Liarholic Page 10

  Then I tell myself I’m being stupid to even think I could be something special.

  ‘I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ I snap dismissively. ‘I’m not anybody’s hero. The kicker is, Amy, that no matter how much I play Pied Piper and take the hurt away from Diana, I’m still a heartless bastard. My intention isn’t to help her find the light, like you think it is. I’m doing it because I want something in return.’

  Amy looks into me.

  It always hurts to look at you.

  The way she looks right now, you have to think about plane crashes. The way she looks, you’d have to think of massacres to not trigger, to not come in your pants. Think of rotten food and maggots and dog shit.

  That’s how fucking beautiful she looks.

  ‘It’s not always easy to see the truth. And sometimes it’s harder to believe it, even when it’s right in front of you. Find your own truth, Shepherd. When you do, life will mean something. Maybe it’ll help you come to terms with your past.’

  My blood boils in my veins. I don’t want or need anybody’s goddamn sympathy. Like a slingshot, I snap back to my default state. It’s how I survive from feeling real.

  A hardened heart.

  ‘My past is none of your goddamn business, Amy. So stop shoving your nose up where it doesn’t belong.’

  I look away so I can’t see her hurt, even though I’m the one who’s caused it. Nothing a man would want to see done to the girl he loves, right? Is that what she is? The girl I love? Or just the girl I'm willing to destroy my world to get back? Maybe it's the same fucking thing.

  ‘I want to understand you,’ she says. ‘You talk like a jerk, yet your actions contradict it. It’s just like what happened to us back in school. You were sweet as pie to me and then one day, just like that, you decided to hate me.’

  ‘Quit dissecting me. You’re trying to find something deep that doesn’t exist. I had good reason to hate you.’

  I’m not the kind of man that needs coddling and special care. My heart won’t shatter into a million tiny slivers and my eyes won’t gush the goddamned Niagara Falls at her. That isn’t me.

  ‘In the last month, I’ve watched you visit Diana, time and time again, despite how torturous it is. I know you’re not a monster, Shepherd, so I don’t understand why you pretend to live without a heart.’

  I never bargained for this. The only way a liar passes the test is if nobody looks close enough. Hell, Amy has me under a microscope. Nowhere to hide. My outside torn apart, the insides exposed.

  Amy looking at me the way she is, I’m just a bug to crush.

  ‘You pretend to understand me. Okay, riddle me this, Amy. Why at fifteen was I imprisoned for armed robbery? Why did I even get into that state of mind?’

  She staggers back like a ragdoll.

  It tells me everything.

  I. Scare. Her.

  ‘I didn’t know . . . ’ She sounds like she’s drowning under water.

  ‘You don’t know a single real thing about me.’

  Amy is not gonna make me feel anything. She’s not gonna get to me.

  Nobody’s gonna trick me into feeling Christlike.

  ‘Is . . . is that why you vanished out of thin air?’

  I look down at my steel-capped boots, grind a stone into the dirt. ‘Yeah.’

  I can see Amy’s mind ticking away, processing what she’s just learnt. Then she says, ‘All this time I thought you didn’t care.’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

  Her shoulders dip down. ‘All this hate . . . you don’t need to be the angry man.’

  This girl really is fucking clueless.

  As I got older, I started to understand how my life was different from that of my mates. I was finding it harder and harder to control my temper at school. The tiniest thing set me off.

  Boys at school called me Shepherd Loser instead of Lawson. It was a little thing. But it got me every time. It wasn’t just a pun. The fact was, I was a loser. The children’s home never threw a single penny my way. I wore second-hand clothes, and my trainers were always falling apart.

  The first year of high school was hell. I was a scrawny, inadequate kid. Every journey to school was like running through the middle of a battlefield. I was jeered at, spat at, and tripped up by the other children.

  I worked hard and did my best to keep my head down, but that didn’t help me with the cool kids. They were provoked by what they saw as my swottiness. And also by the fact that I was starting to get attention from some of the girls. I didn’t court it. It just happened. I was too shy to know how to respond. They thought I looked cute. That did me no favours with the boys who were interested in girls, but couldn’t get a look-in.

