by India Lee
Amanda winced with guilt. “No, no.” The lie came out instinctively. She waved her hand in the air, nodding out the elevator doors once they opened at the thirty-fourth floor. “Come on. I have half an hour and a ton of quarters. Let’s have a feast.”
~
More furniture had apparently been taken off of the thirty-fourth floor since the prior night, leaving just the vending machine and a single chair, the seat of which Amanda and Jake arranged with an array of Famous Amos cookies, Skittles, M&Ms and mini towers of Starburst.
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer any of your texts,” Amanda said, her voice echoing on the empty floor as she watched Jake build a colorful paper chain from the Starburst wrappers. “We’ve just been so busy at Leadoff. Figuring out the season finale. And I was probably so swamped that I just slipped to Casey that you were here. That kind of thing.”
Unwrapping another piece of candy, Jake looked up at her, seeming to know well that she wasn’t telling the truth. “That’s okay,” he still said genuinely. Amanda tried not to make a face as her heart wrenched. He seemed entirely too accepting of things like lies and avoidance, as if they were just everyday things to accept in life.
“You said you had some questions though?” Amanda asked gently. She had already gone against Casey’s orders to stay away from her brother. She figured they might as well talk. There was no way anyone was watching, anyway, unless it was through telescopes in the neighboring high-rises. Amanda knew she probably shouldn’t put something that ridiculous past Casey but at the same time, she sensed they were safe on the thirty-fourth floor.
“Oh. Yeah. Just some… stupid questions. No biggie.” He looked up from his color coded Skittles to catch Amanda’s odd look. “Sorry I’m being weird.”
Amanda let out an exaggerated groan. “Stop.” She flicked a yellow M&M at him, cracking a smile when he looked up with surprise. “Seriously, stop dismissing everything you do or say as ‘weird.’ It’s not. Whoever called you ‘weird’ growing up was the weird one,” she added, assuming that someone had put the word in his head at some point.
“Well...” Jake furrowed his brow. “If I’m not weird, why do people always run from me?”
“Who runs from you?”
“My sister. My only girlfriend. You. And you’re just someone I met like, twice. It only took you two times to know that I was a weirdo.”
Amanda held another M&M in the air. “Don’t make me throw this.”
“Fine, not weird. But like… something.”
Amanda popped the piece of chocolate in her mouth, chewing. “Well, I can tell you I wasn’t talking to you because of work and according to your stories, Casey left because of your mom, not you. So why don’t you tell me about this girlfriend of yours and I’ll tell you what you probably misinterpreted about her breaking up with or whatever it was that happened.”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “Okay.” He paused, his lips turning up sheepishly. “I’ve never really talked about her with anyone but my mom.”
“What was her name?”
“Angel,” he replied before giving a laugh. “My mom called her my angel because I couldn’t really make friends in school ‘cause the kids made fun of my leg thing all the time. But she came up to me randomly one day in third grade and decided to be my best friend, I guess, since I had no one else. And then it was just me and her from that day on.”
Amanda couldn’t help her pout as she cooed. “That’s so sweet. Do you have pictures of her?”
Jake smiled as he retrieved his phone. “These are really old,” he said as he scrolled through an album of pictures until he could show Amanda a few shots of a striking girl with honey brown hair and ears about a half-size too big that somehow worked on her oval shaped face. When they reached a video, Jake’s swiping finger accidentally played a second of it before he bobbled the phone, clicking it off and hastily putting it back into his pocket.
“What?” Amanda laughed. “That looked good. Did she want to be an actress?” She’d seen about two seconds of the video but it had been obvious that the girl was slating for a camera and practicing some sort of monologue.
“Yeah. I used to always help her practice. She was crazy talented. I mean she had more empathy than everyone I know combined, which is probably how she was such a good friend, too.” He paused. “But, yeah… she didn’t know that I took that video. It’s just…” He trailed off. “Another example of me being weird and too eager.”
“Is that why you two broke up?”
