Page 3 of Reckless Liar

My mother picked me up that day and drove me to their home, depositing me in my childhood bedroom and shutting the door. I spent days sleeping under the sunflower comforter of my youth, the walls around me adorned with posters of boy bands and Audrey Hepburn. I wish I could say I dreamed of Max, but I don’t remember my dreams. Only that upon waking I had a moment where I forgot what had happened. Then I’d lose him all over again.

For the first few weeks there, I hardly left my parent’s house except when my mother forced me to walk with her and her two border collies—Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. We’d walk from their house up the long dirt road, taking the wooded path that cut right into the baseball fields bordering the high school. My parents lived close enough to the school that I was never offered bus service growing up. But we were far enough I’d have to slosh through the muck, arriving at school with mud splattered jeans and the faint stench of earth clinging to me all day, despite theLove Spellbody spray I doused myself in before leaving the house. I wasn’t the only one suffering through the weather. October to April is notoriously soggy in the pacific northwest.

Despite my mother trying to distract me from my grief, everything reminded me of Max. The opening of the trailhead across the street from St. Olaf’s, nicknamed ‘The Hole’ where we would sneak out to smoke cigarettes and take turns having tiny sips of the brandy Peter Jorgensen swiped from the Ridgewood Yacht Club where his father was the general manager. I’d think of how Max and I would slip away together, sit on fallen logs, talking, kissing, laughing, and sometimes fighting. What I wouldn’t give to fight with him one more time.

Without him, the air was heavy with absence. When I closed my eyes, I felt the phantom of his touch on me—the whisper of his hand against my back—then the force of nothing at all.

After six months of fog at my parents, I knew I needed to face reality. If I didn’t go back, I could pretend his coat would no longer be hung wrong on the back of the chair, that his toothpaste was tucked between the back of the faucet and the wall. I needed to face the absence of these little things that reminded me of him. Then I needed to figure out how to put my fractured pieces back together and act as if my world wasn’t falling into rain around my feet.

Pullingintothegraveldriveway, the tires made the familiar crunch as I slowed. Six months after Max died and everything looked the same. Gripping the steering wheel, I glanced up at the duplex. Next door, Mrs. Holland peeked out her window, her eyes glaring at me. She never liked us living next door and would complain each time we made the slightest noise after nine p.m.

Before, when I’d catch Mrs. Holland spying on us, I’d give her an exaggerated wave and smile at her, yelling, “Good morning, Mrs. Holland. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

There would be a lot of “befores” now.

The spot where Max’s car should be parked sat empty. He abandoned his car at his friend’s house months before he passed. He’d talked about getting the parts to fix it, but that costs money, and without a steady job, he was broke. There was little left of his paychecks when most of the money went to all the things that he chose over me.

Seeing the empty spot on the side of the house made my chest burn. I knew what I’d find inside, and I knew what I wouldn’t.

As I parked in front of the house, coming back seemed like a horrific idea. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk in there. I turned the key in the ignition, then killed it. Turned the key, killed it, turned the key, and killed it. My heart beat fast in my chest as I performed the ritual over and over. I could see Max’s face, feel the scrape of his stubble against my mouth. My hands shaking, I laid my head on the steering wheel and squeezed my eyes shut.

A knock on my window startled me out of my stupor. I looked out my window to see Xander peering down at me, his brow furrowed. We stared at each other as I tried to figure out what I was going to do. He had a smudge of dirt in his eyebrow, a single fleck of grass in the middle. I brought my hand down, gripping the key in the ignition. I pulled it out and then stuck it back in, pulled it out and stuck it back in, and pulled it out, then stuck it back in, and then pulled it out. Holding the keys in my hand, the teeth from my house key dug into the soft flesh of my palm.

Opening my car door, Xander crouched down in the space between the door and my seat. His legs were so long he was practically sitting on the ground in his squat position. His hazel eyes soft, he assessed me. “Hey, Ana-Sweet.”

“Hey,” my voice cracked at his use of the nickname Xander began using for me in junior high.

“I didn’t know you were coming home today.”

I glanced at the house. At my parents, it was easier to forget about what happened. I knew the keening affliction that was waiting for me at our house would be so much worse. “I still don’t know if I can.”

He placed his hand on my arm, rubbing it softly. Instinctively, I leaned into him. Tears leaked out of my eyes, ruining my mother’s yellow silk tunic she shoved at me earlier that morning.

“I’ll wait here with you until you’re ready.”

I considered telling him I didn’t need him to help me, that I was okay, that I could do this alone. When I said nothing, he reached down and took my hand. His palm was calloused from long hours of landscaping. I looked down at our hands clasped together. Squeezing his hand once before pulling away, warmth flooded through me. I hadn’t been warm since that day; the contrast was amazing.

“Thanks, Xan.”

I wiped the tears off my face, smearing my makeup worse than ever. I pushed the button for my seatbelt, then shoved the buckle back in. Xander stepped aside so I could climb out, watching as I unbuckled my seatbelt three times. Once I was out, he reached inside, grabbing my bag sitting on the passenger seat.

On the porch, the Adirondack chair where I’d sit when Max called me to pick him up in those last few days was still angled the same, overlooking a small sliver of Freedom Bay through the trees. The house was in a state of stagnation. In the July heat, it was hotter than it’d been since I’d been there in January. I glanced around the living room. Several dirty coffee mugs littered the side table. The stereo was left on, the radio played softly in the kitchen.

“Like I said earlier, I didn’t know you were coming home. I would have picked up better if I’d known...” he trailed off, dragging his hand through his blond curls.

“It’s okay, Xander,” I said as I took in the rooms. “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

Sitting on the couch, I looked across the room at the stairwell. It was all too real. The vision of Max’s body was being wheeled away. The dull clack of the wheels against the carpet, the spot where the stretcher hit the wall, leaving behind a black smudge. My heart sped up, the blood rushing to my face as I struggled for breath. I could feel it again—the chill in the air as the door kept opening for medical personnel. The smell of antiseptic and rubber in the air. The loud stomp of their boots as they climbed the stairs.

I rubbed my chest as I struggled to catch my breath. Pinching my outer thigh, my thumbnail dug into my soft flesh. I let go, then pinched again, let go, then pinched, let go.

Xander sat next to me, his arm going around my shoulders. “Hey, hey. Breathe, one deep breath. Through your nose, take in one good breath.”

The weight of his arm on my shoulders pulled me into him. Looking into his hazel eyes, I listened to his words as I strained to breathe, following his instructions.

“Good. Breathe in through your nose, now blow out through your mouth.” He held my arm tight, my body fitting under his arm. I tried to replicate the way he was breathing. “Great. Out goes the bad air, in goes the good. Over and over, you can do this, Liliana. We can do this. I’m here, I’ve got you.”

Taking in his words, I kept breathing, letting them wash over me.

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