible, tragic accident.

  “So your friend had a gun on her in the house.”

  “If you knew her story, you’d understand why she had that gun.” I try to steady my voice, sound confident when I feel like I might crumble.

  “And you just let him in and left without saying anything to Elise. You’re not leaving anything out? You’re telling me everything?” She sounds like she doesn’t believe me, sending doubt straight to my heart.

  “I am,” I insist. “That’s the whole story. That’s how it happened.” That’s how it must have happened. That much I know.

  She looks like she’s about to chall
enge me again, but instead she returns to an earlier question. “You said you were arguing. What about?”

  The last prank. Or maybe it was really about all of them. Everything always leads back to those stupid, stupid pranks.

  SATURDAY // SEPTEMBER 10 // DAY 1

  5.

  The night I met Elise was also the night of the very first prank. It was nearly a year ago, when I was a sophomore attending the homecoming dance with my then-boyfriend, Cameron. He’d graduated in May and was now a freshman at Georgia State.

  That summer we ran wild, staying up late, going for joyrides in his Mustang. Before he left for college, we were inseparable. We were free and in love.

  We watched movies in my basement, stole a bottle or three of wine from my parents’ collection. Snuck up to his room when his parents were gone. Kissed and promised each other we were forever.

  But at the dance, what was supposed to be a blissful night was nothing but heartbreak.

  The cafeteria had been cleared, tables and chairs stacked halfway to the ceiling to make room for the dance floor. “Have I told you how much I love you?” I said as we swayed to a slow song, my hand in his hair.

  “Mmhmm,” he said, but there was no warmth in his voice.

  Desperate, I kissed his neck. He pulled away.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “It’s just hot in here.”

  “Do you want some water?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “They have Gatorade.”

  “No.”

  “I think the PTA baked brownies this year,” I said, just trying to get him to say yes to something—anything.

  “No.”

  I paused. “Did I do something wrong?” Lost and confused, I felt like crying. All I wanted was to go back to the way I thought we were.

  “No.” He sighed. “Let’s get some air.” The halls were crowded, the courtyard full. He pulled me by the wrist to the back of the school, out to the empty bus bay.

  “Look, Remy, I like you, I do,” he began, even though he’d told me he loved me only weeks ago, the weight of his body over mine, the press of lips on lips, hips against hips. “But it’s different now. I graduated, and you don’t know what college is like, and I don’t care about all this high school crap.”

  “You were the one who offered to take me to homecoming,” I said, feeling panic swell inside me. “We didn’t have to go.”

  “It’s not about that. Look, I’m sorry.”

  “Was it something I did? Something I said?” I asked, wrapping my arms around his neck, pinning him there. Maybe I could do something to salvage the night, to press rewind.

  “No,” he said.

  “Tell me what I did wrong. Tell me how I can fix it,” I begged.

  He pulled me off of him, his hands tight around my wrists. He touched me like he couldn’t stand to be near me, pushing me away, holding me at a distance.

  “I said I was sorry,” he said, as if saying I’m sorry was absolution enough no matter the crime. The lines of his face hardened. “I have to get going. Do you need a ride?” He knew that I did, but I could tell he couldn’t wait to leave, so I shook my head softly and let him go. Crushed, I watched as he walked out of my life without a second glance. The first tear rolled off my face, hit my chest. He was lost to me and there was nothing I could do to make him come back.

  Not wanting to return to the dance, I sat on the cold ground against the doors, heard the music rage on behind me. My friend Melody texted asking where I was, but I ignored her. She never liked Cameron, and the last thing I needed was to see the relief on her face when I told her he’d left me. Instead, I curled in on myself and waited for the unbearable pain in my chest to turn into breathless sobs.

  That was when I heard it. The click of a lighter striking a flame. I looked up and there she was, perched on a metal bench with cigarette in hand, an angel of the night. The patron saint of the wronged and my savior, Elise Ferro.

  “Want one?” she offered, hand outstretched, a pack of cigarettes in her palm. There weren’t a lot of smokers at school and I’d only smoked one or two times before with Cameron and his friends, but none of them were regular smokers. “It calms me.” She made it look so glamorous, the wisps of smoke framing her face against the dark of night.

  “Thanks.” I took one and she gave me a light. Leaning in, I got a closer look at her face in the glow of the flame and didn’t recognize her. She had to be new, sitting out here in the bus bay, smoking alone.

