Sweet Liar

by Debra Doxer

  A note flew at me from across the aisle. Glancing up, I stuck my tongue out at Theo. He rolled his eyes and pointed to the crumpled-up note on my desk.

  With a sigh, I unfolded it, smoothing out the crinkles as I crouched low behind the kid in front of me so the teacher couldn’t see it. The note read:

  I dare you to stand up and walk out before you pass out from boredom. There’s twenty bucks in it for you if you do.

  I shot him a look that clearly said, Are you serious? Had he forgotten who he was dealing with here?

  Seconds later, I gathered my things as I stood. There were still ten more minutes left of class.

  When the teacher asked me what I thought I was doing, I said, “Female problems.” Giggles erupted as I slung my bag over my shoulder and sashayed out of the classroom without a backward glance.

  When class let out, Theo found me at my locker, sitting on the floor with my eyes closed, waiting for my money.

  “Here.”

  I peeled my eyes open and saw the twenty-dollar bill he was holding in front of my face. Grabbing it, I slipped it into my pocket with a smug smile as I stood.

  “Should have known better than to dare you to do something,” he grumbled. “Once you were gone, I tried the same excuse. Female problems didn’t work, for some reason.”

  As I looked at him, I couldn’t hide my smile, not even when Brandon, my ex, walked by with his flavor-of-the-month girl hanging all over him. He glared at me, and I just smiled sweetly because he couldn’t get to me anymore. That terrible pressure that used to grip me when I thought of him was long gone. Now Brandon was nothing more than an ant I didn’t feel like stepping on.

  On the other hand, Theo was a ray of sunshine. He’d been getting the new treatment for six weeks, and his last CT scan finally provided some good news. His tumors were shrinking.

  He didn’t know that I was paying for his treatment. He only knew that Heather tracked down a promising drug therapy in China, and somehow she convinced him to try it. In reality, she found the doctor named in my mother’s files, and her parents flew to meet him. She told her parents she’d found the doctor on the Internet and begged them to help save the life of her boyfriend. They cared enough to try, just like they cared enough to try to help my father and me. They were amazing people and I had yet to meet them, although I hoped to someday.

  It cost a small fortune for Theo to travel to China for checkups and pay for the drugs and doctors. When Heather told me how much the treatment would cost, I sold our house in Glenn Valley to pay for it. Theo and his parents thought their insurance was footing part of the bill, and that some fictitious grant was taking care of the rest. Theo would never accept the money if he knew the truth.

  When I told my father that I was selling our house and why, he didn’t try to stop me. Instead he helped, because he thought it was a fitting way to say good-bye to a place that held so many wonderful and bittersweet memories. I thought so too.

  As for Theo’s change of heart, it was his feelings for Heather and her endless badgering that convinced him to keep fighting. I hoped he’d be cured, but even if the treatment only gave him more time, like it had my mother, I’d take what I could get. I knew Theo’s family felt the same way, as did Heather. We all had hope for him again. For Theo, hope was making all the difference.

  “Are you going down to visit Heather this weekend?” I asked Theo. He was always driving down to Claymore to visit her or she was coming here.

  “Leaving Friday after school. Heather got invited to some party in Glenn Valley.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Parker’s party? I can’t believe she’s inviting Heather to her parties.” Lea had texted me about it, asking if I wanted to come with her. I’d thought about it for all of one second before texting back no thanks.

  At my reply, Lea complained the way she always did about my moving away. She felt as if I’d deserted her. She had no one to talk to about Ethan anymore. They continued to hook up at parties, but he hadn’t changed his mind about dating her. Despite that, she broke up with Gregory because he really was boring.

  Theo shrugged. “She’s probably hoping Heather will tell her something about Jonah. At least, that’s what Heather thinks.”

  At my stricken look, his eyes went wide.

  “Sorry, Candy. Shit, I’m an idiot.”

  I shook off the hollow feeling inside. “It’s okay. I just haven’t heard his name in a while.” Almost three months. He’d been gone that long.

  In the beginning, Lea asked me where Jonah was when he never came back to school again, and I told her I’d heard his dad got transferred so they had to move. She related my story to Ethan when he asked, and as far as I knew, everyone accepted that Jonah had left unexpectedly and told no one. High school was a strange place where people came and went, and most of the time no one cared all that much. Lea was the only one I told when we moved. I was sure no one else batted an eye at my absence.

  At home, I didn’t hear Jonah’s name because Lorraine spoke in hushed tones to my father about her worry for “Cooper,” and Heather and I purposely didn’t talk about Jonah because she knew how upset I became. But she hadn’t heard from him either. No one had. I never stopped thinking about him, though. I missed him so much; it was a constant ache inside me.

  Despite the fact that Jonah hadn’t contacted anyone directly, we suspected he’d taken care of some unfinished business before leaving Glenn Valley.

  A week after Jonah walked out of the hospital, my father told me Drew Hoyt’s arm had been broken and his face was battered. He wouldn’t say how he knew this since he hadn’t seen the Hoyts as far as I knew, but he thought Jonah had done it and so did I, in retaliation for what Drew had done to me. It made the ache inside me that much sharper.