  They started calling me ‘pretty boy’ and took to beating me up. I felt paralysed. Ashamed. I was so weak I couldn’t stand up to them.

  Until Jake and his gang saved me.

  Jake was fifteen and I was twelve, a huge gulf at that age. The cool kids didn’t dare come near me again, now that I was one of Jake’s boys. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt like I belonged. It was a saving grace at the time.

  At twelve, I was drinking and taking drugs. I loved the feeling of getting out of my head, of floating above the shitty world I lived in. I wanted that feeling to stay with me for the rest of my life. I was so high, I never saw the crash coming.

  It dragged me to Hell.

  ‘Let’s not pretend, Amy. I’m not Christlike and I don’t have a fuck for a heart. You got me wrong. You don’t have a fucking clue about me. I don’t need or want your goddamn help. Ever. Got that?’

  Amy is visibly shaking. ‘You're right. I just wanted to help you.’

  She points at a dying weed in the ground below. ‘I think that when a beautiful flower is left in the darkness for too long, it turns into an ugly weed. That all it needs is a little sunshine to make it grow into a pretty flower again.’

  Flowers bloom and die, Amy.

  ‘You need to quit with the therapy, Amy. You’re the one who needs help — don’t ever forget that.’

  ‘Can you not stand knowing someone cares about you, even a little?’

  ‘I couldn’t give two shits what anyone thinks of me, Amy. Your opinion means nothing to me. Never has.’

  I get ugly with Amy, but when it’s over, I get my soul back. She is a whimpering, wounded animal in my grasp, a cruelty that seems high on the list of my favourites.

  I look deep into her shiny wet eyes.

  I murdered the real. Buried it dead.

  OTOT do?

  ‘I’m so sorry for shoving my nose where it doesn’t belong. I promise, Shepherd, I won’t tell a soul. And if I do let somebody help me — it won’t be you I come to.’

  I feel my heart ache, but I’ve forgotten what that feeling means.

  She runs back inside Swan Lake, and the darkness closes in. Just like a hurricane, the fury is gone and in its place, there’s bright fire.

  I should walk away, move out, and never come back. But for some fucked-up reason, I can’t let Amy vanish from life. Not yet.

  I’m a heartless, nasty, ex-criminal, scheming, deceitful bastard.

  When I was fourteen, the old sweet Shepherd was gone and the new Shepherd’s motto was ‘fuck the world’.

  I don’t look back. There’s nothing good there. Just guilt. Shame. This day, in front of me, that’s about all I can deal with. But even then, there’s always something to wreck.

  Once a weed, always a weed.

  Sunshine ain’t gonna change that.

  16

  ME

  I must be batshit crazy when I rip out the flowers from their roots.

  I’m standing in the rose garden. There is this row of pansy-arse flowers, all neatly grown in a pattern.

  I peer down at the flowers in my hand. Is bringing a girl flowers my thing? Don’t think so. Doesn’t seem like my speed. But when I came outside, and saw the sun shining on them, a light bulb pinged in my head. I
picked them out, like some pathetic virgin lover boy, hoping to get lucky on his first date.

  After the other day, Amy won’t talk to me. No matter how sickly sweet I am. No matter how cruel I am. No matter how much I get under her skin. She won’t open up those lemon-drop lips of hers. She even refuses to look me in the eye.

  Whenever she passes me in the corridors, she stays silent. Her gaze is always beyond me. If I force her to look at me, place myself in front of her, she looks through me. I’m transparent as fucking air.

  Fuck, if I don’t exist to her.

  Hate is leagues above not existing. Hate means she feels some thing. Means I’m not nothing.

  I haven’t been inside her for over three weeks. Twenty-one days that feel like a hundred-year sentence.

  Amy won’t be as easy to manipulate like other people. That means I need to dial it up, move on to the next level.

  ‘Hurry up,’ I shout at Max. He’s trailing down the pebble path.

  He stands next to me. Max is no taller than my waist. He wears a bright green coat and my black sunglasses. They’re too big for his head, but he pulls the look off.

  ‘The road to Hell is paved with flowers,’ I tell him. Max thinks about that, nodding. He’s figuring what the hell I mean. I don’t say, ‘I want to remind myself of who I really am.’