  “What an asshole,” she said, eyes flicking in the direction where Cameron went. She’d been there the whole time, heard everything. Heat and mortification spread over my face. I wanted to crawl into bed and never get out, just sink under the covers and disappear forever. To a place where Cameron still loved me and there was no pain.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” she asked, eyes softening when she saw my stricken expression.

  I looked behind me at the double doors that led back to the dance, the loud music and happy faces, to Melody and all the people who knew me. They’d know I’d been dumped soon enough.

  Blinking back tears, I nodded. Please, I wanted to say. Anywhere but here.

  “I’m Elise, by the way,” she said on our way to her car.

  “Remy,” I said, and her smile was warm.

  Elise had long, inky hair, and even in the dark I could tell she was beautiful. Small mouth, delicate nose, high cheekbones. Thin, with wrists like twigs, she looked fragile, breakable. She had a single scar near her left eye, extending into her hair, a soft crease in her otherwise smooth skin. But it was the sharpness of her blue eyes that I noticed the most—every glance a spark, like they held a live current behind them, a glimmer of something thrilling and a little scary.

  6.

  Halfway down to the student parking lot, Elise and I tossed our cigarettes, watched the ash break off and the final glow extinguish.

  “Which one’s your car?”

  “It’s pink, you can’t miss it.”

  “No,” I whispered when we stopped in front of a powder-pink Cadillac convertible.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know they still made these things.”

  “I don’t think they do. It was my grandmother’s,” Elise said, hopping in.

  “You’re kidding,” I said, getting in next to her and dragging the seat belt across me. We sat on one long connected seat with no center console or cup holders to separate us. I’d only seen cars like this in movies or TV shows.

  “She was a top saleswoman at Mary Kay or something, and this car was what they gave her one year.” Elise shrugged and started the car.

  “It’s awesome,” I said, running my fingers along its side.

  “She’s kind of a pain in the ass,” Elise said, but she was smiling. “But she’s tough and I like that.”

  “She?” I asked, confused. “The car?”

  “Yep. This is the Pink Caddy,” she announced with a small wave of her hand like she was introducing us. “So, where do you live?”

  I began to direct her but stopped. “Are you hungry?” I asked, not wanting to go home, not wanting to be alone. We drove to get bubble tea and sat in her car staring out at an empty strip-mall parking lot.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Elise said. “About what happened with that guy.”

  “Not really.” I looked down at my lap, thumb running over the edge of the cup lid, taking slow sips. “I don’t know. I thought he was really happy. I thought we had a great summer. He said he could see us together forever.” I wiped a tear away. “I guess not.”

  “Why was it all about him?” Elise asked, incredulous.

  “Huh?”

  “What about you?” she said, a spark of anger in her eyes. “Were you happy? Did you have a great summer? Did you love him? Did you want to be with him forever?”

  “Of course,” I said, though suddenly I wasn’t sure anymore. “I think so.”

  She stayed silent.

 
; “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I guess I was always just focused on him.”

  “So it was all about him. About what he needed, what he wanted, what he decided, wasn’t it?”

  “Well—” The thing was, I didn’t care. I didn’t care if everything was about him, I just wanted him to stay. I started to cry again, the tears dripping off the curve of my chin and splattering onto my dress.

  Elise unbuckled her seat belt, reaching a hand out.

  I put down my bubble tea and hid my face behind both hands, starting to sob. Pathetic.

  “Come over here,” Elise said, arm still extended. “Come over here and stop making dying whale noises.”

  A laugh bubbled through my sobs and I coughed. Scooting over, I leaned my head on her shoulder. She felt safe, even though we’d just met. She felt solid, like she’d stay if I asked.

  “Boys are stupid,” she said.

  “Boys are stupid,” I agreed.

  “There was this guy at my old school. He knew I liked him, you know? And I think he enjoyed it, having someone fawn over him, laugh at all his jokes, hang on to every word. He asked me to prom last year and I was just so happy. I bought this red dress, new shoes, new makeup. But then the day before, he texted me that he wasn’t feeling well, that he was going to stay home.

  “He lied, of course. The girl he liked had just been dumped by her boyfriend and was suddenly without a date for prom. And as soon as he heard, he dropped me, just like that. He didn’t care if I’d bought a new dress, he didn’t care if he’d broken my heart. He was casually cruel because he didn’t need me anymore and I was now an inconvenience.” She sounded bitter but also strong. This thing that had hurt her couldn’t anymore, and nothing would penetrate the armor she’d forged for herself. I wanted to be like that. I wanted to stop hurting.