I'm Not a Liar- I'm Not
Ch4
At school, everything seems normal with the group of friends; they talk and laugh, and Lucas and Riley flirt, but I notice the discrete looks shot towards me by my best friend.
Even Mr. Mathews seems to skirt around me as if on egg shells.
But no one notices, or thinks much of it. I seem fine to everyone, joking and laughing. They accepted my getting in a fight story- I'm a very good liar.
Except to Riley. I promised I would never lie to her, and at the time I meant it, but I never thought she would ask the right question, never would I have thought that I wouldn't be okay when she's around.
At lunch, I sit with a full tray and watch as my friends interact. I don't eat, though, or give my input, feeling rather ill as Riley leans into Lucas and smiles up at him in such a loving manner.
I feel awed and sick and happy and miserable, looking at my best friend.
She lives in this carefree world of endless rainbows and unicorns, and where princes and princesses are very real. It's so Riley that, right now, I feel like I'm on another planet than her, rather than sitting right next to her.
She's the sun and she's leaving me behind again, and she doesn't know it, and it hurts, even though all I want is for her to never find out, a part of me wishes that she would.
That she would save me again, like she always does.
I want her to save me, but she can't know, can't find out, can't be hurt, never be exposed to my darkness because I need my light bright and smiling.
My arm flares, making my hand clamp down over it and itch wildly, but there is no relief.
"Excuse me," I mumble distractedly as I stand abruptly from the table, and I can feel Riley's worried eyes following me all the way out the cafeteria doors.
I hastily rush to the nearest restroom, pulling up my sleeve to rip off the poorly applied gauze. I rake my nails down the new scabs, drawing fresh blood and a new pain to sear across my skin.
The itching doesn't stop, becoming almost unbearable even as both blood and skin lodge under my finger nails and crimson drips down my wrist.
The door hinge squeals, alerting me to a new arrival and I yank my sleeves down and toss the rags in the trash, heart in my throat as Riley peeks her head around the door. Of course it's her; it's always her.
Guilt gnaws at my insides. What if she had caught me? I was so stupid to give in at school; anyone could have walked in, and it wasn't luck that it was Riley.
"Maya, are you okay? Please, what's wrong?" The worry in her eyes, her voice, her body language, all makes my stinging wrist flare with pain, with need.
I'm sorry, Riley, I'm so sorry. "Nothing's wrong Riles. I just had to use the bathroom."
Hurt gleams in her big dark eyes, and I mentally curse myself. I need to stop lying; she always knows when I do. I'm not a liar- I'm not. Not to her.
I try to relax my stance to not look so defensive. "I just got…I don't know, freaked out there. Everything is changing so much, and I just wish that it would stop."
Riley takes several steps into the bathroom, letting the door swing shut.
"I want it to be just us forever. I wish the world was just me and you," I repeat what she said to me what seemed like so long ago.
She steps closer again and I find her sent surround me as she hugs me so tight that my chest aches. A good kind of ache.
"Maya, it always will be. Other people may come into our life, into our world, but you are my world. No matter how many people come or go, it will always be you and me, together, as it always has been."
The flare in my arm fades into its normal slight sting of a fresh wound, and I relax into my best friend as she chases away all the lingering shadows.
She pulls away first, looking deep into my eyes. "Better?" she asks.
I nod, a real smile pulling at my lips. "Better."
"Good, now go finish lunch, I actually have to use the restroom, unlike you."
I giggle and push out the door, glancing back in time to see Riley spot a drop of red on the polished tile.
Instead of going back the lunchroom, I find an empty classroom to mop up the mess that I made of my wrist, and throw the ruined paper towels in the trash bin. I still make it back to the cafeteria before Riley.
…
Several months pass with my normal routine, and my sun is back shining her never-ending brilliance. My little freak out and my little injury that day is forgotten, and Mr. Mathews teaches new life lessons every day.
Things are good again; or as good as they always have been.
I reel back in pain as my mother's elbow makes a solid hit to my eye, and I grimace at the heat that immediately spreads from there.
It's not my mom's fault, really; she would never lay a hand on me if I just stayed out of her way. But I always come out at a certain part in the early morning, and force her onto the couch or into her bed (if she could make it) for at least a few hours of sleep for the both of us, and she always fights back tooth and nail.
Really, she bit me once and it was really hard covering up the claw marks that went down my neck.
She would never hurt me if I just left her bumbling around the apartment over broken glass and the stained rug, and let her drink herself to death.
But I don't leave her alone, so I get what I deserve and I do my bet to take it in stride.
I grunt as she finally goes limp, passing out in my arms, and I half carry, half drag her over to the couch where she falls off immediately after.
Tears of frustration burn behind my eyes along with the itch in my arm returning, and before I know what I'm doing, I have the phone Mr. Mathews gave me in my hand and it's ringing.