  The warning bell rang in the hallway, forcing me to push aside my thoughts as I hoisted my messenger bag strap over my shoulder.

  “Enemy at two o’clock,” Theo whispered.

  I looked up to see my cousin Kristen.

  “Bitch,” she said, scowling at me as she passed, and all her friends laughed.

  I made a face at her but said nothing back, determined not to engage her or let her get to me. When I moved back to Ryberg, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing my cousins again, or my aunt and uncle. But other than at school, I didn’t see them. Now that I was an adult and Aunt Marion couldn’t use me as a way to punish my father, I hardly heard from her at all.

  “Are you planning something?” Theo asked, surprised at my lack of reaction to Kristen.

  “No.”

  His eyes rounded dramatically. “You’re going to let her get away with that? Who are you? What did you do with the real Candy?”

  “Kristen’s already in enough trouble. I’m not going to do anything else to her.” Last I heard, she was still on probation because of the drugs I’d planted in her locker.

  He angled a look at me. “The Candy I used to know would have.”

  I smiled. “Maybe I’ve matured.”

  Theo studied me. “Maybe you’re getting soft.”

  “I’m not getting soft. I’m learning when to let things go.”

  He took a step back and looked at me. “What about him? Have you let him go?” Theo purposefully didn’t say Jonah’s name this time.

  I glanced away. “No.”

  He eyed me thoughtfully. “Meeting him changed you. Being part of a family again changed you too. I know you’re still hurting, but they’ve been good for you.”

  I would never admit it out loud, but I suspected Theo was right. I didn’t feel alone anymore, and when the loneliness went away, the anger and bitterness faded. They weren’t completely gone, but they were in the background now, under control.

  When school ended for the day, I went outside and stood there for a moment. If it was too cold to walk, I was supposed to call Lorraine for a ride. But I had my gloves that I’d retrieved from Lea’s house along with my coat, and I decided to walk, even though there was a nip in the air.


  I couldn’t help thinking of Jonah each time I put on my heated gloves. As much as I missed him, my sympathy for all he’d gone through was tempered by how much he was worrying us all, especially Lorraine. She checked her phone and her messages constantly, hoping to hear something from him. It was unkind of Jonah not to at least get a message to his mother.

  The walk home from school was only a mile if I cut through the woods, and so I arrived home in no time at all. Lorraine’s little house, set back from the road and hidden in the trees, was our home now. Lorraine and my father and I all lived there together. Pumpkin too, of course.

  Despite the new living situation and all that happened to him, my father hadn’t changed. I didn’t think he could, even if he wanted to. He still worked for the organization, and he still killed people for a living. It was all he knew, and he was good at it.

  Having Lorraine know everything about my father and love him in spite of it was something new for him. She refused to tiptoe around his job. Unlike my mother, who was a quiet, subdued kind of person, Lorraine challenged him and fought with him when they disagreed. She kept him on his toes, and much to my surprise, he seemed to like it.

  I asked him once what repercussions there might be from the information he gave to the Chinese. The fact that he didn’t like talking about it was obvious. But he admitted there were likely some consequences, things like government computer networks going down or getting hacked. Stuff I’d heard about on the news, although I had no idea my father was responsible for at least some of those security breaches.

  “Candy, is that you?” Lorraine called from the kitchen when I walked in.

  “In the flesh.” I hung up my coat, dropped my bag by the door, and went to find her.

  “It’s your turn to make dinner, if you still want to. If not, I could whip something up.”

  We both looked at my mother’s recipe book sitting on the counter. Lorraine was very conscious of respecting my mother’s memory, and even though she loved to cook, she wouldn’t use the recipe book without me, or at least without my permission.

  I looked at the recipe book, and then at her. “I really liked that pot roast you made last week. Maybe you could show me how to make it?”

  She bit her lip, and I could see how happy my question made her. Cooking was one of the ways we related to each other, and I liked finding common ground with her.

  A few hours later, Lorraine and I were elbow deep in chopped vegetables when we heard the front door open. My father called out to us, “We have a guest for dinner. Why don’t you come out here and see who it is?”

  Lorraine raised her eyebrows in question. My father never brought home guests. “Good thing we’ve got plenty of food,” she said. Pulling off her apron, she washed her hands and walked out into the living room.

  When I heard her cries, my heart jumped into my throat. They were followed by the sound of deep laughter that reached inside my chest and squeezed. I’d only ever heard him laugh that way a handful of times, but I recognized the sound as well as I knew my own voice.

  Nerves set in as I stared at the doorway to the living room. Jonah was out there, just beyond it. What if he’s only here to see his mother? What if he doesn’t feel the same way about me anymore?

  “Is Candy here?” I heard him ask.

  My breaths quickened and I headed for the doorway, unable to help myself, drawn by his voice.

  When I looked out and saw him standing in the living room with my father on one side and Lorraine on the other, familiar butterflies swarmed in my belly. He was a sight for sore eyes in a navy Henley shirt and a pair of faded jeans. His dark hair was a little longer, worn in his familiar careless style pushed back off his forehead.

