33 | Drowning in Lies
Drowning in Lies
Molly
IFEEL TRAPPED.
Trapped by my older sister’s sudden interest in my life. Trapped by the secrets that felt like they were rotting inside me. Trapped because everyone else seemed so fine and I was just so not.
I was swimming in a dark, boundless ocean and any chance of making it to shore had vanished years ago—I was just too blind to see it.
There was no bottom for my feet to touch, nothing to keep me afloat.
The waves of the past kept crashing over me, pulling me down, and I just knew that eventually I’d stop fighting.
I’d just let it take me.
After the awful, awkward dinner where Lorraine chattered away happily and I barely acknowledged anyone but the waitress (are they called waitresses here?) Jamie gets us home just after eight o’clock. She turns off the car’s engine, but makes no move to get out.
“Molly, I really want to talk to you,” Jamie says, as my hand reaches for the door handle. Lorraine fell asleep in the back on the way home. My plan is to get her out, put her down in her room, and go to my own.
“Later,” I say, knowing I won’t be interested at any point in talking to her. I grab the cup JJ gave me earlier—probably cooled down by now since I’d left it in the car during dinner—and shoulder out of the car.
I get Lorraine out of the back, shifting her to one arm and carrying my cup with the other and taking us both inside and up to her bedroom. She’s half asleep as I dump her in her bed and pry her shoes and jacket off.
“Molly?”
“Shh,” I murmur, giving her a kiss on the forehead. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning, Rainey. Love you.”
“Love you, night night.”
I tuck her in, then leave her room with JJ’s cup in hand. I start outside her door when I nearly run right into Jamie. I make to move past her and bolt to my room, but she catches my arm.
“Molly, please. I need to explain.”
“Explain? Explain what?” I snap, turning to face her. I jerk my arm away like her touch burns me, and in a way it does. The same way her being here does. I can never tell if I’m drowning or if I’m ablaze in flames.
“A lot of stuff,” she says, her voice choked up. “There was so much going on when I left, and I just want to explain everything to you. I wasn’t in a good place—”
“You left me! I needed you, I needed my sister, and you weren’t there!” I explode, not even caring that Lorraine might come out in the hall. The thought barely even crosses my mind. Everything that I’ve kept piled up for the last month and a half seems to be crashing over me and pulling me down.
“I had to! That’s what I’m trying to tell you—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I knew you’d be okay—” she tries to reach out, probably to pull me in, but I don’t move closer. I just stare at her, eyes hard and unwavering.
“I wasn’t,” I say, fingers flexing around my cup as I shake my head. “I wasn’t okay. And I needed you, but you weren’t there.”
Her expression seems to crumble. “What are you saying? What happened?”
I stared at her, the words piling up on the tip of my tongue like vomit—begging to be spewed out into the open. Wanting to explode out just like everything else.
“Molly?”
I could tell her about him. About how he called me his star player. About the things he did that made me want to peel my own skin off.
But I couldn’t. Something was stopping me. I never knew what the something was, but for some reason I needed to keep this secret a secret.
Because what if no one believes me.
Just like that ref on the field—didn’t believe me.
Then I’ll just ruin the rest of my life for nothing.
I have to keep it all buried inside the bloody walls of the memory. It needed to stay deep in the foundation of my soul while I hoped the weight didn’t collapse the rest of the building.
“It doesn’t matter. You weren’t there.”
“I’m here now,” she says, real, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “I can fix it. Whatever happened, whatever you need... I’m here. We can fix it together.”
“You can’t fix it,” I whisper, shaking my head. I felt something hot and wet run down my cheek, but I don’t wipe it away. I pretend not to notice it.
Telling her wouldn’t fix it, I reason. It would still be there. The pain would still linger, the nightmares would stay, the memories wouldn’t ever go away.
“You can’t fix what he did.”
“He? Who? Who did what? Molly, talk to me. Who are you talking about?”
I just shake my head some more, my hands shaking. I step backwards—further away from her, closer to my room. “It’s not your problem anymore.”
“Molly—”
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “If you want to help, then just leave me alone. You stopped being my sister a long time ago, Jamie.”
I’m able to make it back to my bedroom before I let another tear fall.
I want to break something—I imagined smashing every picture on my shelves, tearing down my posters of Hope Solo and Amy Winehouse, smashing the bedside lamp through the big bay window.
But I only slam my door, and slide down it until my butt hits the floor.
I suck in some breaths, practicing all the age-old methods for panic attacks that I know by heart until I’ve calmed down enough to see colors other than red.
Five things you can see...
A stuffed frog on my desk, Amy Winehouse, the lamp I forgot to turn off this morning, a picture of me and dad when I was two, the blazer I discarded this morning in favor of the pull-over sweater.
Four things you can feel...
My post-practice sweats, the ceramic cup, the door, the floor.
Three things you can hear...
My heartbeat. My breathing. My thoughts.
Feels like a copout, but okay. Two things you can smell.
My watermelon scented shampoo. I lift the coffee cup to my nose, pushing back the plastic tab to smell. It’s not as rich a smell as earlier, it’s different, but I attribute that to the fact that it’s gotten cold.
One thing you can taste.
I lift the cup to my lips, tossing it back even though I’ve pretty much calmed down by now.
I nearly choke as liquid fire hits my throat, and I spit half of the drink all over my hand and shirt.
What I’m not able to spit out burns a trail down my esophagus, making me feel like I’m melting from the inside out.
I stare at the cup in my hand, gears turning in my mind as I try to figure out why all I can taste is... is that alcohol? It’s definitely not what I tasted earlier, but then—
The cups.
Niall had the exact same cup as JJ. When JJ grabbed a cup to give me, he had to have handed me the wrong one by accident.
But if this was Niall’s cup then...
That meant Niall had been drinking. A lot, if this half-full cup of coffee was any indicator. It tasted like it had more alcohol concentration than some beers.
He was drinking during practice.
During school hours.
Knowing he was going to be driving us home.
And he lied to me.
“Are you okay? Saturday night was...”
“A one-off. Just a one time thing. I was... stressing out. I had liquor on me for the party later, not cause... don’t go thinking I’m a drunkard or anything.”
My hands shake, as I sit motionless on the floor and staring at the cup of lies I’m holding in my hand. I’m not sure what to do.
And I don’t know what I am gonna do until I figure it out.