Honestly

She was released from the hospital within the week. The doctors said that she was doing much better, the treatment had been an unequivocal success.

Em didn't feel like an unequivocal success. She felt sick.

Even just the trip from the hospital back to the orphanage had been difficult. The smallest, most inconsequential of untruths seemed to rip through her mind with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, and it seemed whenever she left the presence of one liar she just found herself with a different one.

Halfway through dinner she couldn't stand it anymore. She felt like she was going out of her mind.

Which was why she was holed up in the room she shared with Alex, crying uncontrollably and not even knowing why.

She had just managed to calm her breathing and wipe her eyes when Alex opened the door hesitantly. "Em?"

"Yeah?" she said, her voice sounding tired and thin even to her own ears.

"Ms Russet" – the orphanage mother – "is worried about you."

She didn't reply. What was she supposed to say? She's developed a sudden, inexplicable over-sensitivity to lies and feels like she wants to rip her own brain out so she doesn't go completely off the deep end?

"I'm worried about you," he added, in a voice that was barely audible.

Her head didn't hurt.

He's safe, she thought. Alex is safe. Her chest heaved with the tidal wave of stunned relief that swept through her.

He seemed to be misreading her silence though. His face fell, and he turned to leave.

"Wait!"

He paused, looking wary and hopeful.

"...Stay?" It was a question... it was a plea. It was the only thing she could think of at the time.

He came into the room, shut the door behind him, and sat down on the bed beside her. She turned and hugged him like he would escape if she didn't hold on tight enough.

"Em, what—?" Confusion, concern...and honesty. It was like coming up for air.

"Shhh, I'm your sister, I'm allowed."

He wrapped an arm around her and didn't argue.

Even with her face is buried in his shoulder she could still sense him watching her. "You think something's wrong with me, don't you."

His shoulder stiffened underneath her, and she could easily imagine the emotions flitting across his face – guilt, confusion, helplessness. "No, I – "

"Don't lie!" she hissed, pulling back to glare at him. She faltered at the frightened expression on her brother's face. "...please. Not you too." She scrunched her eyes shut, willing the tears not to come again. She'd cried more often in the past four days than she had in the rest of her entire life combined. "I can feel it. I can feel it all the time, in everyone in this building. The air we're breathing right now is so full of the static of lies, deception, the fake smiles, the pithy lines...it's suffocating. I just..." Em put her face in her hands as a shield from Alex's heartbreakingly concerned expression. "Just – you're my eye of the storm. Please don't lie."

She didn't dare look up at him through her fingers. A few long moments passed and Em began to think that maybe she'd successfully fought off the tears this time. Then Alex leaned over, hugging her tightly and whispering, "Okay," and the tears came right back out again, stronger than ever. Figures.

Over the next months, Em slowly began to learn about her Sense (that's what she'd decided to call it, for lack of a better name). She tested the boundaries of her own power, gradually forming an idea of what her Sense did and did not pick up on. Her Sense did not equate sarcasm with lies, for instance. Nor did it go off when she, Em, lied. She learned how to make it look like nothing had changed, learned how to pretend so well that it scared her a little bit. It made sense; learning from the best of liars, it was impossible not to pick up a habit or two. Speaking of which...

Ms. Russet's voice preceded Ms. Russet into the room. "Emily! Why is all the laundry purple?"

Oops. She knew she should have separated the colors and the whites more carefully. "I have no idea," she said, her voice just the right balance of amused, curious, and just the slightest bit affronted. She kept her face open and her posture interested.

"Wasn't it your turn to do the laundry?"

"Hm? No. Wasn't it Frank's turn? I think?" She laughed as if she was trying not to. "Can I see the laundry?"

Ms. Russet breathed a slow breath out and ran a hand through her hair, looking a little bit...hopeful (maybe because of Em's seeming return to normalcy?). "Maybe later. I have to find Frank..." She shook her head, muttering something unintelligible to herself as she left Em's room.

As soon as she was gone, Em collapsed on her bed, her face pressed against the pillow. Her hands were shaking. Why were her hands shaking? She had always been decent at lying, but never before had it come so naturally to her, like an old friend. Like second nature.

Oh, that's it then.

Her hands were shaking from terror.

"I've found out your secret!" Lily crowed, and Em felt her heart skip a beat.

She and Alex had been poring over a complicated word puzzle that Alex had seen in the newspaper. Now the newspaper laid forgotten between them. Alex's eyes were wide and his mouth was opening, probably to make some pathetic protest. Em shot him a glance that said 'let me take care of this.' "Secret?" she asked, trying to sound bored.

