Little Black Lies by Tish Cohen

it. It was a full-sized grave.
    Then he was on his hands and knees, crawling through the trench to perfect the corners, his face striped with mud. When the corners refused to behave, he shouted at them, his cries loud enough to bring Mom running out of the house in her pink windbreaker, holding a Good Housekeeping magazine over her head.
    I stood on the walkway and watched, helpless. Sometimes I look back on that day and think if Mom hadn’t been terrified enough to smother his dripping, earth-smeared face in kisses and promises of a better marriage, if she hadn’t led him dripping and sputtering into the house, he might be there still.
    It wasn’t until Dad was safely inside that I noticed the funereal crowd huddled under a web of spindly umbrellas. Once the umbrellas lost interest and scuttled off down the sidewalk, all that remained was twelve-year-old Ryan Hawthorne from school, his yellow eyes flattened into gloating slits, his patchy buzz cut repelling the rain. I actually watched his smudge of a soul leave his body and rise behind him all green and black like a terrible cartoon smell. It was clear what he was thinking, but he told me anyhow.
    â€œYour dad’s a freak.”
    â€œShut up, Hawthorne.”
    â€œThis is going to make the first day of school so much more fun.”
    I stepped over the pile of muddy roots and headed toward him. “Don’t say anything or I’ll tell that your sister’s pregnant. I saw her tanning her giant belly in your backyard last week.”
    â€œAt least she doesn’t flirt with married guys, like your mother.”
    I shoved him to the ground so fast he didn’t have time to break his fall and his head brushed against the edge of a prickle bush. I stepped on the edges of his sopping wet AC-DC T-shirt. “Shut your filthy little face about her and swear you won’t tell. Or I’ll push your bald head right back into this bush.”
    â€œOkay, get off me. I won’t tell!”
    â€œSwear to God?”
    â€œSwear to God.”
    Five days later he told.
    It took the dilution of a high school that fed from four different middle schools for kids to stop calling me “Gravedigger.” Until then, my only friend was Mandy.
    But shortly after the mud-bath incident, maybe because Mom took him to get help, maybe because he was put on super meds, his OCD began to fade. Other than Dad’s getting up early to meditate, other than the bare earth where the prickle bushes and the birch tree used to be, other than the soap-dispenser debacle in tenth grade, it was as if the whole thing never happened.
    I was stupid to relax. OCD is like a puffy white dandelion wishie. With the slightest breath, its feathery seedlings tumble up into the air and disappear. But they aren’t gone. They will find a place to burrow and, sooner or later, will sprout again. It’s the only thing in life I’m certain of right now.
    Watching Dad circle the car in the dark, I press my face into the glass. I know I should be worried for his health. His sanity. But I have only one thought.
    Please don’t do this at school .

chapter 7
blinking back stupid
    Friday morning I wake up exhausted. After finally convincing Dad to come upstairs to bed, after finally getting back to bed myself, I couldn’t sleep. I knew Dad’s locking of the van doors would be waiting for me in the morning. In full daylight. Right behind Anton High School. Will it be a repeat of last night? There is no way of knowing until it happens.
    Hunched over his second cup of coffee at the breakfast table, my father seems remarkably well rested for a guy who spent who-knows-how-many hours in a parking lot in his pj’s.
    I wrap my arms around him and give him a peck on the cheek. His skin is smooth, soft. It smells like Christmas morning and makes me sad as I sit down in front of a bowl of Cheerios. “Do you ever do that meditation routine anymore, Dad? The one you did