911

I'll be fine, I said.

Just going to stay home and read some books, I said.

They all left to see the new house. Mom, Dad, Kate, Josh, the family car, all gone. For a few hours, they said.

Yeah, right. I wasn't going to read. That simply wasn't going to happen. There were video games to be played.

After a few hours of Jedi dismemberment, I calculated that my family was surely on the verge of coming home, and I didn't want them to see me still on the computer. I picked up a believable book and plopped myself on the couch.

After about another hour on the couch it was getting dark and I was starting to get worried. And hungry.

One of those I could fix. After a few string cheeses and a handful of tortilla chips, I was only worried.

With a bit of food, my imagination went into overdrive. The grueling silence was beginning to echo around the unfinished basement. Darkness was creeping in the blind-free windows.

I needed to do something. I went around the house, turning on lights. I flipped the TV on and cranked the volume. Ambient noise buzzed through the house.

Having turned on every light in the house, I went upstairs and sat in the living room. Waiting.

Didn't help. I couldn't stop thinking. What if they were bloody and dead, their car a burned-out husk? Who would tell me? Who would inform the family (me)?

The police. The police would come to the door, just like in the movies. "I'm sorry, son," they'd say. "It's about your family."

I had just moved to Logan: I didn't know anyone. I'd have to find some phone numbers of family members. I'd have to call and ask to be adopted by some other family--maybe my uncle. I saw myself in a black suit, standing by four caskets.

I paced the house, moving from room to room. It wouldn't leave my mind. I was panicking. My breathing intensified. My heartbeat was stuttering.

I should have gone with them. I could've saved them. I could've changed things.

Phone numbers. I needed to know which extended family members to call. My hands were shaking as I rummaged through the basket of bills and phone numbers my mom kept next to the corkboard in the kitchen.

I took that deep shuddering breath that always precedes some serious crying. She had always done bills, but it was past-tense now. She was gone and nothing I could do would bring her back.

I had led to the deaths of my family members because I wanted to play some stupid video games. My lie had been the difference between life and death.

The only thing left to do was to get the confirmation. I was crying now. I picked up the phone next to the now-scattered collection of bills and paperwork. Hands still shaking wildly, I punched in the numbers.

"911 Response, please state your emergency."

I was sobbing into the phone. "I'm home alone and. And. And."

The respondent was all business. "Remain calm. What's your emergency?"

I couldn't ask the question I wanted to ask. I needed to ask.

"Are any of my family. Are. Are. Are."

The front door opened.

They were all there. I was standing next to the kitchen counter, holding a phone, sobbing uncontrollably.

My mom hurried to me. "What's wrong?"

Nothing, I lied. Nothing at all.

Yeah, right.

Lexie

There are moments of clarity from my childhood, moments that seem particularly meaningful or significant, even if they're not.

It was springtime and I was on the swings. Not that it was like it wasn't always warm enough to be on the swings, but I remember how green it was. The hills around the school had changed from winter brown to promising green—the promise that summer was almost upon us. It felt good.

I was alone. That wasn't really news either—seemed like I was always alone. Not that I bothered too much. Normally I just sat on the playground, waiting for recess to end. I was the reserved, too-smart type, unable to converse with my peers without giving myself away as a flaming intellectual.

I don't really know what I was thinking about, but I was certainly distracted. So much so that I didn't immediately recognize that a dark-haired boy was talking to me. He had a goofy grin on his face, the kind that hinted at some illict, ill-gained secrets.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you know Lexie?” the boy asked.

Of course I knew Lexie. I'd been in her class for the past four grades. She had beautiful skin, dark eyes, perfect hair and lived not far from my house. What was more, she was brighter than I was. In my mind, I imagined that we were destined to be together, we abandoned intellectuals. My schoolwork was mainly aimed to impress and keep up with her. She made my elementary school world go 'round.

“She LIKES you!” the boy blurted out, in a mix of revulsion and excitement.

My elementary school world stopped.

It wasn't that this was something I hadn't ever thought about, ever fantasized about. Now that the moment was here, however, I didn't know what to do.

