Tell Me No Lies

by A. V. Geiger

  The thin sliver of light shifted as the sun rose. Tessa watched in silence as it inched across the bed toward Eric’s sleeping form. He lay on his side with his back to her, and she resisted the temptation to run a finger along the groove of his spine. Instead, she followed it with her eyes to where it disappeared beneath the blanket, from the broad expanse of his shoulders to his neatly tapered waist.

  Tessa turned away, flicking on her cell phone. 6:54 a.m. No use closing her eyes at this point. It was morning—and in any case, she knew sleep wouldn’t come. Her insomnia hadn’t let up since Eric’s Snapchat escapade two days ago. It was as if her peace of mind had gone on vacation the moment their camper van rolled out onto the open road.

  Tessa rubbed her eyes, dry and gritty. She wished they hadn’t moved. Just when she was beginning to feel at home, Eric had insisted on pulling up stakes and making the trek to Tijuana. He needed to hear Dorian’s secret, and Tessa hadn’t argued. She could tell he wouldn’t rest until he and Dorian talked face-to-face.

  Tessa doubted it would happen anytime soon though. Dorian wouldn’t come. Not with the eyes of the entire world trained on him. He was too busy fighting to stay out of jail. Was he still in Switzerland, or had he returned to London by now?

  Tessa’s eyes flickered to the phone. It would be simple enough to find out. Back in her fangirl days, she could track Eric’s location anytime he appeared in public. Wherever he went, someone was guaranteed to spot him and tweet a pic. No doubt Dorian’s fandom did the same.

  Twitter… She could practically hear that little blue birdie calling her name.

  Tessa gripped the phone to stop her hand from shaking. There was nothing inherently dangerous about Twitter. Maybe she should try it. Treat it like a desensitization exercise. Small steps, right?

  She clicked the app open and navigated to the profile in question.

  Dorian Cromwell @DorianCromwell

  Her eyes landed on his profile pic, and the sight of it made her stomach twist.

  Tessa dropped the phone. The mattress bounced as she stood up and crossed the room. She could feel the veil of panic closing in. Her fingernails dug into her palms, and she focused on the painful sensation to keep herself anchored. How was she going to make it through the day?

  At least she still had a half-full bottle of Ativan in her bag.

  The green canvas duffel sat on a low bureau. Tessa glanced at it, but she hesitated. Those pills were precious now. She couldn’t afford to waste them. There wouldn’t be any more refills once she used them up.

  And then what? Then how would she cope?

  The thought filled her with a fresh surge of anxiety. The edges of her vision were going dark. Tessa knew she should do her breathing, but her chest rose and fell in shallow gasps. She needed to get ahold of herself. What would Dr. Regan say if she were here right now?

  Don’t give in to the anxiety… Think about your other tools…

  What else? Tessa cast her eyes about the room until they landed on the duffel bag again. She saw her old, familiar thought journal peeking out of the side pocket, with its dog-eared cover strewn with doodles. She hadn’t made an entry since her last therapy session with Dr. Regan, but she’d left a pencil jammed inside the spiral binding.

  Tessa picked the journal up. The tension in her shoulders eased slightly as she flipped to a blank page. Sometimes it helped to set her worries down on paper. She obviously had some mental baggage to unpack.

  The room was too dark to write, but the morning sun beckoned through the chink in the drapes. Tessa opened them a touch wider. She stood in the narrow rectangle of light, balancing the journal on the windowsill and resting her forehead against the glass. She scribbled down the first words that popped into her head:

  A fangirl…

  A deeply troubled one. But that’s not saying very much, now is it? ;)

  She didn’t realize what she was quoting until her pencil scratched out the wink emoji at the end. Dorian. He’d texted those exact words about the girl locked up in a mental institution for his murder.

  Tessa closed her eyes as the insight clicked into place. That was why Dorian’s profile pic had triggered her. It wasn’t Twitter. It was him. His words. They’d been bothering her ever since that Snapchat conversation.

  Tessa’s pencil flashed across the page.