"I was reading Ella Enchanted today" —she waved the book in front of their faces— "and I thought Ella's curse seemed familiar... Finally I figured it out – she reminds of you! You have a magical curse on you that you have to tell the truth, just like Ella Enchanted has to do whatever people tell her to do. Or, like, George Washington!"

Em had to quell the urge to start laughing like mad. Or to strangle Lily for scaring her like that. Lily was reasonably perceptive, after all, but in the end her wild imagination outweighed her intelligence.

"So Alex... tell me all of your dirty little secrets," Lily said, a huge grin of anticipation on her face.

"No," said Alex, promptly and without emotion.

"Whaaat? But... I ordered you to! And you always tell the truth!" she stamped the ground in frustration. Em managed to keep from rolling her eyes.

Alex frowned. "But I don't want to," he said matter-of-factly. "It's a stupid idea." He looked around at Em as if to say 'am I wrong?'

"No, it is stupid," Em confirmed.

Lily looked devastated. "But... but... but... I had been so sure..."

Alex carried on eating as if nothing had happened.

Even with all of her considerable self-control, Em couldn't stop the wide smile that crossed her face. She may have changed, but it seemed like Alex never would.

Michael was dying before their eyes, and Em wished she could feel something other than extremely awkward.

Neither she nor Alex had anything to do with him (Em had had a grand total of one conversation with him, and if she remembered correctly, it consisted of, "Have you seen my cellphone?" "Sorry, no."). He was almost always in the hospital, or else on leave from the hospital until the next medical test. Between that and the large age difference between them, they'd never really gotten to know him. Still, the orphanage had brought all of the kids to say their last goodbyes. To watch Michael die.

Some of the other kids, Michael's friends, were crying, holding his hands and speaking to him in broken, quiet voices. Ms. Russet was in a chair next to the hospital bed with her face in her hands. Em tried not to fidget. She flicked a glance upward at Alex to see if he was feeling the same.

He wasn't. "Alex?" she said softly.

Alex didn't seem to hear her. His breath was coming in quick, shallow gasps, one hand twisted in his t-shirt at his stomach. His eyes were shut tight.

"Alex?" she said again, more urgently. "Are you okay?"

He shot her a fake smile that was probably meant to be reassuring. "Yeah, I'm just—"

Suddenly both of them groaned in unison, Alex's hands at his stomach and Em's at her head.

"You're lying again," she hissed at him through gritted teeth and a pounding skull.

He was still doubled over. He wasn't looking up at her.

"Alex?" Her voice cracked. "Tell me what's happening to you."

He staggered backwards into the wall. At the same time, Michael's heart monitor began to sing out a loud, quick melody of beeps as Michael's lungs finally given way to the pneumonia. Em didn't even spare it a glance. "Alex!"

Alex sank to the floor, gasping for breath. "I – can't... I can't – "

"You can't – breathe?" Em interpreted desperately. "I d-don't know CPR!"

"He's having a panic attack," said an unfamiliar voice next to her. Em's head shot up. She hadn't even noticed the nurse that had come to kneel next to her in front of Alex.

"I don't care what he's having, I want a doctor in here now!" Em screamed, hysteria edging her voice.

"Dr Brandt is on his way," she replied far too calmly.

That's when Alex passed out, and where Em's memory ended. According to the kids in the room at the time, she had had a complete meltdown, latching onto her brother and refusing to let anyone get close, including the doctor.

Watching Alex wake up ten minutes later was like coming out of a trance.

"I believe you," he finally blurted. It had been almost comically obvious that he had been trying to find the words to tell her something all day.

"What?"

"Your... Sense. I believe you."

Her head remained clear, and she felt her eyes widen in surprise. It took her a few moments to put two and two together. "Then – today – "

He nodded. He still hadn't lost that pale, unsettled look from Michael's death.

Even as she felt disgusted at herself for it, Em felt the joy and relief swell in her throat. "You... have one too? You believe me?"

She knew he had to be recovering, because he had the nerve to roll his eyes at her. "Want me to say it a few more times, just in case you haven't committed it to memory yet?"

But Em found it hard in that moment to care about her stupid, brilliant brother's bad manners. In lieu of an apology, she satisfied herself with the muffled "oof" that he made when she grabbed him in a tackle-hug.

The next day she practically inhaled her lunch and had made to leave before some of the other kids had even picked up their forks. She grinned in response to Alex's tilted head and questioning look. "I'm going shoe shopping. There's a sale today at Flatland Mall. Don't tell me you want to come?" she teased.