Lexie ran over. Suddenly, I knew even less what to do. She took one look at the other boy, one look at me, and we were all on the same page. A horror and a misery crossed her face.

“I don't! I—I” She was sputtering, trying to recant and undo the three words of the other boy. She began to hit him repeatedly in the arm, berating him by name. For the life of me, I can't remember his name. At such a critical juncture in my life, I was paralyzed by the incomprehensible potential of the situation and unable to process everything happening around me.

Lexie had finally turned to me. “I don't like you! I don't! I mean, you don't like me?” It wasn't a statement. It was a question. This was the moment.

I opened my mouth.

And it just kind of hung there.

I had been a different kind of caught. So I did what I needed to to gain some kind of control on the situation.

“No. No! No. Of course I don't.” I said, with more confidence than I felt.

All three of us just kind of waited for something to happen. I realized that I wasn't swinging anymore.

Looking back, that was the last conversation I ever had with Lexie. My family moved away that summer. I've always wondered what other outcomes that conversation could have had. More than that, however, I've tried to understand what made me lie.

It is a subversive, backwards kind of control that makes someone lie. It's that desperation that makes someone shelve their morals, ignore their better self and put their credibility on the line all in pursuit of the upper hand in a situation.

Lying, then, isn't a habit. It's not just a pattern and a rut a careless someone gets into – it's an addiction. I would not realize it until later in life, but my lies embodied a craving for control and my instinctive urge to fabricate an out for myself. In hindsight, Lexie was the first social casualty. I wish she had been the last.

Wrestling

I was small. And I suppose that deep down, I feel like I still am.

At no time in my life was it more apparent than the day I went over to "play" with the Mendes family. The Mendes' were one of the only families in my neighborhood that attended the same church as my family, which meant that my mother had a ready-made friend in Mrs. Mendes with which to drink coffee with. I mean, if she drank coffee.

When mom and Mrs. Mendes got together, it usually meant that I would read a book or watch TV in another room. On one occasion, however, Mrs. Mendes' son Adam was home. Adam was a teenager, a good three years older and approximately ten years bigger than me. He was a burly, curly-haired football player and I was content to quietly sit and read. I had neither the size nor the temperament to be a bully. Adam had both.

In hindsight, I don't really know what the moms were thinking, trying to put us together. But at their insistence, I went outside to join Adam on the trampoline.

Adam didn't want a playmate. Adam wanted an exercise in adolescent dominance. I learned this very quickly. And for the first time in my life, I felt the fear of being in real physical danger.

Adam wanted to wrestle. His wrestling involved plenty of punches, shoves and knees in the back. I remember his arms around my throat, I remember trying to get off the trampoline and getting dragged back onto it, I remember feeling the most helpless I had felt in my life thus far. My wits, words, smarts--nothing could get me out of the situation.There was nothing I could do, nothing at all.

"Shut up you wimp! Fight me! Wrestle me!"

Eventually I managed to get to the other end of the yard. I remember crouching by some small trees, crying. My arms hurt. My chest and neck hurt.

Adam crouched in front of me. "You don't tell anybody about this." I nodded. I wanted to be done.

Before long, my mom came out the sliding back door to collect me. It was time to go home.

As we drove home, it became clear to my mother that I had been upset by something. "What's wrong, honey? What happened?"

I sniffled a bit. "Nothing. I just..."

In that moment, I had the most control I had in the entire situation. I could tell the truth and...what? What would've happened? I would've made an enemy. I would've appeared even more helpless. I would've given a bully another motive.

So I lied.

"Nothing." There were no visible marks, no bruises. I had no cuts, no wounds. If I just kept my mouth shut, I could pretend that the whole event had never happened and nobody needed to know.

And nobody did know. I thought that my lie would make it okay. And for all parties involved, it did.

Except for me.

When I got home, I saw that the screen on my new watch, the watch I had received for my birthday, the watch that had 3 different kinds of alarms and a Magic 8 Ball feature, had broken.

And then I cried.