  Is that why I haven’t been sleeping? Not because we left the campground. Not being followed. Not being watched. Not Twitter. Not Snapchat. Not Blair.

  I’m upset about what Dorian did to that girl. How could he do that? I mean, I guess everyone’s fighting a battle. Dorian was fighting his management. He felt trapped. They were forcing him to deny his true identity. That must have been horrible. I get that.

  But honestly I don’t care what battle Dorian was fighting! Just because you’re hurting, that doesn’t justify hurting someone else.

  Tessa stopped writing. She tapped the pencil eraser against her chin. Was that enough to bring on a panic attack? No. She hadn’t quite gotten to the root of it. What else had Dorian said?

  That girl had the thing Eric always talks about: celebrity erotomanic delusional disorder. She was obsessed with Dorian. An obsessed fangirl with a psychiatric history.

  Just like me.

  Tessa shivered in spite of the warm sunlight beating down. She realized, clear as day, what Dr. Regan would say if she read this entry:

  “You’re projecting.”

  “Of course,” Tessa whispered. Projecting…attributing her own thoughts and feelings to someone else. How could she have missed it? She identified with that other fan. That’s why it set her off, seeing Dorian dismiss that girl without the slightest trace of regret.

  Because that was how the whole world saw Tessa too. She was @TessaHeartsEric, the obsessed fangirl who’d hacked Eric Thorn to bits. Not a human being. An inconvenience that belonged in some facility.

  Tessa chewed the pencil eraser thoughtfully, tasting the bitter tang of rubber as she bit down. Her eyes shifted back to the bed where Eric slept. He looked so peaceful, without a care in the world, but her own pulse pounded in her ears. She turned away. Her pencil traced lightly, barely leaving a mark, as she set down her next thought:

  That’s not how Eric sees me. Why do I care so much what the rest of the world thinks?

  • • •

  Eric’s eyes slitted open. He rolled onto his back, expecting to find Tessa’s mass of wavy, brown hair strewn across the pillow beside him. Instead, her side of the bed lay empty. Eric stifled a sigh. She couldn’t have gotten up too long ago. He could still see the indentation her body had left behind, and he caught a whiff of her lingering fragrance on the pillowcase.

  A movement drew his attention from the other side of the room. Tessa stood by the window, stretching her arms and arching her back. Eric lay completely still. He watched the morning light filter around her like a halo.

  He silently willed her to turn toward him. Meet his eyes. Tiptoe to the foot of the bed and crawl across it. Slip between the sheets… It wasn’t too late. She hadn’t gotten dressed yet. She wore nothing but an oversize, white T-shirt that she’d snagged last night from his clean laundry pile. It hung down past the tops of her thighs, with her slender legs completely bare beneath. The thin jersey fabric did little to conceal the rest of her. As she turned, the light from the window caught her from behind, and every curve of her figure stood out in silhouette.

  Eric closed his eyes. One corner of his mouth hooked upward as he pictured what would happen next.

  Pure fantasy, of course. The smirk on his face slowly faded. He and Tessa had been camped out together for a month now, but he had yet to catch a glimpse of her undressed. She was careful that way, despite the intimacy that came from sleeping side by side. Their physical relationship hadn’t progressed beyond long, slow make-out sessions. Delicious while they lasted, but they always left him in the same condition: a sweaty, aching mess of rumpled sheets and unmet need.

  Patience, Eric told himself f
irmly. They weren’t in any rush. Tessa required a slow hand, and he’d known that going in. She wasn’t the type to strip naked the moment he glanced in her direction—like the fangirls at his concerts who used to throw their bras and panties at his feet at the end of the show.

  Wasn’t that exactly why he fell for Tessa in the first place? She saw him as more than a piece of meat. She wanted to know what lay beneath the surface—to understand the inner workings of his mind.

  That meant long, deep conversations.

  Endless talk. Minimal action.

  And the reward at the end of all that talk was a girlfriend who truly knew him—probably the only human being he’d ever shown his true self, flaws and all.

