Page 5 of Little Liar
They have Rex.
“We need to head off soon, but we have a bet on who can force you to make a sound. You’re like a little mouse, aren’t you, kid? It’s sad.” He looks over at the picture of me, Mommy, and Daddy, all three of us happy as I smile wide for the camera in my daddy’s arms. Our dogs were sitting nice for the picture too. “Good life turned bad and all.”
He sighs deeply and takes Rex in his palm. “Can you count?” he asks me.
I nod once, shakily. My teeth crush together as I keep my eyes on my friend.
Then everything within me screams as he slowly, one-by-one, pulls Rex’s legs off. He tells me to count, to speak up, to scream,and then when he realizes I’m not going to make a sound, he crushes my best friend in his hand, drops him on the floor, and slams his boot down.
I should scream. I should cry. I should do something.
But I couldn’t protect him, just like I couldn’t protect Mommy.
I failed.
“He’s severely emaciated,” a lady says as the doctor shines a light in my eyes. “He had a soiled diaper on when they found him. Sores and rashes all over him.”
Someone tuts, and I’m scared. I feel sleepy, and I want my mommy and daddy. I want to go home.
“The father?”
“Dead. Suicide,” someone adds quietly, but my hearing is better than ever since I stopped talking, like I can focus more on my surroundings. “Child services are conducting a meeting as we speak for an emergency home.”
“This kid isn’t leaving this hospital anytime soon. Can we get more fluids? And we need bloods checked. There are pin pricks on his arms and at the bottoms of his feet.”
“He has a dead spider in his pocket.” The lady’s voice trails off. “Christ,” she whispers.
I blink. They keep asking me things, but I don’t answer them. They might hurt me too.
A tear slips down my cheek when I think of how long I lay on the floor with Rex and my mommy. They wouldn’t wake up. More tears spill, and I feel a hand on my shoulder, making me flinch and pull away.
“You’re safe now,” the lady says. “Can you tell me your name?”
They already know my name.
I’m Malachi.
I keep my lips still and screw my eyes closed. Maybe if I count to ten, they’ll all disappear.
I count in my head.
I don’t know how high I count before I fall asleep again.
2
Malachi - Aged 8
Weeks later, when I go to my first new home, they keep me in my room because I make their kids sad since I don’t talk.
I’m sent back to the big building filled with kids until another family comes for me. I’m not sure how many times this happens. How many new mommies and daddies pick up their new children and look happy and mine look terrified, but it keeps going and going. No one wants me as their son. No one ever picks me out of the group. I’m handed to families who are desperate, but it never works out for either of us.
When I turn eight, I don’t get any birthday cards or a cake like the other kids in the orphanage—I sit under the bed with a drawing of my spider and imagine a crowd of people singing happy birthday to me, and we blow out candles that I draw.
I close my eyes and make a wish.
I wish someone would choose me.
The footsteps come, and my door opens, and I wait for my leg to get pulled. It won’t. It’s what they call a trauma response to my past. It’s the nightmare I can’t pull away from. I glance up from under the bed.
