If I Lie
Page 17
But to be a part of our military town, you have to pay a price.
In the past twenty years, we’ve lost twenty soldiers in the Middle East. Others returned, not as they were, but as strangers. And then there are the rules. I am not the first in our town to be caught cheating. A lot of ugly crap happens during the months that Marines are deployed. But I am the first in our high school.
Sometimes I think my friends—whose own parents have been deployed for months at a time—are taking their rage out on me. After all, why do they care about what happened between Carey and me? Then I remember how hard our town and its families have struggled to keep it together, and I forgive my friends a little because they don’t know the truth.
My mom and I had struggled to hold it together too, while my father fought in Iraq. But she betrayed us. She changed our family forever with one selfish act. Now it looks like I’ve betrayed Carey in the worst way.
Maybe I would want to destroy me too.
Chapter Nine
George cheats at games.
His eyes stray toward my cards, and I angle my hand closer to my chest, glaring at him. “Go fish.”
He takes a card off the top of the deck on the table and frowns. More than just about anything, he hates to lose, and I have to watch him closely so cards don’t stray up his sleeve or under the blanket on his lap.
“Do you have a nine?”
His brow smoothes out, and he gives me an angelic smile. “Go fish, Soph.”
I know he’s lying and he knows I know he’s lying. I raise an eyebrow at him. “Seriously, George? You’re gonna play it like that?”
“Like what?” he asks, all innocence.
“We’re not even betting money on this.”
He tilts his head toward the fun-size candy bars piled on his bedside tray. “Those things are currency around here. Now shut up and draw, kid.”
Placing my elbows on the tabletop, I lean forward until my face is in his. “Swear on your Cubans that you don’t have a nine.” I’m not sure how he gets them, but George has a steady supply of Cuban cigars. He loves them, but obviously not as much as he loves winning.
“I swear,” he says, solemnly placing a hand over his heart.
He manages to hold my gaze for all of five seconds before his eyes drop. As soon as he looks away I steal at glance at his hand. Not only does he have a nine, he also has an ace and a queen he told me he didn’t have.
“You lie like a dog, George. Give me the nine, and while you’re at it, give me that ace and the queen.”
Caught, he grins shamelessly and passes me the cards without argument. He groans when I smack down three pairs, finishing off my hand and pulling all the candy toward me.
“I win!” I crow. “That makes five hands, right?”
“Four.” He crosses his arms while I do a miniature victory lap around his room. He’s scowling, but doing a bad job at hiding a smile. “All right, smart-ass. Quit being a poor winner and hand me those photos.”
The pictures are part of the Veterans History Project we’ve been working on since we met last year. We’re helping Private Don Baruth in room 309 compile his mementos from his days fighting in the Korean War as part of the Army’s 8th Calvary, 1st Calvary Division. Each piece of memorabilia has to be documented and Don’s story has to be written up before we can submit his collection to the Library of Congress.
I drop the pictures onto George’s lap and resume my seat on the side of the bed where his leg should be. It used to bother me, that missing leg.
“This one is amazing,” I say, pulling a photo from the pile.
George studies it. The black-and-white shot features only a dirty helmet and the arm of an unseen soldier. George traces the arm, lost in memory. The images do this to him often, taking him back in time to things he’d rather forget and doesn’t like to talk about.
“It’s of a North Korean soldier Don had just shot in a skirmish along the Nakdong River, near Chingu.”
The soldier is dead. Peering closer, I see the ground is a mixture of mud and what has to be blood. I hadn’t realized. I picture Don as I’d seen him the week before. In his eighties, at least, he has more liver spots than hair. His skin sags with the weight of age, and his hands shook when he patted my arm to thank me for bringing him a cup of water.
“Why did he keep it? That seems a little creepy.”
“He didn’t want to forget how awful it felt to kill someone.”
I say nothing. I can’t imagine what it would be like to kill another human being. Someone who had a family who loved them. Somebody’s son and maybe somebody’s father. I wonder if Carey has had to kill anyone. Or worse, has someone killed Carey? I shiver, though it’s not cold.
George sighs and takes a deep breath to pull himself back to the present. “Why do you think this photo is amazing?”
I pause, studying the picture. He tests me like this sometimes, to see what I’ve learned.
“It’s haunting. You can only see part of the person and the helmet. It’s like the photographer is making a statement about what’s not there instead of what is. And maybe the photographer is a little scared to show reality, like it’s too horrific to really look at what happened to that soldier. Does that make sense?”
George’s face creaks into a smile. “You have good instincts, Soph. Let’s look at this one.”
He passes me another photo, and we fall into a comfortable rhythm. He points out the things I miss about composition and focus and lighting.