  His face had healed, except for the scar beside his right eye, which looked a little pinker and rawer than before. Victor had aimed for that spot when he was punching Jonah. He’d pummeled it again and again, going for a place he thought was weak or that had meaning behind it. His cruelty was horrific, and I shuddered each time I thought of it.

  Jonah glanced up, and when our eyes met, my heart sputtered.

  “Hi.” He said the word hesitantly with an uncertain smile.

  “Hi,” I replied, gripping the molding of the doorway to prevent myself from running to him and throwing my arms around him. He hadn’t contacted me in months. I had no idea how he felt or what he wanted from me, if anything.

  “You look great,” he said, his grin falling away as he watched me.

  I tried to hide my disappointment at our stiff reunion. “Where have you been?”

  He scratched the back of his neck. “Lots of places. I traveled around mostly.” He looked at his mother. “Then I came back here and rented an apartment.”

  “What? When?” Lorraine asked, sounding as bewildered and hurt as I felt.

  He cleared his throat. “A few weeks ago.”

  My mouth fell open.

  Lorraine asked in a wounded voice, “You’ve been here for a few weeks?”

  Jonah nodded, looking abashed but not surprised by her reaction. “I wanted to be settled somewhere on my own before I saw you.”

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  “Near the center of town by the old mill.”

  She smiled hesitantly, holding back the scolding I could see brewing in her eyes. “You’re doing okay?” she asked instead as she placed her hand on his arm. “We were all so worried.”

  He smiled down at her. “I’m fine. Sorry I worried you.”

  Then he looked up at me, and my stomach tightened at the impact. It had been so long since I’d had those eyes focused on me.

  My father smiled at Jonah. “I want you to understand that even though you have your own place, this is your home too.”

  It surprised me to see my father being so welcoming. He hadn’t spoken much of Jonah, although he’d listened patiently when Lorraine did. Looking at my father now, I could tell he liked Jonah. By the expression on his face, I’d say he even admired him a little. He was right about this being Jonah’s home too. Even if Jonah no longer loved me the way I loved him, I still wanted him to feel welcome here because he deserved a family as much as I did.

  After welcoming him back, my father excused himself and gave me a look that said I should do the same so that Lorraine could have some time with her son. I went back into the kitchen and my father disappeared into the office.

  As I stood there staring at the vegetables I’d cut when I had no idea Jonah was living in this town and about to come through the front door, my eyes blurred with tears. I was so happy he was back, and so disappointed that I hadn’t touched him or held him yet. I didn’t even know if he wanted me to.

  ***

  I picked at my dinner. Across the table, Jonah’s appetite wasn’t affected by any awkwardness the way mine was. Throughout the meal, we kept catching each other’s eyes and darting our gazes away again. I couldn’t get a read on him, and each bite I took sat like a rock in my stomach.

  “Candy and I made dinner together,” Lorraine said, sounding pleased. “She liked my pot roast so much when I made it for her, she asked me to share the recipe.”

  “You sure she likes it?” Jonah asked, pointing to my full plate.

  Lorraine looked at me, and her brow furrowed with worry.

  Jonah put down his fork. “If you’re not hungry, maybe you’d like to go for a ride?”

  I stilled. “A ride?”

  With a hesitant smile, he nodded.

  “Where?” I asked, a potent mix of panic and excitement settling inside me.

  “Anywhere.”

  I swallowed against my nerves. “Okay.”

  Lorraine smiled at us, but my father gave me a worried look. He knew I’d been hurting over Jonah. He didn’t want me to hurt any worse, and honestly, neither did I.

  As we put on our coats, I wondered if Jonah wanted privacy so he could tell me straight out that he no longer had feelings for me. The thought made me want to hide in my room, because I didn�
��t want to hear him say it, even if it was true. But there would be no running away. I wanted this chance to be alone with him too badly to back out, no matter what it might cost me.

  Jonah lightly pressed his hand to the small of my back as we walked to his Jeep. Then he opened the passenger door for me the way he always did. We were quiet as he drove down Lorraine’s long driveway.

  “You’re back at your old school,” he finally said as he turned onto the dark road.

  He wasn’t surprised to see my father and me living with his mother, and he knew where I went to school. He must have checked up on us, even though he hadn’t been in contact.

  “Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it? Back in the place I couldn’t wait to leave.”

  “It’s different this time, though.”

  “Yes. Very different,” I agreed.

  He glanced at me. “Anyone giving you a hard time?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” he said with a smile in his voice. He breathed out slowly, and I could feel his gaze shifting between me and the road.

  “I saw Heather a few days ago.”

  My gaze shot to him. His words hurt whether he realized it or not. He saw Heather before me?

  He must have understood my reaction because he quickly added, “I only drove over to her house after I found strangers living in yours.”

  I swallowed back the hurt. That made sense, I supposed. It was why he wasn’t surprised by my living arrangements.

  “She caught me up on the things I’d missed. Like the fact that you sold your house to pay for Theo’s treatment.”