He looked unimpressed. "As if." He went back to picking at his zucchini, and she slipped out.

She didn't go to Flatland Mall. She spent the afternoon with the orphanage nurse, learning CPR.

Em hadn't thought that Alex had even noticed that she had skipped dinner (again), but sure enough, when he arrived back at their room he was carrying a plate in one hand and a large bowl in the other.

He sat down on her bed, passing both to her. "There were no leftovers, so I made whatever we had left in the pantry."

She looked at it curiously. He had brought her a bowl filled to the brim with banana-flavored jello and a single hardboiled egg. She worked to keep the 'seriously, Alex?' expression off her face. But, really? Jello? Banana jello? Is there anyone who likes banana jello?

Apparently Alex interpreted her silence as a request to continue explaining because he said, "There were four boxes of it and I didn't know how much you wanted, so I made all of it. So if you want more, there's... there's a lot."

She supposed it was too much to ask for to get him to look away long enough for her to flush the stuff down the toilet. He was watching her closely, she guessed to make sure that she had some food in her stomach.

The things I do for this guy, she thought ruefully, and put a spoonful in her mouth.

Even as her insides shuddered, she knewexactly which facial expression to show him, which body language, which tone of voice to use to make her seem truthful, to pull off the lie flawlessly: "It's delicious, Alex."

The rare, sincere smile that he gave her in response made her think that maybe this terrifying Sense was good for something after all.

From then on, that one niggling thought, that maybe these Senses could come in useful after all, stuck in her mind and made itself at home.

"I have a brilliant idea."

Alex looked resigned to his fate. "Do I even have a choice?"

"You haven't heard my brilliant idea yet! Give it a chance! Picture this." She waved her arms out theatrically in front of her. "Alex and Em: The Genius Kids! A new, powerful one-two to the jaw of crime comes on the scene!"

"You want to write a comic book about us?" he asked, looking confused.

"No, no, no! You're thinking too small. I want to do the things that will make people write comics about us."

He nodded. "You want a comic book about us."

"No!"

"Then what?"

"I'm just thinking... what would happen if we both used our Senses for something... bigger..."

Em wondered if they were even aware of how often they lied. None of them, she knew, would consider themselves liars.

Still, they were. They all were.

Lily. "Of course you're my friend!"

Liar.

Frank. "What?! I would never talk behind your back!"

Liar.

Ms. Russet. "I love you."

Her vision blurred, and Em wasn't sure if it was from her Sense or from the tears that suddenly threatened to escape.

Liar.

And worst of all, herself. "No, Doctor, I feel fine! If anything changes, you'll be the first to know!" Easy, like flipping on the light switch in the morning. Effortless. She hated herself for it.

Liar.

And then, finally, Alex. And with him, sweet relief.

Em was grabbing her purse and heading out for the day by the time Alex had rolled out of bed and found a clean pair of pants. "Love you," she called absently over her shoulder, before she realized her mistake.

"Love y—mmph?"

Em had barreled across the room and slammed both hands to her brother's mouth. "NO!" Don't let him say it, don't let him say it, her brain chanted frantically, what if he's lying? If he was lying, she thought she might lose her mind. If he was lying, she didn't know what she would do...

"Mmmfhh?"

Oh. "Sorry..." she pulled her hands back.

"What was that about?!" he demanded.

"Don't – say it..."

"Don't say what? I lov—?"

"I said don't say it!" she gritted out, avoiding his gaze.

"But - "

"I'm going to be late if I don't leave now," she muttered. She bent to pick up her purse.

Even though she very carefully did not look back at him, he could feel him staring hard at her as she escaped their room.

He finally cornered her – literally – that evening, blocking her into the back of the common room (or as the kids called it, the Scene of the Crime, named after a mysteriously shaped red stain on the carpet) after everyone else had left.

Predictably, he got straight to the point. "What is your problem with me saying that I—"

Em pressed her hands to her ears. "Stop it!"

He frowned. Then his mouth curved into an evil smirk. "I will say nothing but if you don't tell me right now what's going on."

She closed her eyes, not wanting to see his face when he heard... "I don't want to know if you're telling the truth or not."

There was a long pause. Em looked up at him tentatively.

He was grinning and shaking his head. "You are so weird."

Em could feel her face burning. She knew she was being ridiculous, but she was not going to take the chance with her sanity on the line. "Whatever."

He was still grinning. She punched him hard in the gut.

"EEEEEEEM!"

"What's up?"

"What's up? What's up is that your brother tried to kill me!"

"Look on the bright side – he hasn't succeeded. Yet."

