Lie for Me (2 page)

“Welcome to the Bubble,” he says.

“Are all the girls like that?”

“Like Jenna?”

“No, like the other one.” I don't want to say Wick's name. For some reason, it feels personal, like I would be giving Ben something to use against me. “The purple-haired girl.”

“God, no. She lives near that new place you're going to rent. Couple streets over.” Ben's gaze slants to mine, brows raised. “She's probably an easy hit if you want it.”

“That's not why I asked.”

He snorts. “What else would you want with her?”

I have no idea how to explain it. There was just something about the way Wick looked at Jenna and the teacher and, hell, at
all of us
as we stared. She didn't look scared. She looked like she was going to set something on fire.

No. No, that's not right. I've seen plenty of pissed-off chicks over the years. It's the way she looked alone. Surrounded by all those people, she was still alone. I get that.

I feel it all the time too.

So, yeah, that's how I came to Peachtree-freaking-City, that's how I got to know my cousin, and that's the first time I saw Wick. Stupid if you think about it, but I haven't been able to look away from her since.

1

Yesterday . . .

So the thing is, my mom won't get out of bed again. This is the worst it's ever been—four full days now—and I don't know what to do. My dad's still looking for work, we're almost out of food stamps, and her work's called twice. I told the manager, some guy named Sipkins, that she had the flu.

“There are a lot of people out there who would like her job, son.”

“I know.” I stare at my mom's bedroom door, remembering how she complains about this guy. She's right. He
is
a mouth breather.

“I'm being very generous here.”

“We really appreciate your patience, sir.” I hate how I have to suck up to him, act grateful for a job that pays only half our trailer rent. At most. Even though we'd be even more screwed without the money, I'm instantly pissed at Sipkins. Then again, I should probably be more pissed at myself. I suck up easily. I'm good at it—especially with people like him. I've had way too much practice.

“Well.” Sipkins heaves a heavy sigh. “I'll let her slide this time.”

I grit my teeth. “Thank you, sir. We're really grateful.” I hang up, but can't seem to let go of the phone. If we go on much longer like this, Sipkins won't even be able to call us. If I picked up another lawn-mowing job, I could probably—a car pulls into our driveway, parks.

My heart jerks into my throat.
Is that Dad? Is he home?

I part the flower-patterned curtains above the sink and sag. It's not my dad. It's my cousin Ben, and I have to take two long breaths, pretend Sipkins never happened so I can get through the next fifteen minutes.

“Griff?” Ben shoulders through our flimsy metal door, paper grocery bag tucked in the crook of his arm. He bumps the door closed with his hip, bumps it again because you can still hear the wind whistling around the frame.

“That's as closed as it gets,” I say.

“Oh.” Ben puts the grocery bag on the table and both of us pretend it isn't there. In the beginning, we had this awkward exchange of thank-yous and you're-welcomes. As time went on, the politeness kind of fell off because it made us both feel weird. It's hard enough receiving charity from your extended family, but giving it, I guess, can be just as awkward because I could see how much Ben hated each of my thank-yous.

Almost as much as I hated giving them.

“What's the deal with your neighbors?” Ben drops into the nearest chair and pushes a hand over his close-cropped dark hair.

“Which one?”

My cousin's laugh is short and hard. “The fact that you have to
ask
proves my point that this neighborhood is a shithole. You need to get out of here. I'm talking about the ones who look like meth addicts. You have any anonymous tips you want to give me?”

“Not really.” Couldn't if I wanted to actually. I know who he's talking about—young couple who come and go at all hours of the night—but I don't know their names. The renters in that trailer never stay long. There's no point in making friends, even if it is to throw my cousin a tip. Ben's been with the Peachtree City Police Department since graduating high school two years ago. He loves it and is always looking for a way to impress his bosses.

“You want some water or something?” I ask. I sound like I'm on the phone with Sipkins again. It's like I can't turn it off sometimes.

“Nah.” Ben nudges his chin toward my mom's bedroom door. “So is she still . . . ?”

“Yeah.”

My cousin sighs in a way that
always
makes me want to punch him. “You should come home with me.”

“Then she'd really be alone.”

“You can't save her, Griff.” Ben shakes his head, turning the words carefully like he's imparting great wisdom to me. “Women like that . . . you can't save them. You have to save yourself.”

“By
ditching
her?”

“Maybe it would wake her up.”

“Maybe it would make her worse.”

“Look, Griff, she's my aunt. I care about her too, but I'm getting really close to calling DFCS. You're a minor. It's my duty.”

Duty as family? Or duty as a police officer?
I don't ask. I don't want to know. I'm suddenly so tired I want to sink through the floor. I want out of here—not just on my own, but with her, with her the way she used to be. Maybe it's staying here that's killing her.

I push the small of my back against the countertop. “You're going to call Child Services and get me put into foster care? Not likely. Then she'd be your problem.” I didn't realize how true it was until I said it, watched Ben shudder. It's so like my own, I pause.

Is that how I look when I stare at her? God, I hope not. Ben and I may have the same blood, but we're not the same people. Or at least I don't want us to be.

“I'm not leaving her, Ben.”

“Fine. Whatever. I have another job for you.”

I stand straighter. “Yeah?”

“There's a detective in a different department who needs help investigating a potential credit card scam.” My cousin glances across the living room at my mom's closed bedroom door, studying the wood veneer like it has some answer. “Computer thing—just your speed. Off the record, of course, but it's good money.”

Now I'm the one to look away. “I appreciate the offer, but we're doing okay.”

Such a lie. I'm out of jobs, out of money. I should pawn my computer or sell my bike and yet I can't bring myself to do it. They're all I have left. I'll have to tap the buried emergency fund, and after that . . . I don't know. I do know it's kind of funny Ben wants to hire me for computer work when I might not be able to keep the electricity on long enough to finish the job.