“I don’t know. It’s kind of connected to why Casey stopped talking to me.” Jake stuck his tongue out at himself. “I was a dumbass. She was the only friend I ever had and the most important person in my life. And she wanted to be an actress and never asked me for anything even though she knew who my family was. So when we were about to finish high school, I thought I’d finally do her a favor and introduce her to Casey.”
“Oh right.” Amanda squinted, remembering his story from the night in Chinatown. “So you messaged Casey on Facebook to see if she could help this girl become an actress and Casey… stopped talking to you.” She frowned. “And your girlfriend dumped you because of that?”
Jake shook his head. “She went to college on the East Coast and I stayed in the Midwest. But before that, she was already starting to act distant with me. It was around the time Casey stopped responding to her emails. And then when she left for college, she didn’t say goodbye. And then both she and Casey stopped talking to me, pretty much. Casey because I bothered her so much about helping with the acting thing and Angel because… I don’t know exactly.”
Geez. Amanda’s face contorted. Not so angelic anymore. “I’m sorry. That’s… I don’t even know what happened there. But that wasn’t your fault. Some people just don’t know where to place their blame.”
Jake lowered his eyes, his lip twitching. He opened his mouth to say something but quickly shut it.
“Yes?” Amanda teased, cocking her head so he’d look at her. “Don’t make me chuck more candy at you. What were you going to say? I’m sure it wasn’t ‘weird.’”
Jake grimaced. “I was gonna say, ‘like your friend, Ian.’ He doesn’t know where to place his blame.”
Amanda cocked an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“He called Casey all those horrible things that one night but it was his fault. All those things he did. I know he did it because he was under the influence of stuff but he blames her and that’s not right.” Jake shook his head. “Like, what was he on the other night? He seemed really messed up.”
Amanda stared with a deep frown. “Ian’s been a hundred percent sober since leaving rehab,” she said, sounding probably more curt than she meant to. Jake’s eyes fluttered upon detecting the tone in her voice.
“I’m sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound rude, I just…” He shook his head hard. “No one in their right mind would say those things about Casey. Anyone can tell she’s just a good person in a bad place.”
“Um. Yeah.” Feeling the conversation veering somewhere dangerous, Amanda became suddenly very aware of the time. “Shit, I’m late, I have to go.”
Jake sprung to his feet with her, his big eyes apologetic. “I’m sorry I upset you.”
“It’s okay, Jake, you didn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Are you positive?”
“Jake.”
“Okay, I just… sorry. I just really didn’t appreciate the things Ian called my sister that night.”
Amanda eyed him as she pressed the button to the elevator. “Let’s not forget that you hit him so technically, you did start it,” she said, feeling as if she were talking to an five-year-old.
“But that doesn’t count.”
Amanda laughed as she stepped into the elevator, Jake trailing. “Why not?”
He shrugged, his brows knitting with frustration. “It just doesn’t.”
“That’s not a sufficient reason.”
His posture slumped as he took in a deep breath, heaving it with puffed cheeks. “It still counts as Ian starting it because he started it with Casey first,” he said all in one exhale.
Amanda paused, her eyes shifting. “No,” was all she was willing to say.
“Well, that’s not a sufficient reason,” Jake said, parroting her.
Closing her eyes for a tired second, Amanda felt her jaw tighten. “It’s going to have to do, Jake.”
“Why?”
“Because this conversation has to end now, I need to get back to work.”
“Why?”
Oh my God, we are not playing the ‘why’ game. “Jake.” Amanda looked at him. “Listen, I’m sorry but I have no more good answers for you so please don’t ask me any more questions.” He shook his head, seeming lost. Please don’t ask ‘why,’ Amanda prayed.
“Why?”
Amanda felt her eyes roll behind her closed eyelids. “Because your sister was the one who started it, Jake.”
And… shit.
Jake paused, standing still in the elevator as the doors finally closed. He frowned, staring at the floor for a moment. “What do you mean?”
