Love & Lies

by Julie Johnson

  “What are you staring at?” I snapped, brushing a tendril of sweat-dampened hair off my forehead.

  He mouthed something, but I couldn’t hear him over the music.

  “What?”

  I tried not to shy away when he walked up to me, reached out a hand, and plucked one headphone from my ear.

  “You’re yelling,” he whispered, a half-smile twisting his lips.

  My cheeks flushed even redder when I realized I’d been screaming at an unintentionally loud volume.

  “Oh,” I murmured, removing the other earbud and silencing my iPod. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” I could hear the grin in his voice, but I didn’t dare look up at him. “I could hear you shrieking Taylor Swift from a half-mile out.”

  My gaze flew up to his and I opened my mouth to release a snarky retort. I held my tongue when I saw his eyes were full of teasing.

  “Too bad you missed the earlier portion of the program,” I joked, my snappy comeback forgotten. “My caterwauling Carrie Underwood impression was really impressive.”

  “Was that an actual joke that just came out of your mouth?” he asked, his eyes widening in a parody of shock.

  “Don’t push it,” I muttered, glaring at him once more.

  The skin around his eyes wrinkled in mirth. He stared at me for a full minute without saying anything, his eyes warm on my face, and I fought the urge to move away from him. After a small eternity, his gaze finally shifted to take in the cottage more thoroughly.

  “You cleaned.”

  “It was dusty.”

  He glanced back at me. “I can see that.”

  Lifting a hand to my forehead, he rubbed at the grime-streaked skin there.

  My eyebrows went up involuntarily.

  “Dirt,” he said softly, his thumb still brushing my face. The feeling of his touch was so light — so right — I felt the breath catch in my throat. My heart began to pound a mad tattoo inside my chest, and I pulled back from him so fast, his hand lingered in the air even after I’d spun away.

  Steadying my shoulders, I took a deep breath and decided to ignore him. I busied myself with putting away my cleaning supplies, trying to believe that I was still immune to him. Telling myself over and over that the simple touch of his hand hadn’t been enough to set my heart beating double time or steal the breath from my lungs.

  I’d rather lie than admit the truth — that the brush of his thumb, the warmth in his gaze, the silk of his tone could still make me weak in the knees, even after three years of hating him.

  He’s the devil, I reminded myself. Did you already forget that?

  I was thankful when, after a moment, the electric, tight-coiled tension in the air dissipated and I could breathe again. I listened to his steps as he made his way over to the tiny wooden table by the kitchenette.

  “I got coffee,” he said, setting down a clear plastic grocery bag I hadn’t even noticed he was carrying. “Canned food, lantern fluid. Some other supplies that will last a few days. You must be hungry.”

  I nodded, still not looking at him. “How long are we going to be here?”

  “Until there’s no longer a threat.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I gathered that. I meant… Days? Weeks?”

  “It takes as long as it takes.”

  I bit my tongue to hold in a retort. “I have to get back to my life. People will be looking for me in New York.”

  Shit. I hadn’t meant to tell him where I was living.

  He didn’t respond and that feeling the air was about to combust was suddenly back, swirling stronger than ever in the space between us. When he spoke, his voice was choked with tension. “Who?”

  My back went ramrod straight as I listened to his footsteps crossing the room back toward me.

  “Who’s waiting for you, Red?” His tone was deceptively soft, but I could hear the strain beneath his words. “A boyfriend? A husband?”

  I didn’t answer, but my hands clenched into fists by my sides. He had no right to know the answer to those questions — not anymore.

  “Is it the man who helped you disappear? Because whoever he is, he has connections. Even I couldn’t find you, Red. And, believe me, I looked.”

  My stomach clenched at that admission.

  “Someone helped you vanish off the face of the fucking earth, without a single trace. No mere name-change could’ve erased you so thoroughly.”

  I bit my lip to keep from answering as Conor’s face flashed in my mind.

