Page 36 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
It’s an accident. A reflex. An instinct built by ten years of tacking those two words onto the end of every phone call with my parents, every holiday, every goodbye after a long summer on Cradle Island.Loveslips out just as naturally as addinghow are youto the end ofhello.
The surprise on Manuel’s face is obvious. His eyebrows climb higher than I’ve ever seen them go before.
“Oh. Uh.” I realize what I’ve done almost immediately. I keep my face completely neutral, watching him without expectation or acknowledgment, as if love is something we toss around on a daily basis.Don’t panic, I think loudly, hoping the words will reach him.Please don’t panic.
“I…love you…too!” He turns and runs down the stairs. The car door opens and shuts. I can’t be sure, but from behind the windshield, I think I see a smile.
—
AT THE END OF THOSEtwo weeks together, I feel the best I’ve felt in months. The Worries? Gone. Silent.
That’s it, I think as I watch the black car drive away.That’s my cure. He’s my cure.
I close my eyes. I imagine a grey shower plug at the base of my skull, the same kind I have in my bathtub. I imagine reaching around my head and pulling the plug. A gaping hole opens at the bottom of my skull. I watch as all the Worries—the noise and pollution and terror that have clogged my brain for the last severalmonths—drain out. All of them. Every last drop. They drain away. They drain away and my head is empty, and I’ve never been so happy to be empty-headed in my life.
I exhale.
But then again…
The exhale stops.
But then again, there was that first night, when Manuel asked you about Henry.
No. Shut up. You’re supposed to be gone.
Manuel saw Henry’s empty bedroom and all the pictures and flowers. He asked you about Henry, and you lied.
I didn’t lie. I told him what happened. Go away.
Right. You told Manuel your brother was hit by a car. But you left out a few key details, didn’t you?
Did I?
You left out what happened after the funeral. You left out how easy it’s been for you, how you’ve barely cried, how for a long time you thought you weren’t even sad. You left out all the parts that make you look bad. And if you only tell the parts of the story that make you look good, isn’t that just as bad as lying?
Is it?
Doesn’t Ms.Collins say that “lies of omission” are just as bad as regular lies?
I guess so.
Leaving things out is just another kind of lie. You have to tell Manuel. If you don’t, that makes you a liar.
But if I tell him, he’ll think I’m a bad person. He’ll think I’m crazy. He won’t want to be my friend anymore.
But if you don’t tell him, you’ll feel guilty about lying.
I turn around and open the front door. I run through the hallway, up the stairs, into my bedroom. Slam the door.
Guilt stays with you. Forever. Next time you see your best friend,you’ll know you lied. You’ll carry that guilt everywhere you go. Homeroom. Sleepovers. Lunch tables. Laps around the field. If you stay friends forever, you’ll still carry that guilt with you. You’ll be ninety years old and laughing with your best friend at the nursing home and trying to be happy, but at the back of your mind, you’ll always remember that you lied to him, that you’re a liar, that you don’t deserve his friendship.
Shut up, I say to the now familiar voice in my head, the one that isn’t me but is inside me and so must be me—who else could it be?
How are you supposed to live with yourself now, hmm? How?
That’s when I understand, I think. Lying on the floor of my bedroom, hands pressed to my ears. That’s when I get it. This voice, these thoughts. These Worries. They aren’t temporary. This is my new reality.
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