In the past twenty years, we’ve lost twenty soldiers in the Middle East. Others returned, not as they were, but as strangers. And then there are the rules. I am not the first in our town to be caught cheating. A lot of ugly crap happens during the months that Marines are deployed. But I am the first in our high school.
Sometimes I think my friends—whose own parents have been deployed for months at a time—are taking their rage out on me. After all, why do they care about what happened between Carey and me? Then I remember how hard our town and its families have struggled to keep it together, and I forgive my friends a little because they don’t know the truth.
My mom and I had struggled to hold it together too, while my father fought in Iraq. But she betrayed us. She changed our family forever with one selfish act. Now it looks like I’ve betrayed Carey in the worst way.
Maybe I would want to destroy me too.
Chapter Nine
George cheats at games.
His eyes stray toward my cards, and I angle my hand closer to my chest, glaring at him. “Go fish.”
He takes a card off the top of the deck on the table and frowns. More than just about anything, he hates to lose, and I have to watch him closely so cards don’t stray up his sleeve or under the blanket on his lap.
“Do you have a nine?”
His brow smoothes out, and he gives me an angelic smile. “Go fish, Soph.”
I know he’s lying and he knows I know he’s lying. I raise an eyebrow at him. “Seriously, George? You’re gonna play it like that?”
“Like what?” he asks, all innocence.
“We’re not even betting money on this.”
He tilts his head toward the fun-size candy bars piled on his bedside tray. “Those things are currency around here. Now shut up and draw, kid.”
Placing my elbows on the tabletop, I lean forward until my face is in his. “Swear on your Cubans that you don’t have a nine.” I’m not sure how he gets them, but George has a steady supply of Cuban cigars. He loves them, but obviously not as much as he loves winning.
“I swear,” he says, solemnly placing a hand over his heart.
He manages to hold my gaze for all of five seconds before his eyes drop. As soon as he looks away I steal at glance at his hand. Not only does he have a nine, he also has an ace and a queen he told me he didn’t have.
“You lie like a dog, George. Give me the nine, and while you’re at it, give me that ace and the queen.”
Caught, he grins shamelessly and passes me the cards without argument. He groans when I smack down three pairs, finishing off my hand and pulling all the candy toward me.
“I win!” I crow. “That makes five hands, right?”
“Four.” He crosses his arms while I do a miniature victory lap around his room. He’s scowling, but doing a bad job at hiding a smile. “All right, smart-ass. Quit being a poor winner and hand me those photos.”
The pictures are part of the Veterans History Project we’ve been working on since we met last year. We’re helping Private Don Baruth in room 309 compile his mementos from his days fighting in the Korean War as part of the Army’s 8th Calvary, 1st Calvary Division. Each piece of memorabilia has to be documented and Don’s story has to be written up before we can submit his collection to the Library of Congress.
I drop the pictures onto George’s lap and resume my seat on the side of the bed where his leg should be. It used to bother me, that missing leg.
“This one is amazing,” I say, pulling a photo from the pile.
George studies it. The black-and-white shot features only a dirty helmet and the arm of an unseen soldier. George traces the arm, lost in memory. The images do this to him often, taking him back in time to things he’d rather forget and doesn’t like to talk about.
“It’s of a North Korean soldier Don had just shot in a skirmish along the Nakdong River, near Chingu.”
The soldier is dead. Peering closer, I see the ground is a mixture of mud and what has to be blood. I hadn’t realized. I picture Don as I’d seen him the week before. In his eighties, at least, he has more liver spots than hair. His skin sags with the weight of age, and his hands shook when he patted my arm to thank me for bringing him a cup of water.
“Why did he keep it? That seems a little creepy.”
“He didn’t want to forget how awful it felt to kill someone.”
I say nothing. I can’t imagine what it would be like to kill another human being. Someone who had a family who loved them. Somebody’s son and maybe somebody’s father. I wonder if Carey has had to kill anyone. Or worse, has someone killed Carey? I shiver, though it’s not cold.
George sighs and takes a deep breath to pull himself back to the present. “Why do you think this photo is amazing?”
I pause, studying the picture. He tests me like this sometimes, to see what I’ve learned.
“It’s haunting. You can only see part of the person and the helmet. It’s like the photographer is making a statement about what’s not there instead of what is. And maybe the photographer is a little scared to show reality, like it’s too horrific to really look at what happened to that soldier. Does that make sense?”
George’s face creaks into a smile. “You have good instincts, Soph. Let’s look at this one.”
He passes me another photo, and we fall into a comfortable rhythm. He points out the things I miss about composition and focus and lighting.