  “Someone taught you to shoot.” His words slithered around me like a snake, moving in for the kill strike. I tried to keep ignoring him, but the closer he moved toward me, the harder it was to remain unaffected. “Someone helped you change into this… new person.”

  I spun around so fast, I nearly knocked noses with him. He edged back until our faces were a few centimeters apart, and I glared into his eyes, suddenly furious again.

  “You want to know who changed me?” If looks could’ve killed, he’d be down on the freshly scrubbed floors, bleeding out. “You. You changed me.”

  His jaw clenched.

  “You broke me, Wes-whatever-your-real-fucking-name-is-Adams. You ripped my life to shreds and walked away.” I shoved his shoulders with both hands and screamed a little when he barely even rocked back. “You don’t get to know about my life after you wrecked it. And you certainly don’t get to judge me for how I chose to put myself back together after you shattered me.”

  I shoved him again, fighting the tears that were suddenly threatening to pour, and continued to berate him.

  “If you don’t like the girl you see in front of you, you have only yourself to blame. You feel like I’m a new person? Good. I don’t want to be that fool who believed your lies ever again.” Despite my efforts, I felt a tear slip out from beneath my lashes. When I shouted at him again, my voice cracked with emotion. “You don’t recognize the woman I’ve become? Perfect. Now you know what it feels like to look at someone you thought you understood, and realize you never knew them at all.”

  “What do you want from me?” he growled, his dark eyes flashing with anger. The careful restraint he always used was stripped from his voice. “Do you want me to pinky fucking promise that I’m not going to hurt you again? Because I can’t. Grow up. This is the real world, Red. I’m not accountable for your happiness — no one on this godforsaken planet is.”

  “I don’t want anything from you!” I screamed, shoving him again. “You’re the devil! The worst thing that ever happened to me!”

  My fists pounded against his arms, his shoulders, anywhere I could reach. I was crying full-out now — a sniffing, sniveling mess — and I couldn’t stop the tears streaming down my face any more than I could stop the words flowing from my mouth.

  “I hate you,” I whispered brokenly, the heat of my anger gone and the words garbled by grief. “I hate you so much.”

  Wes was a statue, watching me unravel and utterly unable to stop my meltdown. He didn’t touch me, but he didn’t move away either. He just stood there and took it — all the vicious words I doled out, every shove of my hands against his shoulders. And when my screams turned to sobs, when my fury faded to sorrow, he didn’t push me away, as he had every right to. Instead, he wrapped his arms around me and crushed me against his chest so tight, I stopped feeling like I was about to fly apart into a million pieces.

  He was literally holding me together.

  “Shhh,” he breathed into my hair.

  And, for a moment, I just closed my eyes and let him hold me until the rest of the world disappeared.

  Chapter 48

  Weston

  A MONSTER

  * * *

  I held her until I felt her relax in my arms, all her strength sapped by her breakdown. For a while, she seemed to forget that it was me, the man she hated so much, holding her. She might not have noticed, but I’d never been more aware of anything in my life.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in her scent. Everyth
ing else was different, but that was the same: sunlight and spring. I committed it to memory.

  I’d dreamed about this moment — her body pressed against mine, the crown of her head tucked perfectly beneath my chin like we’d been designed to fit together. Whenever I was somewhere cold or dangerous or just fucking lonely, I’d reach inside my head and find this fractured glimpse of Faith — her arms around me, her forehead against the hollow of my throat where my pulse throbbed a little too fast.

  There was nowhere in the world I’d rather be.

  Eventually, she recovered her senses enough to realize that she’d collapsed against my chest and cried approximately half of the Pacific Ocean into my t-shirt. Her breaths slowed from heaves to hiccups and her entire body tensed against mine. When she moved to pull away, I tightened my grip on her for just a moment and held her to me.

  I’d listened to her tirade — it was my turn to say something.

