The Missing- Volume II- Lies Read online

  I lay down on my bed and turned my back to the room so that I faced the wall.

  After a few moments, the mattress dipped and I felt the boy from my tree lay down beside me. He didn’t touch me. He barely even breathed.

  But he stayed.

  “I can’t go home,” he said after awhile.

  I didn’t say anything. I knew somehow that he wouldn’t want me to.

  “I wish I never had to go back,” he whispered, his voice cracking. I rolled over to look at him. I couldn’t help it.

  The pretty boy was crying. So I cried with him.

  Then he stared down at me and I didn’t cover my face the way I did with most people. Because he didn’t care about my ugliness.

  Nothing else was said.

  We fell asleep.

  Breathing deep.

  Together.

  The sun started to come up and still I waited.

  I hadn’t slept at all.

  Because he hadn’t come.

  Bradley hadn’t climbed the tree and opened my window.

  He had left me alone.

  Locked away and forgotten.

  Abandoned.

  I couldn’t decide if I was devastated or enraged.

  Perhaps a little bit of both.

  I had become invisible to the one person who had always seen me.

  I pushed my finger into the tender spot above my lip, remembering the deformed girl he had protected. I thought of the ugly, scared child I had once been and how I had clung to the cold comfort he offered. It hadn’t been much, but it had always been enough. It was my constant.

  He was my constant.

  That had changed. Bradley had altered something between us forever when he didn’t show up tonight of all nights.

  Thursday was the worst day. Thursday was the best day . . . because of him.

  He had taken that from me. Every cut, every wound open on my back burned with a pain I couldn’t ignore. I couldn’t find peace in the tailspin of my fragmented mind.

  Because he wasn’t here.

  I flushed red with rage that shattered quietly into total despair.

  He had broken of a part of me. An important part.

  And he knew it.

  The Present

  Day 6

  And when your heart begins to bleed,

  You’re dead, and dead, and dead indeed.

  “Oh my god!” I breathed, feeling myself start to panic. I tried not to scream.

  “Oh my god!”

  I started to shake, teeth chattering. I had to look. I needed to make sure.

  But in the deepest, darkest part of me I already knew.

  Slowly I dropped my hands and stared at the hole in the wall. The hole that revealed my heart’s desire.

  My greatest fear.

  Accompanied by the twisting knife of betrayal.

  Betrayal?

  I frowned, my head feeling full and heavy. My feelings were incongruous with my thoughts.

  Things were about to change. For the better. For the worse. I had no control over any of it. And the right now was spinning out of control.

  I let out a noisy breath and got up on my knees, inching my way across the hard concrete. Not caring about the growing collection of scrapes and bruises on my legs. On my hands.

  I pressed my face to the wood and looked through the hole again.

  Maybe I was wrong.

  Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. After all, I couldn’t see that well without my glasses.

  But she was close. Lying on her back, her face turned away from me. Dark hair fanned out around her as though someone had lovingly smoothed it down. I knew what that hair felt like. Silky and soft, running through my fingers like water. I knew the smell. Like cotton candy and trouble.

  “Let’s sing it together, Nora. You have such a nice voice.” Her eyes were so dark but so sincere. I loved spending time with her. Just the two of us.

  I should have known it couldn’t stay that way. That some things were too beautiful to keep, no matter how much I wanted to. No matter how tightly I held on.

  I should have known better than to covet such impossible things.

  Happy endings were reserved for other people. Definitely not for me.

  “Maren,” I breathed, desperate to say the name out loud. Missing the way it felt on my tongue. It had been too many hours, too many days since I had last said it.

  “Maren,” I said again, a little louder, trying to get her attention.

  She didn’t move. I couldn’t see her full lips and perfectly arched eyebrows. I couldn’t see the dimple in her chin or the scar on the side of her neck that she told me was a result of a skateboarding accident when she was six.

  “Maren!” I screamed, choking on her name. Drowning in it.

  “Maren! Maren! Maren!”

  I beat my forehead against the wall, splitting the skin. Blood ran thick and red into my eyes, but I didn’t care.

  Maren was here.

  My sweet, sweet, Maren was here!

  “Look at me! Please!” I begged, digging my fingers into the wood. My nails were bloody stumps, but I’d claw my way in to her if necessary.

  I had to touch her. I had to hold her. I had to know that she was really there. My mind tried to piece together images and disjointed conversations. I remembered her face, radiant and smiling. I remembered the way my stomach clenched and the tight squeeze of my throat.

  The tears.

  The screaming.

  The accusations and bitterness.

  Why was she here?

  “If you wanted to torture me, then you’re doing a damn good job!” I yelled, scratching the wood with ruined fingers.

  My captor knew me well. Too well.

  “Maren, can you hear me?” I was panicking. But I could also recognize the thrill at finding her here. The terror at finding her here.

  “Please, just let me see her,” I cried. Was she breathing? Oh my god, was she even alive?

  I couldn’t tell.

  My stupid, barely functioning eyes couldn’t make out much beyond the familiar curve of her legs. I knew that the skin was smooth and pale beneath her jeans. I could see that she was wearing my favorite long, white T-shirt. The same shirt she had been wearing the day we met.

