The Last Words We Said Read online

“Good.”

  “Besides, I’m used to curfews. When we started to date, my parents insisted that Danny had to go home by eleven p.m. Your curfew is tougher than theirs.”

  She nods and crosses her hands placidly on her lap. “The situation is different now.”

  “I never really obeyed her parents’ curfew anyway,” Danny interjects. “There was this tree outside Ellie’s window—”

  “And the rule against magical powers?” Nina continues. “What about that?”

  It kind of pisses me off that she’s interrupted him, even though I know she didn’t mean to. “Danny doesn’t actually have any magical abilities,” I say shortly. “I’m not sure why it has to be a rule. My boyfriend isn’t some mythical creature from a fantasy novel. He’s just a boy, okay?” My voice shakes, and I struggle to steady it. I need to sound reasonable and sane so she’ll just leave me alone. All I want is to be left alone with him. I take another deep breath and look into Nina’s sympathetic eyes. “Danny is just a boy. Not a ghost or an angel.” Next to me, Danny puffs out his cheeks and makes a flapping motion with his arms. I can always count on him to make light of an honest confession. “He’s just a silly, irreverent, completely impossible boy,” I conclude. “He didn’t die on New Year’s. He just went missing. They will find him.”

  Nina sighs and shifts in her seat. She’s clearly not satisfied with my statement. I’ve stopped short of giving her what she wants, what they all want. I know my parents have been pressuring her for a “breakthrough.” In their view, I’m not progressing fast enough in therapy. Before she’d led me to the garage, I’d sensed the static between Nina and my mother. Get her to disown him already, my mother had screamed at her through desperate, narrowed eyes. Come on. It’s been nine months! It’s the same thing Mom has hissed at my father every single night. The walls in our home are pretty darn thin.

  Nina doesn’t go straight for the throat, though. She’s far too diplomatic for that. Instead, she sticks to the rules. “Let’s move on to the next one?” she suggests mildly. “No public discussions with Danny. What do you think of that?”

  “What do I think?”

  “Well, you said you’ve been following that one?”

  “Not really,” Danny remarks.

  “We have,” I insist.

  She raises her eyebrows. “You’re sure?”

  “Look, I know what you want me to say.” My voice rises again, but this time I don’t try to check myself. I’m getting angrier by the minute. This is not good therapy. Therapy is supposed to make you feel better. And Nina’s did—at first. She was the only one who’d never tried to label me, never judged my relationship with Danny. I should have known that it was too good to last. “You want me to say the obvious out loud.”

  “Is it really obvious to you?” Her voice is so mild, she might be inquiring about the weather. Is it really raining outside? Have you lost touch with reality? Are you really still seeing people who aren’t there?

  I’m tired of playing this game. I’m tired of admitting over and over what other people need to hear. That I haven’t lost my mind. That I know the difference between fantasy and reality.

  “Danny never really left,” I say, my voice trembling with frustration. “I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m not imagining him. He’s here, he’s with me now because he wants us to find him and bring him home.”

  She nods but doesn’t respond. I’m afraid to look at Danny, afraid to see the expression on his face. He’s the only one who knows that I’m lying, and I can’t bear to see the accusing look in his eyes. It’s bad enough that I can hear what he’s thinking. Why haven’t you told her why I’m gone, Ellie? When are you finally going to tell her?

  I shake his thoughts from my head. “You don’t believe me?” I ask her.

  “I believe that you think that’s true.”

  I roll my eyes. “That’s psychiatrist doublespeak. It doesn’t mean anything. You can say the same thing about a psychotic person.”

  “But you’re not psychotic, Ellie.” A statement, not a question. It’s strange that I find it comforting.

  “I know I’m not. What’s your point?”

  “My point is that you believe that you need to hold on to Danny. Ellie, you’re more self-aware than most of my teen patients, even many of my adult ones. What do you think would happen if you let him go?”