  The flowers are easy — tiny yellow ones and fat pink ones, a bundle small enough for a kid's hand. I stuff them into Max’s teeny, tiny ones. He takes the flowers, sniffs them with a smile.

  ‘What do you want me to do again?’ he says.

  ‘Need you to give these flowers to Amy.’

  ‘Pretty. They smell nice.’

  Max looks kinda hopeful, like he thinks something nice might happen to him, soon. Makes me wonder if Amy ever looked like that. She looks lost, most of the time. Broken. If Amy ever did look hopeful, she sure didn't by the time I came back.

  ‘Come on, Max.’

  I like to imagine Amy’s spine going stiff when she sees me walking with Max, flowers in hand.

  We walk back into the estate, and up the main staircase. Max’s white trainers pad on creaky wooden floorboards. I know already how much it's going to jar Amy. How the kid’s pink skin and green coat and raggedy bundle of flowers stand out in the greyness of the building, where everything is soulless and dull. The boy and those flowers almost hurt my eyes, they're so full of life.

  Nothing like me.

  ‘I think you need to water these flowers,’ Max says.

  His hand is damp and warm in mine as I look the flowers over. They look the worst for the trip, ripped up by their roots by some big-handed delinquent.

  ‘Just needs a little sunshine,’ I say.

  At Amy’s door, I rap my fist three times with a loud bang. I hear her dainty footsteps on the other side. When a bit of light spills out, I push the door wide open. Her eyes are like planets when I take the kid inside.

  I smell cookie dough and lavender. And dead flowers.

  ‘Amy,’ I say. ‘I brought you a present.’

  Amy’s hair is drawn tight to her head and the green fabric of her top seems to bind her limbs, like she's being eaten alive by a snake. She doesn’t have any lip gloss on or perfume and she’s pale like a ghost. She’s all cold indifference, a girl who's forgotten what life looks like.

  ‘Max,’ I say. ‘You know the drill. Give Amy the flowers.’

  I let go of Max’s hand. He follows my instructions to the T. He offers Amy the bundle of wild flowers. Amy doesn’t understand why I’ve come here with Max. It just about destroys her.

  ‘I’m super duper happy you and Shepherd are boyfriend and girlfriend, Mamy,’ Max says. ‘Oh! Shepherd said we can all go out to the park. Like a real family.’

  Amy jerks her head up at me. ‘Sh-Shepherd?’

  I enjoy being the bad guy. It’s a lot easier to get people to hate you than to love you.

  Crossing my arms, I tell Max, ‘Yeah, sure. Can’t wait, buddy. Amy can push us on the swings.’

  She says, ‘Shepherd, please don’t . . . ’

  ‘Go on, Amy. Or you wanna tell Max you’re not coming to the park with us because you don’t want to?’

  I watch Amy flinch away. She’s trying to escape this whole scene I’ve set up.

  I look at her. It's better than I expected. I thought it would be good, but the way Amy falls apart is maybe the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It starts in her shoulders, where she seems to go weak, and at last, when her hand closes over the kid’s, when she takes the flowers, the weakness goes to her eyes.

  Oh, all her tricks are gone now. She's afraid and real and sad and crying into a pile of flowers that are already dying.

  Amy looks at Max, and then at me. She can't decide what to say or do. That kind of feeling makes me want to destroy things. But Amy doesn't want to destroy anything. She wants to save Max, protect him from the big bad monster. That is what tears at her. Amy’s wondering where the danger is and I smell fear rolling off her in waves — such intense fear that she will do or say the wrong thing. She can't guess what I’m up to. She's wondering if I plan to give her a demonstration of what kind of monster I really could be. Remind her I have a fuck for a heart.

  The flowers fall out of Amy’s delicate hands and onto the floor. She says to the kid, ‘Thank you, Max. You mind if you leave me and Shepherd alone? We’ve got some important adult matters to discuss. Boring stuff. Why don’t you go back to your mum? I’m sure she’s missing you.’

  ‘Okay, Mamy.’ Max trots out of Amy’s room, saying, ‘Smell you laters,’ with a skip in his step.

  ‘You wouldn’t use a kid? Surely?’ Amy whispers, her words hot as lava.

  ‘Yeah I would.’