"Hello? Maya?" a tired and half-asleep voice mumbles after several rings.
I sniffle just hearing her voice. "Riles?" My voice cracks, but I feel so hopeless right now that I don't even care. "Can I come over?"
"Of course." The response and change in tone is instant and she's halfway through her 'what's wrong' when I hang up and start out the door in my long pajama pants and a hoodie. My mother still lays on the floor in a puddle of her own drool.
I make it to her apartment building in record time with the subway practically empty, and I go up through the fire escape without hesitating.
Her window is already open for me when I arrive, and her arms are already open for me when I launch myself into them, a sob making my body jerk. I had been holding in the tears the entire ride over, but I can't stop them once I'm in the comfort of my best friend's embrace, and the absolute safety of our bay window.
She's silent as I try to muffle my cries into her neck, holding me as my body shakes and jolts against her own, and I swear that I feel something wet drip onto my shoulder more than once.
Finally, once it's just sniffles startling the silent room, she pulls back, brushing my hair behind my ear, and leads me over to her bed where she climbs in beside me.
She holds me like she always has, curling into my side and warming my entire being, and I easily slip into unconsciousness, worn from my emotions and feeling safe in this place.
…..
When I wake up in the morning, I don't immediately feel the ache of loneliness, or the panic of my dreams, and know that I'm not in my own bed. I'm somewhere much softer, with someone who cares, stroking my cheek and brushing my hair behind my ear, and the sun warming my face.
I open my eyes slowly, blinking into the soft, concerned brown eyes of my savior.
She brushes a thumb lightly under my eye. "What happened?" she asks, like I know she wanted to last night.
I sit up fast with a gasp as last night comes to the surface of my mind.
My mom, feeling overwhelmed, rushing over here for comfort and falling asleep.
"I don't want to talk about it," I mumble, looking away.
"No, I mean, what happened to your eye?" She grabs my chin, forcing my chin to turn and face her, even though I keep my eyes lowered.
A flash of my mother's elbow comes back to me. I wonder if she ever picked herself up off the floor last night, or just stayed there? Without me taking care of her, did she throw up and drown in her own vomit?
"I don't want to talk about it," I repeat, pulling away and sliding out of bed.
"Well, we are!" She snaps, and it's so different that I look up in surprise, cringing when I catch sight of the rare steel in her eyes. "You are hurting, and someone is hurting you, and I want to know who. Now. Don't you dare tell me that it's no one; I know when you are lying, Maya Heart."
My breath hitches, eyes stinging with fresh tears as panic drums in my ears.
I don't want to tell; I don't want my mom taken away, too.
But it's Riley, right? She won't tell, or she'll make things better, like she always does. It's Riley, my best friend, and I can't lie to her right now, or give her round-about truths. It's Riley. She always fixes me.
A hiccup jerks my body from trying to repress my cries, but a few salty tears leak out against my wishes, and my fingers twist themselves into the familiar blankets.
"It's my mom." My body betrays me as a sob shakes my shoulders. Support is immediately given to me in the form of a sideways hug right after a horror filled gasp. "She drinks a lot and breaks things, but when I try to help, I just get in the way."
Another set of hands gently lay on my shoulders and I flinch, looking up sharply to see both adult Mathews standing beside the bed, looking down at me with pained filled eyes.
My eyes widen at the new additions to the room. I was a fool to think that they wouldn't hear my blubbering and come to investigate. I bet they even heard me come in last night.
"Maya, how long has this been going on?" Mrs. Mathews asks softly with furrowed brows.
"She doesn't mean it," I say, desperately trying to get them to understand. "She-she doesn't mean it, y-you have to believe me. She doesn't know what she's doing. I-I-I just, I-just need to s-stop getting in the way. She doesn't mean it; it's-it's-it's my f-fault."
They looked pained at my admission, and Mrs. Mathews sits gently down on the other side of me to her daughter.
"Maya, honey, this is not your fault. Now, how long has this been happing?" She rubs my shoulder comfortingly.
Fresh tears blur her face from my sight, and I wipe at my nose and face, hiccupping, and trying to be able to breathe okay again.
"S-since my dad left."
She catches my hand, pulling it from my face and shoving the sleeve farther up my arm.
Her inhale catches and stops. "Oh, Maya," she breathes as her daughter lets out a sob on my left at seeing the marred skin there with raised pink scars and freshly scabbed over cuts, and the overall pinkness of my constant scratching.
A new wail bursts from my throat at their new discovery, jerking my hand away as if, if I hide if better now, she would have never found it.
I turn into Riley, hiding into her chest as I cry my fear and pain, and as she cries for my pain too, and I hate myself a whole lot more for causing it.
"I'm sorry," I sniffle, in between hitches of tears. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
A/N: Please review!
~Silver~