Liar (30 page)

“Zach,” I said, pulling away. “I have to—”

“Go,” he finished for me. “I know, I know. Just a little bit longer . . .”

“No, not that. I have to tell you something.”

“Now?” he asked, kissing me again, pulling me onto his lap.

“Yes, now,” I said. He ran his fingers lightly along my flank. I felt it down deep inside me, where the wolf lives. “Oh,” I said.

“Mmmm,” he murmured, kissing the side of my neck. Warmth spread from flank to neck. My lips buzzed, my toes.

“I'm . . . ,” I started, determined to tell him. “I am . . .” I paused, thinking how to phrase it, trying not to be distracted by how warm and good and buzzing I felt. Should I say,
I am a wolf?
Or
I am a werewolf?
Which would sound less crazy? What should I say next to prove I wasn't nuts?

“Micah?” said a voice that sounded just like my mother's. “Is that you?”

I twisted on Zach's lap. Mom and Dad. Right there in Tompkins Square Park.

“What the hell?” my father said.

Zach and me, we jumped up, but we were tangled, his chin hit my cheekbone, my elbow got him in the chest. I fell. He fell. We stumbled up and away from each other. He looked down. I looked at my parents standing there, glowering.

“I don't know who you are, young man,” my father said, “but you need to leave.”

“It's a public park,” I said, not sure why I was fighting them. I was busted.

“Go,” my mother said to Zach.

Zach nodded, his head still down. “I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't—we didn't . . . I respect—”

“Go
now
,” Dad said.

Zach went, looking back at me for half a second, hand half raised. I smiled back at him.

“Wipe that smile off your face!” Dad yelled.

I tried not to laugh. He'd never said stuff like that before: “Young man,” “Wipe that smile off.” It was like he was quoting from a ye olden days handbook of angry parenting.

“Are you insane?” Dad asked in a lower tone, aware now that some of the hipsters and homeless were looking at us, wryly amused. “Why would you take such a crazy risk?”

He grabbed my arm. I didn't shake him off despite really wanting to. Mom gave me her most powerful I-am-disappointed-and-ashamed-of-you look.

“We're going home. We'll talk about this there.” Dad turned on his heel, pulling me along behind him. I kept my eyes down, dragging my feet all the way along Seventh Street.

Home was more haranguing. Lots of words repeated over and over:
trust, dangerous, responsible, disappointed
. They yelled; I listened.

Except for when they demanded to know if we'd had sex and I insisted we hadn't.

That was that. I was grounded.

Zach died the next weekend.

LIE NUMBER SEVEN

Me and Zach slept together. Made love. Had sex. Fucked. Explored every inch of each other's bodies.

Not once, many times, lots of times, all the time.

I liked it. He liked it.

Other than running it was what we did most.

We couldn't keep our hands off each other. It was like the pull of magnets, magnets that sparked when contact was made. Not sparked, exploded.

It was worst in school. We had to avoid each other. Sit nowhere near at lunch. Opposite sides of the classroom. The only way I could not look at him was to keep my eyes down. Otherwise it was impossible.

I burned. He burned.

Sometimes in class—even in bio—my concentration was shot. Even when I couldn't see him, I could smell him, which was worse.

There were days I didn't think I'd make it. I'd close my eyes. Imagine pulling him into the janitor's closet. Or worse, leaping across desks, jumping on him, demonstrating the reproductive systems, then and there, in front of Yayeko and the whole class.

Sometimes it would make me sweat, make me damp between my legs. I'd have to run to the bathroom. Stick my head under the cold water faucet. Slap my face. Do anything but think about Zach. Plug my nose with cotton balls so I couldn't smell him.

Every day at school I managed not to touch him, not to look his way was a triumph. It was also a lie. Other than keeping my wolfishness hidden, my biggest lie.

I don't understand how we got away with it for so long. How did no one notice? Except Brandon, and that was only because he saw us.

People are blind.

Same as you, if you believed what I said earlier, that we never made it past first base. How dumb can you be?

About as dumb as everyone at school. When they found out they didn't believe it.

It was a relief to be busted. Except that Zach was dead, so there was nothing to hide.

Now I'm not lying. I lied to my parents, but not to you.

They can't know because I swore to them that I hadn't, that I wouldn't. They were so freaked when they caught me and Zach kissing, so afraid of me fooling around. Afraid that it would unleash the wolf, afraid that I'd get pregnant and make more beasts. Afraid of me.

So I lied. When they caught us I told them that was the only thing we'd done together: kissing, nothing more. And the only time. I told them I was curious. That I wouldn't do it again.

But that's not why I lied to you. Not entirely. I mean, I was in the habit of keeping it hidden: from my parents, from everyone at school, most especially from Sarah.

I wanted you to think that I'm a good girl. Good girls don't kill.

Sex is beastly, animal, out of control. The feeling I get from fucking is not so far from how I feel when I hunt, when I bring down prey. The two are too close. Too intimate. Too likely to get confused. Not by me, by
you
.