"I am not going back in there."

"Okay, now you're just being a drama queen."

"He threw a pen at me!"

She rolled her eyes.

"A pen that, by the way, missed me by maybe a centimeter and lodged itself in the wall."

"Ah."

"I think it might still be quivering."

"Right. Thank you for your hard work, Sam. I'll take over from here."

Samantha didn't need to be told twice. She was taking off down the hall before Em had even finished her sentence.

Em poked her head into the room, keeping the rest of her body hidden behind the doorframe just in case there were any more pen-missiles forthcoming.

He seemed to be wrapped up in his blankets like a burrito, with only a small shock of dark hair peeking out of the top of the quilt. She took a tentative step inside the room. "Alex? It really is time to wake up."

"Nuuuuuuoooooooooohhhhh..." he whined back.

"Come on." She prodded him a bit in the side (or, at least, she assumed that's where his side was. It was hard to tell with the blanket-cocoon).

"Feiiiibghhhmuuhhhhmnnidss," came the eloquent response.

"You said that five minutes ago. Now get up." She poked him again. He didn't budge. She rolled her eyes and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I think I have some news that will wake you up."

He mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "Not likely."

Em smiled, inspecting her nails would-be casually. "You know how I had to run out yesterday? I was meeting a police administrator named Schulz."

Alex blinked up at her curiously from his blanket/burrito.

"She wants to meet you," she said, a wide grin spreading across her face, "in, oh, ten minutes or so?"

"WHAT?!" He tumbled out of bed, his feet still tangled in the blanket and his hair looking like it was trying to escape from his head. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

She raised her eyebrows at him and held his gaze. At least he had the good grace to look away first.

That morning, as every morning, she kissed the top of his head on her way out for the day. "Love you."

Alex paused over his breakfast, then just nodded in response.

"Wow, that's cold," said Joseph, watching them bemusedly.

Em laughed. Every morning, every single morning she was met with those eyes, wondering why.

She had to smile at that. He didn't know that Em spent the majority of her life feeling as if she was going mad. If her head hurt when Alex told her he loved her... she suspected she truly would lose her mind.

It was widely assumed—even by Alex himself—that he needed her more than she needed him. Em, wise, little Em, expertly maneuvered her brother through the delicate and the tricky, who took care of him and kept him in line and forced him to really look and really think, instead of living holed up inside his own head, as he was apt to do when he was on his own.

But they had no idea what was going on inside of wise, little Em.

Em needed Alex to survive in the most basic of senses. She needed him in order to function, needed his existence to continue breathing. He cared for her a lot, sure, but she needed him more than he would ever know.

She knew that, were she to disappear, Alex would find a way to continue. It might take a lot of time, and it might hurt a lot, and she wasn't saying that he would get along very well... He would wear the same shirt for three days straight, because she wouldn't be there to remind him to do his laundry. He would eat meals consisting of nothing but a hardboiled egg, banana-flavored jello, and coffee, because she wouldn't be there to tell him that that was weird, and if he kept that up, his insides would rot. His straightforward conviction and fearlessness would get him into a lot of trouble someday, and she wouldn't be there to help him. But in the end, he would be okay. She knew he would.

If Em had her way, she would die long before Alex did. Because she knew that if she was left to herself in an Alex-less world, she would only spend the rest of her life coming undone.

"I love you," he said.

Em laughed, or tried to, anyway. It came out more as a pained gasp. She had known it all along, of course, but nevertheless it made her so indescribably happy when her head didn't hurt in the slightest. Then again, not much of anything hurt anymore...

Someone was screaming.

On the first intercity bus away from Edgewater (he didn't care where it was headed) with a backpack stuffed with whatever had been on his bedroom floor at the time, he was asked for his name.

"And this ticket should be made out to...?" recited the ticket man behind the glass, bored.

Alex felt a thrill of fear skitter down his spine. "What?"

"Your name, kid," said the ticket man, looking over his glasses at him like Alex was the dumbest brat he'd ever had the misfortune to meet.

"Um. No thank you."

"What do you mean, no thank you? Just give me name for the ticket!"

"I can't." You're my eye in the storm. Please don't lie.

"You CAN'T?"

It was going to take some getting used to, this being allowed to lie.

Not just being allowed; practically being forced.

Somewhere along this journey, he knew, he would have to lie. He would most likely have to make up a name and invent a life and do his best to convince everyone that they belonged to him.

But not yet. He was not ready to let go of the trace his sister had left on his heart quite yet.

"No, I can't. I'm sorry. Would it be all right to use three question marks as my name instead?"