  Her arm was outstretched beside her, palm upwards, fingers slightly curved. The nails were still a bright scarlet.

  “What do ya think?” Maren asked, holding her hand out in front of her.

  I grabbed her fingers and held them. Her smile faded a bit, but I pretended not to notice. Her hand stiffened in my grasp, but I wouldn’t let her go.

  I held on.

  “I like it. Do you think you could paint mine the same color?” I grinned at her, lacing our fingers together. Palms pressed together. For just a moment.

  Maren laughed and I ignored the sting as she pulled her hand away and wrapped it again around the neck of the guitar in her lap. Because when she looked at me, the rest of the world faded away.

  I stared at my nails. My plain nails free of any color.

  She had never painted them.

  My parched throat burned. My empty stomach rolled.

  “Maren. Maren. Maren,” I blathered on and on. Somehow just saying her name made me feel better. Even if it was obvious she didn’t hear me.

  I couldn’t move away from the hole in the wall. I kept my face pressed against the splintered slats. I watched and waited for a movement. Some small indication that she was okay.

  Of course she’s not okay, you idiot! She’s here, isn’t she? I silently admonished.

  How long had Maren been here? Had she been on the other side of this wall the whole time? She must have been the source of the thumping I had heard . . . was it yesterday?

  The day before yesterday?

  Only an hour ago?

  I had lost track of the days. It didn’t matter.

  Maren was here.

  It all came back to the why.

  The who.

  I w
as even more confused by the realization that I wasn’t the only one locked away.

  I had to remember what happened. That last night we were together. I needed to put it together to get the big picture.

  Then maybe I could get us out of here.

  Because now it wasn’t just my life on the line. It wasn’t just my freedom I had to fight for.

  I had to make sure we both lived through this.

  “I’ll find a way out, Maren. I promise,” I whispered, worried about being overheard.

  But I wouldn’t look away from her. Not yet.

  Not yet.

  The Past

  Four Months Ago

  I sat in front of my window seething.

  I was angry. So angry.

  Bradley hadn’t been to my window in almost a week.

  I couldn’t believe he’d leave me alone on Thursday. He knew what it would do to me to be by myself.

  He was punishing me.

  Or himself.

  I saw him on campus, but he never approached. I wouldn’t go after him. I was infuriated. I was hurt.

  I didn’t appreciate him withholding his presence to teach me some sort of deranged lesson.

  I felt his eyes on me as I walked with Maren. I tried to ignore him. I tried not to care. But I didn’t like him avoiding me.

  It was unusual. He had never been able to stay away from me before.

  He had always been there, whether I wanted him to be or not.

  At first I had hated his faithful, mute witness to the horrible things in my life. But eventually he became my steady pulse. My beating constant.

  He coated my heart in his acrimonious rage, and I had come to depend on it.

  I knew why he was staying away.

  Because of her.

  My Maren.

  I resented his purposeful evasion. He used it like a weapon to injure me.

  And it worked.

  I knew I should speak to him, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what lies to feed him. What truth would make him happy. What could I possibly say to lessen his unrealistic sense of betrayal? Bradley’s world was painted in dark colors and bitter suspicion. His perceptions were shaped by his dreadful experiences, and there was no changing that.

  I couldn’t run after him. I wouldn’t. Though it wasn’t pride that kept me still. That was something I had never had much of to begin with.

  No. It was disappointment that made me silent. That kept me away.

  He hadn’t come to me when I needed him to. Behind a locked door I depended on him. In the hours of sleep we had always been able to keep the other safe.

  But he hadn’t come.

  And forgiving him for that would be hard. No matter the reason.

  I sat in my room staring out towards his house, wondering if he was there. He lacked understanding when I told him that I couldn’t leave my childhood home. He became angry and impassioned despite the fact that he too still lived deep within his own hell.

  The neighborhood had no idea of the horrors that lurked just beyond the pretty red door.

  The home was perfect in that suburbia, apple pie kind of way, with bright blue shutters and pristine white siding. His mother had hung an American flag from the front porch and planted flowers of every color in the pots by the door. The windows were clean and the grass was mowed.

  I knew the darkness that lived there. I had never bothered to ask him why he continued to live there. Why he hadn’t run away as soon as he was able to.

  Like me, he was a prisoner.

  He needed me to make my escape before he was able to make his.

  “Where are you?” I whispered, pressing my hand against the glass.

  My door swung open, but I didn’t startle. I was used to her sudden violations.

  “You can come down for dinner. Rosie’s here. Be polite,” Mother stated, her words clipped and cold.

  My eyes lingered on the Somers’ house, guilt now mixing with the anger I felt towards my best friend. If he wasn’t coming to see me, was he forced to stay there?

  The thought of what that meant for Bradley made my blood run cold, and I hated myself for thinking only of my happiness. Was Maren worth leaving Bradley to his own demons?

  “Did you hear me?” Mother didn’t shout. She didn’t have to.