I did not kill Zach.

AFTER

“You need to bring him here,” Grandmother says. We're out on the porch in rocking chairs. Grandmother has a rug over her legs. Great-Aunt Dorothy is knitting something orange. I'm staring at the trees and trying not to scratch my arm where the new hair has come in. I've timed my visit badly. The place is overrun with wolves. The pull of so many changes is fierce: the hair starts to sprout within three hours of getting there. I can feel my heart beating faster.

Great-Aunt nods. “Get him out of the city. Bring him here. We'll take care of him.” The click of her needles takes on an ominous sound.

The packet of birth control pills is in the breast pocket of my shirt. I keep them there when I'm with the Greats and don't want to change. That way Grandmother won't find them when she looks through my stuff. I put my hand over the pocket. Maybe the hormones will soak through the foil and cardboard and cloth into my fingertips, keep the change at bay.

“Take care of him?” I ask, though I think I understand what they're saying.

Grandmother tut-tuts and presses her index finger to her bottom lip. I'm not sure if she's shushing me or telling me not to worry.

“It means he won't be killing any more people,” Great-Aunt Dorothy says.

“Not ever,” Grandmother says.

“Because you'll kill him?”

Grandmother nods and Great-Aunt clicks her needles louder.

“Good. He deserves to die. How will I get him up here?” I don't even know how to find him.

Grandmother laughs. It's a weird sound. More of a bark really. I'm not sure I've heard her laugh before. “Ask him. He'll follow.”

I'm not sure I want him to. I'm relieved they haven't told me to kill him but I'm also angry. Which emotion is stronger? I don't know. What would it be like to kill another human being? I don't want to know. Yet I do. Part of me wants to fuck Zach's killer up.

Can
I just leave it to them? The Greats didn't even know Zach and if they had, they don't give a damn about anyone who isn't family, who isn't wolfish.

“We told you,” Grandmother says, “that it's dangerous having wolves in the city. We don't belong. None of us belong there.”

I don't roll my eyes because this time they're right: if the white boy wasn't in the city he wouldn't have killed Zach. He doesn't belong there. But I'm different: I can control the change.

“Is he
Canis lupus
or
dirus
?” Great-Aunt wants to know.

“
Lupus
, I think. He's scrawny. Not as tall as me.”

“That doesn't mean anything,” Grandmother objects. “How old is he?”

“I don't know. I think he's my age. Maybe younger.”

“Hasn't hit his growth spurt then, has he?” Grandmother tuts at my stupidity. “Besides,
Canis dirus
isn't much bigger than us.”

“Teeth are,” Great-Aunt says. Her needles click to emphasize her point.

“A bit,” Grandmother says, waving Great-Aunt Dorothy's words aside with her hands. “They're slower than us anyhow. Shorter legs. Doesn't matter what size their teeth are. That's why
they're
extinct.”

“Except as werewolves,” I say.

Grandmother tuts at me for saying the obvious.

“What difference does it make then?” I ask. “Whether he's
dirus
or
lupus
?”

Grandmother and Great-Aunt exchange looks. I'm supposed to already know, or this is information I'm not ready for, or they're tired of talking. It's hard to know which.

Out in the forest one of my kin howls. The too-dense hair on my arms stands on end.

Grandmother tuts again. “That's where you should be,” she says. “Not sitting on a rocking chair.”

AFTER

I don't change, but it's close.

On Sunday, my one non-wolf uncle takes me to the train station in the horse and buggy. I wear long sleeves and pull my hat down low over my eyes to hide the eyebrows that now meet in the middle, threatening to take over my face. My back is aching and my eyes hurt.

I'm hoping that getting away from the farm, from all the wolves, will reverse the change.

The horses shy away from me when I climb onto the seat. They take coaxing to head into town. I try not to scratch at the coarse hair all over my body. I tell myself it's receding. My heart beats too fast. I ache.

“Coming back in the summer?” my uncle asks.

He's not a talker so the question startles me. “Yes,” I say at last. “Always.”

Neither of us mentions that if the change doesn't slow soon we'll have to turn the cart around and go back to the farm. He grunts and there's no further conversation.

It takes an hour to get to the station. Not until we're at the fringes of the town can I be sure that the change is unwinding: my heart slows, the aches dull.

My uncle glances at my now normal hands and lets me off at the station. He rides away without waiting to see if the train's late. It is. It always is: on time leaving the city; late, late, late going back.

I'm hungry but I don't have enough money for even a candy bar out of the vending machine. What little I had went on the return ticket up here. Metro-North doesn't come this far upstate, and Amtrak's expensive.

On the train, everyone around me is eating: McDonald's, bags of chips, sushi. The old man next to me has two huge meat sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, oozing mustard and pickles. The smell is sharp in my nostrils. I press my face to the window and watch the Hudson, trying not to think about food, or the white boy, or Zach, or anything else that makes the muscles of my stomach contract. It's not easy. I wish once again that Zach had not died, that my life was where it had been.