Who Is the Liar

by Laura Lee Bahr

“I wiped blood off the phone. I think he called someone; I think he got out.”

“Brother Johnson was in an accident and is in the hospital.”

Why did she say he was home when he was actually trapped in our house? Then she said he was in Los Angeles. Why would she tell me lies about where he was if he was missing? Heather’s face is as blank as a doll’s as she looks at me.

“You just have to play games with me,” he whispers, smiling. “But you have to follow my rules exactly. Eggs. Act. Lee. Promise.”

Eww hell no

“I wish Ruby were here,” Lily says. The moment Lily says it, I realize with a sharp pain that I don’t. I don’t.

Heather blinks. Once. Twice. Three times. Like a doll, with open and shut eyes, when you shake its head. “Topaz, you’re very silly. I never said he was in Los Angeles.” “Yes, you did, you said that—”

If this weird Stepford little girl don't stop gaslighting Topaz

We have to cover for people sometimes so people stop asking questions.

I’d said, “I’ll only get in a car with you or Dad, I promise.” I’m breaking that promise. I wonder if the missing children broke their promises, too. I dig my fingers into my palms and make two tight fists to stop my hands from shaking. Brother Johnson is going to kill me, and there’s no Ruby to save me.

But it’s not a ghost—it’s my sister. My sister when she was about my age. She’s smiling in the picture, like I have never seen her smile. Sunshine.

She told the truth about how she knew him. She told the truth about what he did to her. It was all true. Ruby was telling the truth.

I don’t really taste things, ever again, after that.

It’s only okay to laugh about things like boobs if you already feel comfortable with everyone.

“He’s punishing me,” Heather whimpers.

Yea something ain't right about the relationship between her and her dad. That's gotta be why she acts like such a Stepford child most of the time. Either he's abused her or she has knowledge of the horrible things he's done, but she's covering for him because it's her dad.

“I didn’t protect his good name, and he knew—he knew—and now, see, see how he’s punishing me?” I can see by the way her hands shake as she points to her nightgown, whether or not she knows he’s the Beast, she’s afraid of a monster.

‘People don’t buy what’s true; they only buy what they already believe.’

Those pictures that we don’t have, that aren’t even of anything. They aren’t proof. They aren’t evidence. They’re nothing. But he doesn’t know that. Whatever he thinks they are, he thinks they are worth getting. If Lily says she has them, he’ll come looking for them. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. Or maybe now.

I know that I killed him. For forever, that silence.

“It’s so important in a family to know how to cover for each other, don’t you think?” Heather says. “I know in my family, we cover for each other.

My rock was the millstone that they talked about in Church. Jesus said better a millstone around his neck, if you hurt a child. Mine went Crack to his head.

I used to think we were all happy except for her. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it isn’t that we used to be happy and now we are unhappy. Maybe we were always unhappy and I just didn’t see it.

Everything that goes into my mouth tastes like his fingers. And everything that comes out of my mouth feels like a lie.

“I’m okay, ” I say to her again. “I’m okay,” I say to them all. “I’m okay.” I am the liar.