Liar. Part 27

"Didn't kill him."

I look down at my hands. There's no sign of the wolf in them. They're almost hairless. The fingernails are short and square. My stomach growls so loudly they must hear it in the apartment next door.

"So you slept with him," Dad says. It's not a question.

"Yes," I say softly, addressing my words to the backs of my hands.

"You lied to us," Dad says. "About your relations.h.i.+p with that boy. You knew it was dangerous. You promised us you would be careful. Smart. You were neither, and now he's dead. You killed him."

"I did not! The white boy did!"

"The white boy? Oh, Micah," Dad says. "Don't. We've had enough of your bulls.h.i.+t." My father never swears. "This is what happens . . ." He stops, too full of despair to give me a lecture. This is bigger than that. "You're going up to the farm. You can't stay here. You're not killing anyone else."

"Dad! I didn't kill him. I didn't. The white boy did. He's a wolf, too. He did it. Not me. You have to believe me."

Dad shakes his head. He's not even looking me in the eye.

"You can't send me upstate. I have to finish school. I've worked my a.s.s off to get this far. I've sent off my college applications. I've-"

"Let's say it is true," my mom says. "That there is this other wolf. It is quite a coincidence, no? That he is changed the same weekend as you?"

"Well," I begin. It is a coincidence, I realize.

"The white boy, you say. He is a boy wolf?"

I nod.

"A boy wolf needs a girl wolf near so that he may change? That is how it works, no?"

"Yes," I say.

"This boy wolf? He changes the exact same weekend as you?"

"Oh," I say, realizing. "He changed because I changed."

Mom is right. Without a female around, male wolves don't change. The white boy changed the same time I did. Even though I'm sitting on the floor, I'm dizzy. This means I killed Zach. No. Let there be other wolves. A secret den in the city. Please don't let me have made the white boy change. All because I forgot my pill.

"Whether this white boy wolf exists or no, you must go upstate. You are a wolf," Mom says. "You cannot ever forget this thing that you are. Not ever."

I don't. How is that even possible? It governs everything I do and say. Something they will never understand. "I never forget," I say. "I'll find that boy. I will take him up to the Greats like they said. I'll fix this," I say, even though there is no fixing it. Zach stays dead no matter what I do.

"Even if he exists, that boy is not the one who must go to the farm. You are. Your grandmere was right. There is no place for you here. You are too wild for the city. Too much for the city, too much for us." Mom stands up, ducking to avoid the bikes, steps over me, careful to make no contact, and goes into their bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her. My mother has never not kissed me good night before. Not even when . . . not even the last time they were this angry.

Dad is leaning forward, his head in his hands. He's quiet but I'm afraid he's crying.

I get up, open the fridge, and pull out the remains of their dinner: half a chicken. I slip back down to the floor and finish it off, not bothering with knife and fork or napkin or ketchup, eating with my fingers, shoveling the food in so fast I don't even taste it.

Dad looks at me. I can see the disgust. My daughter eats like an animal, he's thinking.

I'm not an animal.

I am.

If it weren't for me Zach would be alive.

I can't think about that. I open the fridge, looking for more food. I think I will eat till I puke.

LIE NUMBER EIGHT.

So, yeah, I was a wolf the weekend Zach was killed.

Yes, that was a lie-yet another one-but not a total lie. I did track Zach in Central Park, did talk to him in the cypress tree, like I said. Just not that day.

There's truth in most of my lies. You can see that, can't you?

You can see, too, why I couldn't tell you? Think about it for more than half a second: back then I wasn't admitting the wolf within me. Once I did admit it, if I'd told you the truth about that weekend-what would you think?

That I killed Zach.

I didn't.

You want to know how I know, don't you?

I can remember what I do when I'm a wolf. Not every detail, not crystal clear. But hunts, I remember. Food, I remember.

Those four days, hiding in Inwood-not Central Park-I remember everything I hunted, everything I ate.

I ate fox, a feral cat, squirrel. Fox tastes G.o.d-awful. I remember every foul bite.

I did not eat Zach.

I did not see Zach.

Not while I was a wolf.

How could I have killed him?

In Central Park there aren't many places for a wolf to hide. Over the course of four days I'd've been found, locked in a cage at the zoo or something. And then-surprise!-I'd've changed back and they'd have a naked seventeen-year-old girl in a cage.

I couldn't allow that to happen.

But Inwood, Inwood is more wooded. There are caves to hide in, marshland, less people. That's why I headed there when the change started to hit and I knew I wasn't going to make it home.

Yes, I know Zach lived in Inwood but that's not why I went there. I'd figured out a long time ago that it was the safest place. h.e.l.l, it's probably the only place on the island a wolf could hide for four days. The only place that's how it was before white people, before cars, and pollution, and skysc.r.a.pers. The biggest and wildest the island has to offer.