  “Maybe you’re right, Red,” I murmured, my mouth against her hair. “Maybe I am hateful. Maybe I ruined your life. Maybe I’m the devil, and the worst thing that ever happened to you, and a million other awful things.” I tilted my head so my lips brushed her earlobe, and felt her shudder in response. “But did you ever stop to think that even if I am a monster… I might be your soulmate, anyway?”

  With that, I released my hold on her, turned around, and walked outside, not waiting for her response. I knew she wouldn’t have one for me — at least, not one I’d like.

  The welcome release I felt when my fist slammed against the first oak tree I stumbled across wasn’t enough to make me forget her, but it did distract me from the pain inside my chest for a few short moments.

  And, right now, that was enough.

  Chapter 49

  Faith

  ERASERS

  * * *

  Did you ever stop to think that even if I am a monster… I might still be your soulmate, anyway?

  I sat on the floor, my eyes aching almost as much as my fists, and replayed his words over and over until they crowded out every other thought in my head. Honestly, hearing him ask the question I’d been asking myself for three long years was a little more than I could handle.

  I hadn’t lied, when I’d told him he changed my life — changed me. He’d flipped my world on its axis and walked away, leaving nothing but bitterness to fill the void he’d created. Since that day, when I woke up in the hospital and learned that life as I knew it was over, I’d had only one mission: to eradicate his memory completely. To cut away every impression he’d left on me, and start over.

  I’d learned quite quickly that while, in theory, forgetting Wes would be easy, in reality it was damn near impossible.

  Wes…

  Well, Wes was like math.

  See, as a little kid, I’d sucked at math. I can still remember sitting in Mrs. Sampson’s second-grade classroom, learning my multiplication tables for the first time and failing to grasp the concepts she was trying so desperately to illustrate on the chalkboard. Every day she’d give us a worksheet… and every day I’d find myself staring at the incorrect answers I’d scribbled down on said worksheet, dreading the part that came next.

  The eraser.

  I’d drag that damn piece of rubber back and forth across my faulty calculations, scrubbing away my errors with each swipe and watching with a growing sense of frustration as the crappy school-issued eraser turned my penciled answers into a blurry smudge of charcoal. No matter how hard I pressed, the marks never came away clean. The faint shadows of my miscalculations were imbedded deeply in the paper, impossible to remove without tearing away fragments of the worksheet as well.

  I couldn’t expunge the memory of Wes, any more than I could scrub out those embarrassing math mistakes. Not without shredding parts of myself along with him.

  In the end, as much as I might want to, I couldn’t deny the truth in Wes’ words.

  You don’t choose who you fall in love with in this life.

  You can’t erase your soulmate.

  The marks they leave are etched in permanent ink.

  * * *

  He came back, after a while, and we ate a dinner consisting of the same stale crackers and canned soup I’d turned my nose up at only hours earlier. At this point I was so ravenous, I’d have happily eaten my left arm, if it meant the hollow ache inside my empty stomach would go away. I tried not to eat too quickly, but my fingers shook as I scraped the final remnants of soup from the sides of the can.

  We didn’t speak.

  At first, I didn’t mind the silence. But after a while, the persistent quiet began to fill with that uncontrollable, electric feeling. The space separating us seemed to crackle with invisible sparks as every molecule in the tiny cottage began to charge and collide with tension. The air was so thick with the things we’d left unsaid, I soon felt starved for oxygen — each breath I dragged into my lungs made my chest ache a little more, until the lancing pain beneath my ribcage was almost crippling.

  I grabbed my duffel bag and began to rummage through it, looking for the pajama set I’d packed. After a sleepless night followed by a day of exertion — both physical and emotional — I was exhausted and had no intention of sleeping in dirty street clothes again. What I really wanted was a long, hot bath to soak away the grime — but that would require me to ask Wes for some privacy and, as I was stubbornly determined not to be the one who broke our silent stalemate, that wasn’t an option.

  Unfortunately, I knew from experience that he was just as stubborn as I was.

