Tell Me Lies

by Carola Lovering

A part of me wished I could just get it over with, just go off alone with her somewhere and fuck her, I mean really fuck her good and hard a couple of times, and then go get on with my life. It was how Lucy had always made me feel—distracted. Unbearably so.

kissed her and she kissed me back, pressing her fingers into the back of my neck, her tongue gliding into my mouth. I spun her back toward the stage and wrapped my arms around her warm middle, down the front of her jeans into her underwear, shielded by her long jacket. I pressed two fingers against her, making the circles I knew she loved. It didn’t take long, just a few easy minutes until her back arched and I felt her, the shudder coursing through. Lights exploded from the stage, every beat of sound pulsing

with the beat of my heart, and the world fell away.

“We could take a shower.” Lucy stepped in close to me and I felt the blood rush between my legs. “I really just wanna lie down in a bed with you,” I breathed. “Me, too. You’re so sexy.” She pressed her mouth to my neck. “Come here.” I led her down the hallway and creaked open the door to the bedroom I was sharing with Sadie. “There’s an extra bed in here.”

Seriously. We’ll be so quiet.” I pressed my hips against hers. “C’mon, Luce. I can’t wait any longer.” Her moan sufficed as consent. I shut the door and we found each other in the darkness. I peeled off her clothes. I held my breath as she unbuckled my belt. Her smooth skin against my own was like ecstasy all over again, and I couldn’t contain myself. I pushed her back against the pillows and pressed myself all the way inside her. I came as quietly as I possibly could, which wasn’t easy. It felt so euphoric I wanted to howl to the heavens, to whatever divine force had brought sex with Lucy back to me.

God I hate when girls are passive-aggressive, which they are constantly. It always requires some kind of emotional coddling.

After graduation I moved back to New York because I couldn’t not. Because the words I need you to come back, Luce and It was never supposed to be the end of us played on repeat in my head every second of every day.

“I just can’t believe you’d give up everything you worked so hard to move past. Everything your therapist said… all that stuff you agreed with. How can you not see it? You think he’s going to make you happy, but he’s not. Players only love you when they’re playing. Stevie knows best, right?”

Stephen and I had only hooked up once since Bear Mountain, in the side stairwell of Lydia’s apartment building on a night when I’d been staying there, because there was nowhere else to do it and we were practically already screwing on the street after dinner at Tacombi. That kind of chemistry—God, nothing compared. But now I had my own apartment, and Stephen was on the brink of leaving Alice, and everything was different and fresh and even the smallest daily tasks, like buying water at the bodega or swiping my MetroCard, were tinged with a sense of purpose and possibility.

“I know you don’t love this situation.” “What situation?” “You know, me living with Alice…” “While we fuck?” I whispered. I knew it turned him on when I said fuck.

He placed his hands on my hips. He planted small kisses on the side of my neck until I turned around. I ran my hands over his smooth cheeks. It was the first time Stephen and I had been alone together in a real bedroom, with a real bed, in longer than I could remember. He leaned toward me. His kiss weakened my knee joints. “Stephen.” “Yeah?” “We should wait. We shouldn’t do this. I know we did it in the stairwell that time, but—” “I promise this will be better than the stairwell.” He slid his hands up my shirt. “Stephen.” “Luce. If you want me to go, I’ll go. Just say the word.”

don’t feel guilt. Not about this.” The words hung in the air, like smoke. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but then Stephen peeled my shirt up over my head, and there was nothing left to interpret. We toppled onto the bare mattress, the only piece of furniture in the room. It still smelled new, like the thick plastic the men from Sleepy’s had delivered it in that morning.

haven’t been happy lately, in this relationship. I feel that I need to move on.”

The problem with girls is that they always think there is something they can do to “fix it,” and there never is. The end is just the end; it doesn’t mean anything and it isn’t necessarily the result of something. It

“You fucked that girl, didn’t you? Lucy Whatsherface. The one who’s always texting you.”

“No. I’ve never cheated on you. I told you, she’s a girl from school who I exchange notes with.” “I don’t believe you. You’re not friend...

“Alice, it’s not fair for you to be with someone who isn’t fully there for you. You deserve more than that, much more. I’m so sorry for the pain

I’m causing you, but I know that soon you’ll see this is the right thing.” This made her cry harder. She sobbed into my shoulder.

I’d tried hard to fuck her again, and succeeded for about three thrusts before she made me stop and said No. No more. Not until you’re out of that apartment.

“I bought shrimp and bok choy and white wine. I want to make you dinner, if you’ll let me.”

“I told Alice. I couldn’t handle it for another second. Remember when I told you I loved you? Well, I meant it. I’m going to move back to Bayville and commute until I can find a new place.

“That’s why I’m here,” I said softly. “It’s just you and me now, Luce. And I want it to work, for real this time.”