I did not see Zach. I did not kill him.

I wouldn't. I couldn't.

AFTER.

Before Dad goes to bed he tells me they're taking me up to the Greats first thing in the morning.

"What about the white boy?" I ask. "He's real. I didn't make him up."

"I don't need this now," Dad says.

"I promised the Greats I'd bring him."

"Stop it, Micah." I know he thinks I'm lying, that the white boy doesn't exist. He thinks I killed Zach. Not indirectly by causing the white boy's change, but directly with my teeth and claws. I think my mom believes the same.

"I didn't-," I begin.

"Shut up, Micah," Dad says. "I don't care, okay? First thing in the morning we take you up to my mother's and you stay there. If this boy actually exists then he's no danger with you gone, is he? Now, go to bed."

"But I-"

"Micah, we are not having a discussion. This is final."

His face is cold, narrowed. He's never looked at me that way before.

I go to my room and shut the door behind me. It's never seemed so small before. The cage is most of it. Christ, I hate that cage. There's no cage up on the farm. There's no life there either.

I could have defied Dad. I am stronger than him. He cannot physically make me obey. But I love him and Mom and I want them to love me. I don't think they do anymore. I think it's a long time since they loved me. I have broken our family. Once they leave me at the farm, will they visit? Or will it be the end?

I slide down to the floor, my back against the door.

How can I make this better? How can I get their love back? How can I keep them from sending me away?

I have to find the white boy, bring him to them, prove that he exists, that he killed Zach, not me. Then they can take him up to the Greats and I can stay. I'll promise never to forget the pill again. In the five years I've been changing, I've only forgotten twice. I can do better than that. Then I can finish high school, go to college, have a life.

I should be exhausted. I'm not. I climb out the window, quiet as I can, raising it the barest fraction, squeezing myself through.

I will find the white boy.

AFTER.

I walk around the neighborhood, concentrating on smell-the white boy's smell. I'm torn on whether I want to find him. Taking him to the farm is what he deserves. The Greats'll take care of him.

But what if it's not enough for Mom and Dad? What if even finding him, proving what he did, bringing him to them is not enough, and they still condemn me to the Greats?

I could not stand it.

Can I stay in the city, finish school, get into college without them?

I don't think so.

I could get a job, but it wouldn't be enough to pay for a place, for food, for the pill I must take every single day. Is there some refuge that would take me in? Could I ask Yayeko Shoji to help me?

I hate the white boy. I hate him more than I've ever hated anyone. If I find him now I will kill him. Even though it would make everything worse.

I think about when and where I've seen him before. What did all my sightings of the boy have in common?

I've seen him in Central Park most often. But also down here, not far from my apartment building. That's the where.

When is all times of day, but never at night. It's dark right now. 2:00 a.m.

What else?

I was running. Every time I've seen him I've been running. Except that once at Inwood. But I didn't see him that time, just smelled him.

I take off. Shoot up First Avenue, fast as I can.

At Forty-first and Broadway-weaving my way through the drunken, wobbly crowd, touching no one, not even getting close-the white boy joins me. Comes out of nowhere to run by my side.

I smell him before I see him. Gasp from the reek of it. I doubt he's ever bathed. He's ripe.

My first impulse is wolfish: tear open his belly, watch his innards drop out. But my human nails and teeth aren't strong enough. Also, we are running up Broadway, approaching the park, surrounded by people.

He doesn't smell like prey. He smells like enemy.

My brain almost breaks in the tumble of thoughts. Ideas of what I should say. Why did you? Who are you? It's too much. I don't know where to start. Easier to keep running.

In the park, after hours, breaking the rules again, I run even faster. He keeps pace easily. Wolf. Wolf. Wolf. Wolf. Wolf. Stays with me even when I accelerate on Heartbreak Hill.

The boy doesn't say a word. I start to wonder whether he speaks English.

Yet I don't speak to him.

The boy who killed Zach. How can I run with him?

He's so dirty he probably still has Zach's blood on him. How can his parents let him run around like that? Don't they care?

I look at him out of the corner of my eye; I don't want him to know I am looking. There are scabs on the side of his neck. Though maybe that's just dirt. Food he hasn't washed away.

Bits of Zach?

The anger is building in me again. It never went away. Every stride it builds and builds and builds. If I open my mouth I will yell at him.

I have to speak to him.

"You did something to me," he says as we scream down Heartbreak Hill.

HISTORY OF ME.

I remember when I was very little, before the hair started covering me, before I knew about the wolf within, I remember wanting to be a cop when I grew up, or a basketball player, or, possibly, a fireman.

I remember having a future.