Lies and Other Necessities

•New beginning...

I am perfectly right about my parents liking my boyfriend. It is obvious; the way they stare at him as he talks about how we met. My mom smiles each time she looks at him but it's a sad smile. It doesn't reach her eyes and she's holding my dad's hand, silently pleading with him with unspoken words.

"She had scared the shi-- living daylights out of me." Logan is doing a mental facepalm at his fumble and I catch him tucking his tongue in his cheek for a split second. I rub his thigh slowly as I cut in to help save the situation.

"He was at my spot. I go there when I want to be alone and I didn't know anyone knew about it till I found him there one time. And he was sleeping. Of course I'd ask where the hell he came from."

Ours wasn't a typical meet-cute. I was highly pissed when I had first met Logan and it hadn't helped that he knew about my spot. I had snagged that spot on the roof of the community library for myself and no one else. Especially not a good-looking stranger who saw my sanctuary as a nap-room.

My words bring laughter to the table even though I had cursed and my parents aren't big fans of cursing. Normally, they'd be quick to tell me off but they are too distracted by their own thoughts.

"Thank you," Logan whispers as his head inches closer to mine.

"Pay me in back rubs," I whisper back. Neck massages and back rubs are our unofficial currency but sometimes, they are alternatively used as code for other things.

My mother leaves the table to go fetch dinner. I manage to pick up the gesture she makes with her hand for me to follow and I do.

As soon as we're out of earshot I smile widely, "Isn't he great?"

My mother nods warily. "He's so much like him."

"Yeah, but he's not him. He's not Matteo." I'm assuring myself through the assurance of my mother. Logan is his own person with his own appeal.

Tears form in my mother's eyes as she recounts the phone call we had had on the night Matteo Sanders disappeared. The confrontation after had been worse. I had stayed secret strong but my dad was too smart about things and had figured out what had happened.

Matteo had told me he was dying. That his lungs were giving out and the pain was too much for him to bear.

Emphysema. That's what he had said he had. A disease where his lungs were damaged and enlarged. He had never mentioned that he was sick before. In fact he had never mentioned he smoked either, but there he was, telling me about a disease he had gotten from smoking.

What he smoked I didn't know, nor did I care about. Whether cigarettes or pot or opium, it didn't matter. It was in the past and he said he had stopped a long time ago. A lie.

While he had told me about what exactly was wrong with him, he had taken long pauses to either catch his breath or to spit out the mucus that clogged up his throat.

"Have you been to the hospital?" I had asked him as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Evie, I'm so fucking tired of going to hospitals." He had stopped talking for a while and had taken in long, deep breaths. "It's not like... like the meds they give me work anyway."

He had then laid back down on the grass, and I had fallen next to him, our hands brushing against each other, fingers almost touching.

"Evie?" He had asked.

"Matteo?" I had humored him.

He had smiled despite the visible effort it had taken. "Will you do something for me?"

"What?"

"Don't tell anyone about what happens tonight. Please." He had begged me, blue-tinged lips hanging open to let in air he couldn't breathe.

I had readily agreed to his plea thinking he meant to keep his disease a secret. But I missed a tiny detail. Happens. Matteo had said happens. He had meant the very, very near future. I was still dwelling in the past.

I had stared at the mass expanse of sky up above, the darkness that would soon haunt me. Matteo had been quiet and I had guessed he was contemplating something.

"Did you get what I asked you to get?"

I had nodded almost mechanically and then pulled out the pill container from my backpack. He had asked me to find Blake a day earlier and Blake had given me the opaque container. Holding it up, I turned the bottle around in my hand for a label or any clue as to what it contained. There was none.

"What's this anyway?"

"Just something to help." A lie. Matteo had reached for the bottle and I had noticed how skinny his arm had gotten. He had lost a significant amount of weight in such a short time and I had found it alarming. He had shrugged it off and had told me he was dieting. Another lie.

He had sat up in the grass, tucking his skinny legs close to his body as he asked for water. I had handed him one and I had watched as he took the bottle with shaky hands, downed a couple of pills, and then gulped a copious amount of water down his throat.

He had stared quietly at me, a solemn look on his beautiful face that was slowly losing it's glow. His face had looked drawn, bags were under his bloodshot eyes. Age lines were etched over his forehead. I asked him about them and he had told me he hadn't been getting enough sleep because of his busy schedule. A fourth lie.

"I love you, Evie. You know that right? You know I love you to the moon and back?"

"I know."

He had leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead. His lips were cold as ice.

Matteo had lied about a lot of things and now that I think about it, those little lies had hurt me when I finally saw them for what they were. Far from the truth. But none of them had hurt more than the final lie he had uttered to me before he had stood up, leaving me alone in the grass. They were his final words.

"I gotta piss. Be right back."

The glimmer in his eyes as he had walked towards the bushes is an image forever embedded in my memory. At the time, I had thought it was from the reflection of light that shone in his eyes. I had been wrong about that. They were tears.

Matteo had told me the final lie. He never came back. I had tried to search for him but it was too dark for me to be wandering around in the woods. I had yelled out his name. I had broken down and cried when he hadn't answered.

And I had been completely torn apart when I found out the pills in the bottle were actually Acetaminophen. An overdose could cause liver damage and lead to death. The number of pills Matteo had swallowed had been more than just a few.

He had done it purposely and I had assisted him. I had gotten him the medicine. I had given him water. I had helped him kill himself. Worst of all, I had promised not to say a word.

I want nothing more than to tell the world what happened to Matteo Sanders but I'm scared. I'm scared I'll be blamed for his death. Scared that fingers will be pointing at me from all directions. I'll be called out for lying the entire time. For saying I hadn't seen Matteo that entire week, that I hadn't gone anywhere that fateful summer night.

I hold my mother close and tell her things will be fine. Things are fine. It's necessary that we stay positive about things. It's necessary that I move on with Logan. Logan is a new start for me, a new chance that I'm not going to mess up.

My father's gravelly voice asks why the food is taking so long. I take the chicken casserole to the table while my mother follows with potato wedges and dipping sauces.

Once I sit, I take Logan's hand and lean in towards his ear. "There are a lot of necessities in my life right now. You're one of them. Don't forget that. Never forget that."

Logan gives me a boyish grin that makes my lips quiver and tears prick the back of my eyelids. "I love you too, darling."

~~
WORD COUNT FOR CHAPTER: 1169 words.

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