Part 20 (1/2)

It never gets any better.

Yet that's not the worst danger of being a liar. Oh no. Much worse than discovery, than their sense of betrayal, is when you start to believe your own lies.

When it all blurs together.

You lose track of what's real and what's not. You start to feel as if you make the world with your words. Your lies get stranger and weirder and denser, get bigger than words, turn into worlds, become real.

You feel powerful, invincible.

”Oh sure,” you say, completely believing it. ”My family's an old family. Going way way way back. We work curse magic. Me, I can make your hand wither on your arm. I could turn you into a cat.”

Once you start believing, you stop being compulsive and morph into pathological.

It happens a lot after something terrible has happened. The brain cracks, can't accept the truth, and makes its own. Invents a bigger and better world that explains the bad thing, makes it possible to keep living. When the world you're seeing doesn't line up with the world that is-you can wind up doing things-terrible things-without knowing it.

Not good.

Because that's when they lock you up and there's no coming back because you're already locked up: inside your own head. Where you're tall and strong and fast and magic and the ruler of all you survey.

I have never gone that far.

But there are moments. Tiny ones when I'm not entirely clear whether it happened or I made it up. Those moments scare me much more than getting caught. I've been caught. I know what that's like. I've never gone crazy. I don't want to know what that's like.

Weaving lies is one thing; having them weave you is another.

That's why I'm writing this. To keep me from going over the edge. I don't want to be a liar anymore. I want to tell my stories true.

But I haven't so far. Not entirely. I've tried. I've really, really tried. I've tried harder than I ever have. But, well, there's so much and it's so hard.

I slipped a little. Just a little.

I'll make it up to you, though.

From now on it's nothing but the truth.

Truly.

LIE NUMBER ONE.

Yayeko Shoji, my biology teacher, did not describe the decomposition of Zach's body.

I made that up.

Yayeko did not tell us about the pooling of Zach's blood, his calcium ions' leak, his rigor mortis, the breakdown of his cells. She did not tell us about bacteria, flies, eggs, or maggots.

I told you what I wished she'd told us. Because I wanted to know. Because I wanted to understand. How Zach could go from living, breathing . . . from how he was to . . . bacteria, flies, eggs, maggots.

Everyone lied.

They talked about him being gone but not what that meant. I heard Princ.i.p.al Paul say that Zach had ”pa.s.sed on.” He didn't ”pa.s.s on.” Zach died. Like we all will. Only he went sooner and more violent, with blood pooling inside and outside his body.

So I read about death and decomposition and I try to understand.

But I don't.

The first thing that happens after death is that blood and oxygen stop flowing through the body.

The body falls apart. Slowly.

In the end all that's left is the beating of my heart, the in and out of my breath. Sarah's. Tayshawn's. The rest of us who are left behind.

We still tick. We still tock.

It hurts.

AFTER.

On the day of Zach's funeral I leave Tayshawn and Sarah, I walk south to the park, Central Park, to the place where Zach and I first kissed.

I'm not sure what I think this will achieve. It's more like a compulsion. I want to pay tribute to him. The park seems a better place for that than a church crowded with people who mostly didn't know him. Not the way I did.

A better place than in Sarah and Tayshawn's arms.

I haven't been there since. I've run along the path but I haven't stopped. Haven't stood there under the bridge and thought about that day. That first kiss.

There are no icicles hanging from the bridge now.

It doesn't look the same. There's still green. Leaves, not snow, underfoot. The air isn't sharp to breathe.

Nothing's the same.

I can't think about that.

I slip my mom's shoes off and, holding them in my right hand, I run home, the wide skirt of Mom's dress ballooning and twisting around me. I'm too tired, too jangled, too enc.u.mbered by the dress to play the dodging game. My head is full of thoughts of Zach. And of Sarah and Tayshawn, of the feel of their mouths against mine. It makes my longing for Zach burn in my chest. Breathing starts to hurt. My eyes burn.

Running past Twelfth Street on Third Avenue I smell something rank, then I hear feet pounding lightly behind me. I tense but don't turn. Then the white boy who's like me is running beside me. He smiles. His teeth are more yellowy green than white. He doesn't look very old, yet his skin is lined. Not as old as me even. He must spend a lot of time outside.

I run faster but I'm fighting the dress.

He keeps pace.

This is the fourth time I've seen him. Once on Broadway when I played the dodging game. Once in the park when I ran with Zach. Once on the last day I ever saw Zach.

I can hear his breathing. It's as even as my own.

The white boy dodges the crowd as well as I can. With me in this dress, he's better.

He's fast but his technique is terrible: arms flapping like wings, shoulders too high, no lift in his knees, he thumps down hard on his heels. I wonder if my technique was that bad before Zach taught me. I hope not.

This close he smells worse. He's so filthy I wonder if he's ever washed. I breathe shallow and wrinkle my nose. There's something familiar in his stink. I know it.