  Tessa lifted her arms above her head. She pulled her hair into a messy braid, and her T-shirt hitched upward as she moved. Eric couldn’t keep still any longer. He sat up in bed and pushed aside the covers. Her cheeks went rosy as she turned and met his eyes.

  “How long have you been up?” she asked.

  “Not long.” Eric averted his gaze. Their cell phone sat on the mattress beside him, and he pretended to look at it. He knew it set her off when she felt like she was being watched.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Too early. Time for you to come back to bed.”

  Tessa cast him a shy smile and looked down at the floor. For once, she’d gone without her bunny slippers. She stood in her bare feet, tracing a seam between the tiles with her big toe. She took a halting step in his direction.

  Small steps, Eric thought. Literally. He made a low noise in the back of his throat. Those small steps of hers would be the death of him. Eric knew he should wait for her to come to him, but sometimes small steps gave way to a total standstill. Maybe she needed him to meet her halfway.

  Eric rose from the bed and went to her. He didn’t speak. He simply wrapped his arms around her. She laid her hands lightly on his chest as he bent his head to kiss her. He half expected her to pull away, but her mouth lingered against his. She went up on her tiptoes and parted her lips, allowing the kiss to deepen.

  His hands started at her waist, but they drifted down her hips. His fingertips played at the hem of her T-shirt, gently grazing the tops of her outer thighs.

  Tessa’s fingers slid upward, inch by inch, but they stopped their progress at his collarbone. They remained there as a barrier—an unspoken signal between them, telling him to bide his time.

  If only she would lift her arms and wrap them around his neck, Eric knew what he would do. He’d scoop one arm beneath her knees and lift her off her feet. Carry her back to bed like the hero in some romance novel…

  He was more than ready. He just needed her to give him the green light. Instead, she ducked her head away and broke the kiss, laying her forehead against his shoulder.

  Eric had to grit his teeth to hold back his groan. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m not there yet.” Her breath caressed his skin, and the sensation did nothing to dispel the fiery heat that coursed through him.

  He needed to cool down.

  Eric released her and took a step backward, dropping his arms to his sides. “No problem. I’m going to…” His words trailed off, and he jerked his head in the direction of the bathroom door. “I’ll be in the shower for a sec.”

  He turned, but Tessa caught his arm. “Eric, wait.”

  “It’s OK, Tessa,” he said. He reached for the cell phone at the foot of the bed and pressed it into her hand. “Here. Why don’t you check the news. I’ll be right back.”

  “Are you upset?”

  “No, of course not.”

  She met his eyes again, and he broke into a sheepish smile. “I’m just a little…backed up. It’s no big deal.” He lowered his head, letting his forehead clunk lightly against her own.

  Tessa nodded, but she didn’t seem reassured. If anything, she looked worse. She had that tightness around her mouth—a sure sign of some internal storm brewing beneath the calm surface.

  “Tessa, there’s no rush,” he told her softly. “We’re not going anywhere. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

  8

  TIME’S UP

  Tessa inhaled deeply, pulling Eric’s scent into her lungs. He was right, she thought. He could seriously use a shower. Brushing his teeth wouldn’t hurt either. For some reason, the idea made her smile.

  She liked that he had flaws. Bad breath. Body odor. It was the only part of him that belonged to her alone. His legions of fans knew his face and the sound of his voice as well as she did, but they couldn’t smell him over Twitter.

  So why couldn’t she relax and enjoy it?

  He called her his girlfriend, but it still felt raw and new. It was a complicated feeling when he kissed her. A strange combination of desire and anticipation, mixed with a tinge of panic and a hearty dose of disbelief.

  It still didn’t feel real. How many times had she succumbed over the years to this daydream? She used to lie in her bedroom for hours on end, staring at her old #EricThornObsessed pics, imagining how those perfect lips would feel against her own.

  Now she knew the answer: volcanic-level heat…mixed with icy tentacles of fear.

  She turned away and ambled toward her duffel bag. “Go take your shower,” she said over her shoulder. “I need to write a little more.” She pulled out her spiral notebook and flipped it open. The bathroom door clicked closed, and relief flooded through her at the sound.