Lydia didn’t have a problem with Stephen. Neither did Bree—not the way Jackie did.

“Remember this place, Luce? We came here that summer. We had sex on the beach off Dune Road. And in the outdoor shower.”

“That’s because I can’t be around you and not fuck you.” He leaned over the middle console and gave me a kiss. Through the trees, dusk gathered in the sky, a wash of pale pink. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

“After everyone goes to bed I’m gonna fuck you in the outdoor shower.” His voice was hushed in my ear. “Round two.”

August 16, that Hickory had lived to be exactly fifteen years and eleven months.

August 16 was the date of Macy’s death, too. The night I saw her and the night she died. I’ll never forget it.

knew she was dead right away because her neck was snapped against the gearshift, her pale eyes open, unblinking, my dick still hard

against her white cheek. The end of Macy’s short life. There was no point in calling the cops. It wouldn’t have saved her.

When the cops found Macy the next morning she was sitting in the driver’s seat, her neck wrapped around the steering wheel, her head cut open. I was warm in my bed, tired from the three-mile walk home in the middle of the night.

The petrifying realization that the wheels were spinning out of control. Macy’s terrified scream-gag. Swerving hard to avoid the tree. An impossible amount of glass. Her fixed eyes, like marbles. Creeping home in the misty dark, the dewy grass wet around my ankles. The feeling of knowing I’d escaped. Jenna’s tears soaking my shoulder the next day when the town learned that Portledge’s rising junior Macy Petersen had died in a car crash the night before. She was the driver and sole passenger.

Macy had been sober. Zombie zombie zombie zombie zombie zombie zombie zombie zombie.

waited for Lucy to say something, but she didn’t. Of course she was going to make me press her and then she would reveal the nature of the issue.

She was pretty but not stunning, attractive but not beautiful.

went to dinner with someone, yes,” I said. “But I wouldn’t say it was a date.”

Then why were you holding hands with her? Like what the fuck?”

“Jesus Christ, Lucy. What is the point of this conversation?” “You’re just being so weird. I have to go back to work.” “Okay.”

“Can you come over tonight? I want to talk in person. I feel weird right now.” “I don’t know. I have to work on my brief.” I didn’t feel like telling her about my mom.

Whatever Lucy expected from me in her naive perception of our relationship was laughable. I would never give her what she wanted. Didn’t she know that? And why should I? It wasn’t as if Lucy had ever made me feel like my best self; she’d never made me truly happy. And she never would.

She was pretty, but sometimes, lately, when I really looked at her, she wasn’t that pretty. I’d let the sex get in the way. Again.

In the meantime, maybe I would ask Jillian on a second date. I craved a fresh start, and she seemed cool enough.

“I don’t remember. I’ll ask Charlotte, okay? But I think you should just talk to Stephen. Don’t freak out yet.” “Fine.” “I’m getting nervous for the race. Are you guys ready?”

hung up with Lydia. I couldn’t blame her for thinking it was nothing. She didn’t know Stephen the way my friends from Baird did, the way I did. She didn’t know what he was capable of; she didn’t know the extent to which I’d lowered myself for him in the past. Lydia was my oldest friend and though we’d grown up telling each other everything, there were things I’d started to omit. I decided I had to call Stephen—I couldn’t wait until after work. It had to be a misunderstanding; at the least he would deny it or explain it. Or maybe he hadn’t even been at Crif Dogs. Charlotte was probably wrong. Charlotte was kind of dumb. She’d only gotten into Amherst because her dad was some oil heir.

I heard Dr. Wattenbarger’s voice. People like Stephen, they don’t change.

But isn’t the whole point to believe that people can change? To believe that we can all become better versions of ourselves? Otherwise, what hope is there for anybody? Maybe Dr. Wattenbarger didn’t know everything.

“Just saying hello. I’ve barely talked to you in the past couple of days.” “I haven’t talked to anyone in the past couple of days,” he replied defensively. “I’ve been cooped up in the library writing this fucking brief.” “You could at least text me. You were supposed to call me last night.” “I’m really fucking busy, Lucy.” “I know that, Stephen. But what the hell? If we’re really trying to make this work like we say we are, then you can’t just leave me in the dark and act like an asshole because you feel like it. And I’m really fucking busy, too, by the way. You’re not the only one.” “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I’m just stressed.”

And you, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, are a BMW.

The bartender appeared and asked what I wanted. I didn’t know or care. A bottle of Xanax. A loaded gun. I ordered a vodka tonic.

“Lucy.” He looked me straight in the eye for the first time since I walked into the bar, his expression hard. “This just isn’t… I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.” It was in moments like this that time seemed to stop—moments so vividly painful, almost surreal in the pain that they promised. My insides lurched. My breath slipped out of my throat and I thought I was going to choke. Every part of my body went numb, and I had the sensation that I was deep in a lucid dream. I blinked several times