  Snatching a soft pair of shorts and matching tank from my bag, I headed for the “bathroom” in the corner. The curtain was too small to conceal much, but it was better than stripping down to my skin under nothing but the weight of Wes’ eyes. As for his ears — I knew all too well that every sound I made would carry easily past the flimsy hanging fabric.

  I tried not to let that bother me when I plunked down on the toilet and started to pee. Maybe I would’ve been fine, if it hadn’t been so many hours since I last relieved myself. Maybe, if I hadn’t chugged a half-gallon of water after my cleaning marathon, I could’ve done the deed and remained entirely aloof about the whole ordeal.

  Or, maybe not.

  All I knew was, as soon as my ass hit porcelain, I was peeing like a racehorse. And it lasted forever — one of those pees that’s so long, it’s embarrassing even when you’re the only one to witness it, all alone in the privacy of your bathroom. Except I wasn’t alone, and the damn witness to my humiliation was my satanic maybe-soulmate, standing inches away.

  The steady streaming sound was so loud, it seemed to echo back at me from all sides.

  Thirty seconds passed and I began to pray it was almost over, though I knew I still had half a tank left to empty.

  At forty seconds, I felt my cheeks beginning to flush with mortification.

  At fifty, I was ready to curl up in a ball and die, rather than face Wes after this.

  When I neared the minute mark, I heard a chuckle from the other side of the curtain and dropped my head into my hands with a groan. This was even worse than my dirt-eating dive from the trunk.

  Finally, finally, I expelled every last drop from my bladder and flushed away the evidence of my embarrassingly long pee. I took my sweet time changing into pajamas. Only when I was sure the color had faded from my cheeks, did I dare pull back the curtain and step out to face him.

  His eyes immediately met mine and I was pleased to see they held no teasing. My gaze swung swiftly away and I beelined for the duffel, repacking my dirty clothes and pretending I was in no way embarrassed. I’d just zipped my bag closed when I heard a muffled laugh from the other side of the cabin.

  My eyes snapped back in Wes’ direction, but I found his face bore no traces of amusement.

  “What are you laughing at?” I growled, glaring for all I was worth.

  “Nothing,” he said, his voice flat. His expression was the picture of innocence.

  “Good.”

&n
bsp; I’d begun to turn again when his stone-faced facade cracked and a snort escaped. I watched as his expression filled with mirth — a full-out grin on his lips, the skin on his forehead crinkling, a happy light dancing in his eyes. He was so handsome in that moment, looking at me with sheer joy on his face, that it was hard to hold onto my anger.

  Hard — but not impossible.

  When his chuckles turned to full-blown laughter, I narrowed my eyes on his face and gave him my best death-stare.

  “This isn’t funny,” I grumbled angrily. “I don’t understand why you’re so amused.”

  “You know…” He stopped laughing just long enough to gasp out a reply. “They used to call Secretariat ‘Big Red.’”

  His eyes pressed closed and his shoulders shook uncontrollably as he laughed at his own joke.

  My lips twitched, despite myself. “Oh, piss off,” I muttered.

  His bark of laughter reached my ears and I made sure to turn away before he could see the small smile on my lips.

  * * *

  The cabin lights were off and I was securely beneath the bedcovers — the quilt was pulled practically to my chin, covering every inch of flesh besides my face. I’d stacked two pillows against my left side, effectively dividing the bed in half, and was huddled as close to the mattress edge as physically possible. Pressing my eyes closed, I relaxed my features into what I hoped was a peaceful, unconscious expression and feigned sleep.

  Better that than face Wes when he decided to make an appearance.

  I heard the screech of the screen door opening a few moments later, and my entire body tensed in anxious anticipation. The thumping of my heartbeat matched the steady echo of his boots against the hardwood as he crossed the small room toward the bed. When his footsteps faded into silence, I lay as still as possible, struggling to keep my expression serene and my breathing rate even.