  Tessa scowled as she wrote in the journal.

  Why does kissing Eric give me anxiety? What is WRONG with me?

  Ever since their first night together, back home in her old bedroom, she and Eric had engaged in this same slow-simmering dance. A few steps forward. A few steps back. Tantalizing kisses that seemed to last for hours…hands roving, threatening to slide beneath the layers of her clothes… But Tessa always stopped it before the wave could overtake her. Each time, she teetered on the brink, closer and closer to the edge—but she couldn’t summon the nerve to take the plunge into the unchartered waters below.

  She moved to scribble something else, but the tip of her pencil snapped against the page. She knew what she was going to write though. She flipped the pencil over and traced the shape of the word with the eraser. Three letters:

  S-E-X

  It was way too soon. She and Eric had only been together for a few weeks. In her last relationship, with Scott, they never went past third base—not even after three full years of dating. Three long years, marked by Scott’s constant pleading and cajoling.

  Tessa didn’t want to think of Scott, but she couldn’t help it. They used to argue on this subject all the time. He didn’t understand her hesitation. They both claimed to love each other. Neither of them was particularly religious. It was one thing when they first got together—sophomore year of high school—but by the time he left for college, his patience had worn thin.

  Honestly, Scott’s whole attitude had always been a massive turnoff. As if he were somehow entitled to sex, simply because they’d been dating forever. Tessa knew that was a load of crap. Plenty of people waited until marriage.

  But that wasn’t the real reason she’d held back with Scott—or with Eric either. It had nothing to do with virtue. It had everything to do with fear.

  She’d always had those doubts she couldn’t silence, repeating like a drumbeat inside her head. Irrational worries. Distorted thoughts. The seeds of an anxiety disorder in her brain, even before she developed agoraphobia. Tessa knew how those seeds had been planted—and by whom.

  The first time she got her period, her mother sat her down and issued a stern warning. Tessa had heard some version of the same lecture every time her boyfriend picked her up for a date. She was a Hart, and the Hart women were cursed. It ran in her blood. Her mother had gotten pregnant the first time she ever had sex.

  And then the guy will blame you, Tessa. Don’t expect him to stick around. Good luck collecting child support. You’ll be the one who has to spend the next eighteen
years working your tail off to keep food on the table.

  Tessa squeezed her eyes shut to block out the memory of her mother’s bitter tone.

  Your whole life will be ruined. Trust me. I speak from experience.

  Tessa closed her thought journal with a snap. Enough self-therapy for one day. Her mother was pure poison when it came to mental health. If only one positive thing came from the decision to run away with Eric, it was the fact that she’d finally gotten out from under her mother’s influence.

  She was her own person. She could make her own decisions. She needed to get her mother’s voice out of her head.

  Tessa heard the tinkle of shower water slowing down. She picked the phone back up, pretending to look busy as she struggled to put her thoughts in order.

  Maybe Eric should be her first. So what if it was moving fast? With her ex, she’d dragged her feet because some instinct warned it was wrong. But now the same gut feeling screamed to move forward.

  Eric was perfect in so many ways. Physically perfect, but more than that. He was so patient. Understanding. He never pressured her. When they talked, he genuinely cared about every word she had to say. He used to stay up half the night to chat with her over Twitter.

  That was the thing, Tessa realized. They’d only been together since January, but they’d talked for months before that. Eric knew her, heart and soul, far better than Scott ever had. That was why she’d run away with Eric. Because he was right for her in all the ways that her former boyfriend had been wrong.

  The bathroom door cracked open. Eric reemerged with a threadbare robe around his shoulders, running his fingers through his damp hair. Tessa straightened up, but she remained where she stood.

  Not quite facing toward him.

  Not quite facing away.

  • • •

  Eric padded out of the bathroom, tightening the belt of the robe at his waist. He’d spent the past ten minutes in the shower planning what to say, but now his carefully crafted words abandoned him. He went for the direct approach.

  “Tessa, did I do something wrong? Because if I did, please tell me—”