  I’m gripping my armrest so tightly, my fingers have gone numb. She has no idea what would happen to me if I let him go. She’s probably scribbled “depression/possibly suicidal after boyfriend’s disappearance” on the top of my file to remind herself that I’m always near the edge—literally. But that’s not even close to the whole picture. My lack of faith almost killed Danny—almost killed both of us. I’m never going to make that mistake again. “I’m not letting him go,” I tell her, “because it would be wrong to give up on him. Not because I can’t live without him.”

  And yet—even as I say it, I know that’s also a lie. I can’t live without Danny because I can’t live with what I did to him.

  “Do you think you’re in the same place as you were after Danny disappeared?” she asks.

  “How would I know?”

  “Well, do you ever think about hurting yourself?”

  I finally turn to look at Danny. He’s moved closer to me, balancing himself on the very edge of the ottoman, so close that I can almost touch him. “Do you, Ellie?” he asks me.

  “No,” I tell him. “I promised you.”

  I don’t care that I’ve broken the third rule, the one that’s supposed to give me the appearance of sanity. Danny is sitting here, just inches from me, his gray-flecked green eyes drawing me in, his thin lips slightly open, waiting for mine. Each curve and hollow of his face, every familiar freckle on his nose, the little diamond-shaped birthmark at the angle of his jaw—they’re more real to me than my therapist’s round and wrinkled face.

  “You promised?”

  I barely hear her question; Danny is shaking his head and putting a finger to his lips. He’s better at following the rules than I am, and he’s reminding me that I’m not supposed to be speaking to him here. Not in front of the woman evaluating my mental health. He gestures toward Nina, and I know that he wants me to address my therapist instead of him. But I’m not interested in talking to her anymore.

  “I promised you I’d wait,” I assure him. “That I wouldn’t give up hope again, like I did after you disappeared. And I won’t, no matter how long it takes.”

  “How long what takes?” Nina says.

  “They’re going to find me,” Danny replies. “It’s just a matter of time.” He’s so confident, so certain; he gives me the strength to face my worried psychologist.

  “I made a mistake once,” I tell her. “But I promised him I would never make it again. The night I hurt myself, I believed what the police were telling us—I believed statistics and probabilities and predictions. But they only have theories about what happened the night he disappeared. They have no proof.”

  “The police say that Danny drowned, Ellie.”

  I nod. Her calm statement doesn’t bother me. I’ve heard it dozens of times over the last nine months; I’ve read it hundreds of times in print.

  “Yes, that’s what they say. In Lake Lanier, after the accident.”

  “But you think they’re wrong.”

  I look over at Danny. He’s sitting cross-legged on the ottoman again, his thin arms folded across his chest. There’s a shadow of a smile on his face.

  “I know that they’re wrong.” My voice is calm and steady; I’m speaking for him now, and I need to be as confident as he is. “They never found a body,” I inform her. “The divers searched the lake for days, and they never found him.”

  “And you think that must mean—”

  “It means that he isn’t there. He never drowned in that lake.”

  She just sits there after I say it. She doesn’t contradict me—not even with a flicker of doubt in her eyes. I’m grateful
for her silence, and scared that it will end, that she will say something that will make me hate her.

  I have to give her something else to chew on, to distract her from pulling me down into her favorite rabbit hole. So, on an impulse, I tell her about my conversation with my English teacher. Just to show her that I’m still doing well in school, so she can write something positive in her notebook.

  Thankfully, she takes the bait. “A story competition? That actually sounds like a great idea!”

  “Oh—” I hesitate and glance over at Danny. He’s gotten up from the ottoman and is studying the ceramic gargoyle on her bookcase.

  “I say, give it a shot,” Nina persists. “Even if you don’t hand it in. I think writing would be good for you.”

  I’m so grateful for the change of topic that I actually consider it. “A story?” I ask her. “Don’t you all think that my imagination is overactive as it is? You really want to encourage more of that?”

  She laughs, and the wrinkles around her eyes deepen. I catch a glimpse of a dozen silver fillings. “You don’t have to make it up,” she suggests. “Start with something true. Life can be stranger than fiction, right?”