  I finally looked away from Bradley’s house and turned towards my mother. She was dressed to the nines in a long white skirt that swept the floor and a soft blue blouse with pearl buttons. Her hair, the same color as mine, was swept upwards in a pile of curls on top of her head. She looked lovely. I opened my mouth to tell her so, hoping to please her, but I stopped myself before speaking.

  There was no point. She didn’t care what I thought about anything. I had to learn to stop wasting energy trying to elicit affection from a woman who would never give it.

  It was a painful lesson that had to be learned. No matter how much I tried to cling to the hope that one day she’d love me, she never would.

  “How can I love something that makes me so miserable?”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll come down in a minute,” I said quietly, ducking my head so that I wouldn’t have to look at her. So that she wouldn’t have to look at me.

  “Push your hair out of your face,” she commanded.

  I did as I was told. I waited for her to leave, but she didn’t.

  I glanced up after a few awkward minutes to find her staring at me, a familiar far away expression on her face. My breath caught in my throat.

  Her face softened for just the briefest of moments. Her lips parted and I kept as silent as possible.

  “Life was supposed to be so different.” She smiled and my heart hurt. Sometimes she could look almost . . . soft. Those were times when I saw a different mother. A mother who could love her ugly, unwanted child.

  “Such dreams. So many of them that they filled every corner of this house,” she continued and as usual, I didn’t understand. But I couldn’t help but smile at the tender note in her voice. I loved her like this.

  Then her face froze over and her eyes became hard.

  “You’re hideous. My god, you’re absolutely despicable. That face haunts my nightmares. It is the source of every awful thing in my life!” Her hands were trembling as she pointed a shaking finger in my direction.

  “I tried to fix you! But it didn’t work. Not surgery! Not God! Nothing will take it away!” Her voice rose and rose, and I wished I could cover my ears to block out her words but I couldn’t. She’d never let me. She’d force me to stomach her ire until she was bloated on it.

  Mother calmed slightly, now looking pensive. Her thoughtful expression chilled me.

  “Maybe it is all my fault. After all I should have known better. God hates liars and sinners. I was both. And now I’m forced to suffer the consequences.” Mother’s hands became fists and she was looking at me now, not at long ago memories. “I wish I had done as he had asked and gotten rid of you. Things would have been so different.”

  I had been conditioned to stay quiet while Mother expelled her venom. I looked back towards Bradley’s house and something inside me snapped. Not a total break, but the smallest of fractures.

  “What am I a consequence of, Mother? What did you do?” I took a step towards her. Something in my face must have alarmed her. Her eyes widened and she stiffened.

  “Stop blaming me for things I can’t control! This grief is because of you!” I shouted. I wanted to cover my mouth, horrified by my outburst. Already preparing myself for her retaliation.

  “Don’t speak to me that way!” Mother gasped.

  I dug my nails into my palms, needing the pain to ground me. “Why can’t you love me?” I beseeched, wanting to get her attention. Needing her to tell me why.

  Mother parted her lips just slightly and I thought, perhaps, she was prepared to finally give me an answer. She looked at me long and hard. I couldn’t read her expression, but there was a momentary softening that made my stomach flip over. I had never s
een her look at me in that way before. Like perhaps she was finally seeing me.

  We stood, frozen, staring at one another. A thousand spoken and unspoken words floating in the air between us. There was so much hurt, bitterness, sorrow that I knew, without a doubt; we would never have any sort of normal relationship.

  But if she could just explain to me why she had spent my entire life wishing me dead, then maybe I could find some sort of peace in this reality I endured with her.

  I should have known better than to expect anything. Particularly from Mother.

  She turned on her heel and walked out of my room, speaking over her shoulder. “Rosie’s hungry. Don’t make us wait on you.” A threat was implied. I had no intentions of ever making her wait.

  When my mother was gone, I sat down on my bed and covered my horrible, horrible face with my hands. I couldn’t believe that I had actually spoken to her that way.

  Where had it come from?

  I grinned behind my palms. It had felt good. But that little sense of victory didn’t last long.

  When I finally came downstairs, I wasn’t surprised to find Mother and Rosie already sitting at the dining room table, their plates full of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. There was even a Key Lime pie and homemade rolls. All of Rosie’s favorites. Mine too but that didn’t matter. This food was for the lovely woman sitting beside my mother. Eating. Talking. Laughing. Loving and enjoying each other.

  I thought of how my mother had gazed at me upstairs. The soft, thoughtful way she had regarded me. The disgust had been gone. The hatred was non-existent.

  For just a moment.

  Unconsciously I ran my finger over the scars on my face. For a few seconds I didn’t feel quite so . . . appalling. It would be a new memory that I tucked away. I would pull it out in the dark hours to keep me company.

  I made some sort of noise. A cough. An audible swallow. Mother looked towards me and I saw only irritation.

  Repugnance.

  Shame.

  Rosie smiled dutifully. Insincerely. I didn’t smile back. I sat down in my chair on the other side of the table. Far away from both of them.

  My eyes blurred and for a moment I couldn’t see. I felt an intense pain in my temple and I rubbed the spot.