“What will it take?” Ben asks, and my neck goes hot. I'm so tired of being his charity case.

I'm tired of being everyone's charity case.

“It would take something I'd actually want,” I say, forcing myself to meet his eyes. He's trying to help. I don't need to be a jerk about it. “We're doing fine. I like firewall stuff, but the kind of work you'd need for a credit card scam is beyond me. I don't want to promise anything I can't deliver on. My dad should call soon. Once he's settled—”

“Yeah, we need to talk about that.” Ben's tone rolls lower like he's sharing a secret, and my stomach goes cold. It's probably the same voice he uses when issuing tickets. It's two parts authority, one part condescension. “Your dad's not in California. He's not looking for work. He's hiding. From you two.”

No way. My dad wouldn't do that. My dad would have told me. My dad would not have
left
us.

I don't trust myself to say any of that though, so I say nothing and Ben stares me down, gaze crawling over my face.

“Prove it,” I say at last.

Ben nods, starts for the door, and after a beat, I follow.

2

We take Ben's police cruiser to the east side of Atlanta, wind through older neighborhoods with leafy trees and cracked sidewalks. The houses look like something out of the seventies, but they're well kept: nice lawns, recent paint jobs.

No trailers.

Ben takes a left and slows down as we reach a small, tan, ranch-style home. All the lights are on, and in the growing dark, the square picture window flickers blue from the television. Inside, a blond woman crosses the living room, hands someone a glass, and—

My shoulders hit the seat back. That's my dad.

“How . . .” I swallow around the sudden, stupid lump in my throat. “How did you find him?”

“Little bit of luck actually.” Ben pushes lower in his seat, fingers tapping against the steering wheel. “One of the guys from my department recently transferred to the city and moved into a house a few streets over. He recognized your dad last week and called me.”

“I don't understand.”

Ben exhales hard. “Yeah, you do. You just don't want to.”

As we watch, the blond woman turns, greeting two small boys who hurtle in from another room. They run straight past her . . . to him. I lean forward, noticing how we have the same dark hair, the same wiry build. My stomach thumps into my feet.

“How old do you think they are?” Ben asks. “Two or three?”

“No idea,” I say, but I understand what Ben's getting at: timeline. I don't know squat about children. I do know these two look like him—nothing like me—and if they're around two or three, that means my dad took up with their mom shortly after we moved here.

“You seen enough?” Ben keeps his eyes on the house, and as my dad hugs the two boys, my fingers wrap around the armrest and tighten.

“Yeah.”

Ben puts the car into drive, pulls away from the house and onto the main road. I can tell he's waiting for me to say something. It's certainly a moment that deserves it, but right now I'm shoving together pieces I didn't understand—pieces I didn't realize I didn't understand—until now.

This is why he traveled so much.

This is why we never had enough money.

This is the real reason he left us.

Ben and I make it all the way back to my neighborhood without a word between us. He idles the car alongside our driveway and, as I start to get out, grabs my sleeve.

“You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?” he asks.

“No. Nothing stupid.” There's no need. I've already been stupid. I went with Ben and now I'm going to have to go back inside and look at my mom and pretend I don't know so I never tell her.

All that is stupid enough.

I should tell my mom. She deserves the truth.

Except that's what I thought I deserved, and now that I have it . . . I feel worse. Nothing's changed. The truth didn't set me free. Everything's still the same: He's still gone. She's still in bed. I'm still . . . alone.

“You going to tell May?” Ben asks.

“Hell no.”

“You're both better off without him.”

I stare straight ahead; focus on the seep of shadows at the bottom of our street. Ben and Charlotte are always saying things like that. They're the Proper Side of the family, the side who remembers when my mom was a Good Girl. Then she married my dad. They think he's trash. I'm not sure what that makes me.

“Tell me the truth,” Ben says. “How bad are you two doing?”

“We've been better.” Right now, we have $12.04 in the checking account and another hundred under two feet of dirt in the backyard. My mom knows all about the first and nothing about the second.

If she did, the hundred I earned from mowing lawns last month would be gone, and I'm not sure which scares me more right now: that we don't even have two hundred bucks to our name, or that, if we did, I couldn't trust my mom with it.

Ben shifts the car into park at my driveway, leaning one arm against the console to get a better look at me. “So. The job.”

“I could learn it as I go.” I think. I'm almost positive. “Whatever you need, I'm in.”

“
Knew
you'd come through for me.” Ben moves like he might slap my shoulder, but thinks better of it. “When can you start?”

“Depends.” There's my mom to deal with, the research I'll have to do. Credit card scams aren't my thing. I'll need some time to prepare. “I'll call you, okay?”

“Yeah.”

I get out of the cruiser, shuffle up the trailer stairs, and unlock the door. I'm here, but I'm not here. My head's still so wrapped around my dad, I don't even notice my mom. She's awake—in the
kitchen
—and for a long moment, we just stare at each other.

“Hey, honey.” Her smile is tremulous, almost a spasm.

“Hey. You're up.” I sound positive, like my eyes aren't snagging on the stained tee she's been wearing for a week now and my nose can't smell the sour sweat on her skin.

“I am up.” She doesn't sound positive at all. Mom sounds like she knows what I'm thinking and it depresses her even more. I am an ass.

Mom nudges her chin toward the lasagna heating in the microwave. “Did Charlotte come by?”

“No, she sent Ben.”

“Good.” Mom rubs her eyes so hard I wince. I sit down at the table, brush my homework to the side so she'll have a place to sit and eat. “I can't deal with Char right now,” she continues.

Or ever.
I deal with my aunt more than Mom does.

“She's worried about you,” I say, and the words are lying between us before I realize I shouldn't have said anything.