  I smother a smile. She doesn’t realize it, but she’s just referred to the game that Danny and I have played for years. An idea springs into my mind, an idea that is the exact opposite of what Nina intended.

  They want me to write a story? No problem. I’ll give them a story. I’ll give them an entire collection. But it will be the ones that I want to tell.

  I already have a title for the first one: “The First Time I Hugged a Boy.”

  “You’re brilliant,” I say to Nina. Her smile fades, and her eyes narrow suspiciously.

  “Excuse me?”

  “No, really. It’s perfect. I’m going to do it. I can’t wait to get started.”

  She looks downright frightened. I suppose that sudden bright enthusiasm can be a little scary, especially coming from a disturbed individual like myself.

  “May I ask what you’re planning to write—” she begins.

  “Oh, I’ll show you when I’m done,” I interrupt. “I have to go now. I can’t wait to get started.”

  TRUTH OR FICTION by Eliana Merlis

  A collection of love stories they want me to forget

  (working title)

  THE FIRST TIME I HUGGED A BOY

  “Is this your first time flying alone?”

  I nodded and gripped my passport so tightly, it bit into the tips of my fingers.

  “But not your first time on a plane?”

  I shook my head and swallowed. “I didn’t mean to push the button. I’m just really really—”

  The rest of the thought disappeared into a moan as the floor beneath us dropped and shook. The flight attendant lurched forward and grabbed the seat in front of me.

  “Oh God, what’s happening?” I gasped.

  “Totally normal,” she assured me. “Just keep your seat belt fastened, and everything will be fine.” But her voice cracked at the end, and there were beads of sweat above her painted lips.

  My father told me once to always look at the faces of the crew. If they’re handing out drinks and smiling, there’s nothing to worry about.

  They had been serving coffee before this started, but most of the cups had flown off the cart; there were still pink sweetener packets littering the aisle like confetti. And the cheery attendant assigned to watch over the flight’s unaccompanied minors definitely wasn’t smiling anymore.

  The pilot’s voice came over the intercom again, urging passengers to stay in their seats until we’d passed through the “choppy air.”

  “I should get back,” she muttered, and then gestured to the kid sitting beside me. “Hey, why don’t you talk to him? He seems to be doing okay.”

  As she staggered back to her station, I turned to the boy next to me. I’d noticed him when we boarded; he was the only other unaccompanied minor on the plane, his plastic-wrapped passport dangling from his neck, like an oversized dog tag.

  I hadn’t planned on speaking to a random stranger; besides, he’d put in his earbuds, which is the universal signal for leave me alone. But as the plane rattled and dove, I grabbed the armrest to steady myself, accidentally dislodging his cord. He looked up at me, surprised. “Are you okay?”

  I obviously wasn’t. I could feel cold sweat streaming down my back and pooling in a gross puddle around the tag of my skirt. But if he could see the darkening shadow soaking through my shirt, he didn’t let on. He smiled and held out a half-eaten candy bar. “Kit Kat?”

  I shook my head and clapped my hand over my mouth. “How are you not scared?” I moaned through my fingers.

  He shrugged and popped a piece of chocolate into his mouth. “My dad’s a pilot. I know when to be scared. We’re not even close.”

  It was a bold statement to make. All around us, full-grown adults were squeezing airsick bags and glancing frantically around the cabin. Even our flight attendant looked queasy, strapped into her little fold-out seat. And yet here was this skinny, pale kid, munching on candy and fiddling with his phone like we were on a merry-go-round.

  “How do you know that it’s okay?” I demanded.

  He leaned forward—or pitched—toward me, as the plane dipped and lurched through the sky. “I’ll tell you. Have you ever seen a scared horse go crazy?”

  “No.”

  He grinned. “Well, just imagine what would happen if that wild horse was trapped on a plane with you. Terror at thirty thousand feet.”

  I’m not sure why I believed him, but I did. “You were on a plane with a wild horse? Really?”

  He blew a strand of sandy brown hair out of his eyes. “My dad used to work for a transport company that flies racehorses across the country.”