  ‘Please don’t drag Max into this.’

  And for the first time, she looks at me. Looks into my eyes with pure hatred. It's what I wanted, and now I can't remember why I wanted it so bad.

  ‘You downright refuse my help with your OCD, Amy. Don’t you get it? This shit is ruining your life.’

  Her pale lips quiver. ‘Why can’t you leave me alone? Why is it so hard for you to just let me be?’

  ‘I’m not leaving you alone again.’

  The response is automatic. Easy. Because god fucking forbid she withers and dies.

  Can you save someone who’s already dying?

  ‘You don’t think I see?’ I say. ‘You’re a zombie, Amy. Still fucking beautiful, but half alive. You’ve given me no choice. If you don’t let me inside that pretty little head of yours, I’ll kick Max and his mum out onto the streets.’

  Sometimes the stars don’t align so you have to make them. That’s what I’m doing with Amy. I’m playing God. Fuck Fate. Fuck us destined for a never. I’m making it happen.

  Her mouth smacks open. I can see into the dark reaches of her. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Yeah I can. Daisy, right? She’s poor. Comes from some derelict housing estate on the east side. I hear it’s bad for her at home. Her uncle or something . . . They can’t afford to pay for treatment — you know that? They’re behind on their payments. I’ve been letting her stay scot-free.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were doing that for Daisy . . . ’ Her voice is quiet like a mouse.

  ‘You don’t know a lot about me.’

  I can’t help the pride that creeps in my voice. All that destruction, all that chaos I’m making for her. It’s like a lion lying a bird at her feet.

  I always get what I want. The lies give me that power. That’s what got me addicted.

  ‘So, what’s it gonna be? Start therapy with me? Or you wanna go downstairs and help Daisy pack her bags?’

  I’m a snake in a suit with dead eyes and a poison tongue, and Amy gives me a death stare. Her face is glazed for a split-second, like a China doll. Then she frowns. Her lips purse together. Her eyes are unblinking.

  ‘My friends are the one real thing in my life and you’re wrecking it,’ she says.

  Wrecking things is what I do best
.

  In this moment, if her eyes were a weapon, the piercing look in them could cause serious annihilation. It’s like she’s a lioness and I just went into her territory, poked her, and she’s ready to attack.

  ‘This is emotional blackmail. You’re using my friend and little Max to get what you want. I never thought you could sink this low.’

  It just about kills me laughing the way she looks at me. Pure fucking contempt on a cracker. If looks could kill, Amy would be more deadly than me. Her hate — that's good all by itself, makes me run hot.

  I lean closer, breathe her in. All vanilla and flower and bubble-gum. I give her a reassuring smile. Such a narrow margin between reassuring and predatory.

  ‘That's what you want, isn't it?’ she says. ‘You want me to hate you, because you think hate is stronger than love,’ she says right in my face.

  ‘Baby, they're not opposites.’ I smile wickedly. ‘I think hate and lust are very close.’

  It makes her eyes hot with hate. She's not afraid of what I’ll do or say next. She's thinking about killing me, maybe.

  ‘No, they are not opposites, but you're wrong. Hate isn't stronger,’ she snarls, spit in the corners of her mouth, and I don't want her to stop. I want her to hate me a whole lot harder if that's what this is.

  Got your attention, now.

  ‘You want me to hate you, but hate is weak. Don’t you understand? I feel nothing. I don’t even hate you, anymore.’

  ‘You will,’ I say. ‘Soon enough, you’ll want me dead.’

  But it blows my mind that she doesn't already.

  I straighten the gold seahorse around her neck. ‘Start making an effort to heal — or Daisy and her little kid get booted out. Hell, I’ll raise the prices so high nobody will be able to afford living here. Even those stuck-up rich girls. The roof over their heads rests on your shoulders. Sink or swim — your choice, Amy.’

  I’m pulling her apart like candy floss. I’ve ruined her. I’ve burned down her dreams, hopes. Turned her wishes to ashes. And I’ll keep ruining her, keep destroying her. Maybe a deep part of me wants her to stop me.

  ‘Fine,’ she mutters.

  She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t even calculate. That's how bad she wants to save Daisy and Max from the big evil monster.