  “What happened to the horse?” I was so grateful for the distraction, it didn’t matter what he said; I was his captive audience until this hurricane was over.

  “Tranquilizers didn’t work for some reason. They were talking about shooting the horse. But then my dad had this idea to play this new agey music over the intercom. Calmed the horse right down. Plane was a wreck, though.”

  “Wow.” I was gripping the armrests a little less forcefully. “So if everything’s okay, why does our flight attendant look so scared?”

  “Bernadette?” He waved at her and gave her a thumbs-up sign. “Maybe she’s new. Not the bravest, is she?”

  We’d finally leveled out a little, and I slowly sank back in my seat. “That’s funny,” I remarked. “Because her name literally means ‘brave like a bear.’ ”

  He wrinkled his nose and shoved the rest of the candy into his mouth. “Brave like—what?”

  I looked down, embarrassed. “Nothing. Doesn’t matter. I just—I just like names, that’s all.”

  I knew it sounded weird, but I was so relieved that the plane had finally stopped pitching that I didn’t care. I was starting to breathe normally again.

  And then the floor beneath me shuddered, and the cabin lights went out.

  I don’t know who grabbed whose hand first (Danny swears that I was the grabber), but he didn’t flinch as I squeezed his fingers. “Should I be scared now?” I gasped. There were sobs and moans echoing throughout the cabin. A couple near me had started praying loudly in a language I didn’t recognize.

  Danny shook his head. “I’ll tell you when to be scared.” His voice was so light, it slowed my hammering heart.

  “Okay.”

  “Want to hear more weird airplane stories?” he asked.

  If the tales he told me were to be believed, Danny had been on hundreds of flights, possibly thousands. Or maybe he simply attracted madness. My favorite was the one about the British gentleman who’d left the bathroom stall completely naked, angrily demanding to speak to the person who had stolen his trousers. (“And they really couldn’t find his clothes anywhere on that plane,” Danny insisted. “Had to wrap blankets around him in the end.”) As we bobbed toward Hartsfield
-Jackson, Danny actually made me laugh out loud, while the rest of the plane was panicking.

  When we touched down in Atlanta, he plugged his earphones back into his ears and slipped his phone out of his pocket.

  I was still a little unsteady as the flight attendant escorted the two of us off the plane to arrivals. Danny hadn’t said anything since we landed, but I noticed that he wasn’t searching for a familiar face in the waiting crowd. “My father’s probably going to be late,” he muttered to our escort.

  “Aren’t pilots supposed to be punctual?” I asked.

  He shot me an enigmatic smile. “I guess. Except he isn’t a pilot.”

  I blinked stupidly at him. “He’s isn’t? But you just told me he was. All those amazing stories—”

  He looked away, his smile still lingering. “They were pretty good stories, weren’t they?”

  The flight attendant touched my arm. “I think I see your mom, dear.” I had already spotted her; she was waving her arms wildly and calling to me. “Eliana! I’m over here! Eliana Tikva!”

  “That’s a cool name,” Danny remarked. There was a hint of teasing in his green eyes. “It means ‘God answered my hope,’ right?”

  My jaw dropped. Like, all the way open. He got a full view of my braces and a couple of silver crowns.

  No one, not even my Hebrew teachers, had picked up on the meaning of my name. Who was this kid?

  I didn’t want to say goodbye to him yet, but my mom was pushing her way through the crowd toward us, so I didn’t have much time. This boy was all kinds of awesome, with his crazy intuition and magnificent lies. He’d saved me on that plane. I had to thank him.

  So I stepped forward and hugged him—hard. It was the first time I’d ever hugged a boy, and it was the stiffest, shortest, weirdest two seconds in the history of hugging. I managed to poke him in the ribs somehow. He made a pained “oof” sound.

  Over the years, Danny and I would get better at hugging. We got better at other things too. Spinning stories. Collecting secrets.

  Telling lies.

  Chapter 4

  I drop by Rae’s house after my session with Nina, and as I walk up to the door, Danny suggests that I go in without him. “But you were the one who said I should speak to her,” I protest.