Semi-frozen, Amanda blinked. “I… nothing. I don’t remember what I said.” Fantastic save, she told herself wryly. Even Jake shot her a bit of an incredulous look.
“What did my sister do to start it?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded, easily accepting her answer. “Okay, ‘cause I was gonna say. She’s a good person. She asked me to call her when I got back to Missouri.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah. So it was definitely your friend who started it.”
Amanda kept quiet. When the silent went for longer than he liked, Jake peered at her.
“He probably is still using coke and stuff and you just can’t tell.”
Amanda ground her teeth. Suddenly, his childishness was much less endearing than it was irritating. Breathing through her nose, Amanda willed herself not to bother with a retort. Don’t be a five-year-old too, don’t be a five-year-old too…
“Oh shoot. He’s probably trying to do Harper Gunn what he did to Casey.” Jake’s eyes went bigger than usual as he considered his own theory. “Holy cow, some people really are meant to be bad people.”
“I lied,” Amanda felt herself blurt. “It wasn’t Ian, it was Casey and I didn’t tell her that you were here — she found out herself because she’s been having someone stalk me and spy on me for the past month or more to keep tabs on my life. So as far as bad people go, I would actually say your sister is somewhere closest to the top on that list.”
Chapter 21
I’m at Connor’s. Come here. Please.
Amanda stared down at Liam’s text, reading it and then the time. A quarter to eight. He was due at A Soldier’s red carpet in fifteen minutes. The premiere was being held somewhere close to Columbus Circle and yet he was at Connor’s loft in Chinatown. She probably shouldn’t have ignored his last text. He had warned that he would go there to meet if she didn’t respond. She had just hoped that he’d been bluffing considering his time constraints. Guess not. Standing before the door, Amanda stared at it, gripping her coat in her hand and fighting the urge to go.
After her big reveal to Jake on Tuesday night, it had finally sunk in for her.
Connor had been right about most things. Most things regarding her, anyway. She hadn’t in fact been done causing trouble — specifically the kind that would find its way into Liam’s life. Liam truly was a thousand times better off without her. And not only that, Casey’s brand of artful, cunning malice was apparently something she possessed at least a little of herself. After all, she’d let Jake believe in her friendship with his sister, played to his weaknesses to draw information from him and then shattered the image of Casey that his fragile heart had set thirteen years of hope on. She hadn’t had to.
He’s mentally a child. I could have just let it go, she couldn’t stop telling herself every time the image of Jake’s reaction popped up in her head, which was essentially every fifteen to thirty minutes. His initially confusion had been fine but it was the wide-eyed, slowly crumpling face afterward that made her feel awful. She wasn’t sure what he was realizing — that his sister was in fact an evil person or if he’d just spilled all her secrets to an evil person who clearly wasn’t actually her friend.
Blinking from her thoughts, Amanda looked down at her vibrating phone. She didn’t recognize the number but once the call went to voicemail, the strange number sent her a text.
Just get the hell over here and talk to Liam in person so we can leave for the premiere. I didn’t mean for you to be vague as shit and keep him guessing as usual.
Connor. Amanda scowled at the screen of her phone. She was finally doing exactly what he wanted and yet he still had to be a dick about it. But before she knew it, she had her coat on and her feet bringing her out the door.
Putting on the stoic face she’d come to greet paparazzi with, Amanda breezed past the small crowd of camera lenses outside her building, managing to hail a cab on Avenue C and eventually lose their tail somewhere down The Bowery. But by the time the car pulled into Connor’s street — a cramped, narrow bend of barber shops and tea parlors — Amanda could feel the calm on her wooden face melting with a variety of emotions that made little sense together. Her heart couldn’t help an instinctive skip of excitement at the prospect of being close to Liam, of feeling his body near hers. But her stomach also lurched with dread over seeing him. And then, of course, there was that prickly irritation creeping the surface of her skin — the sensation that always reserved itself for Connor.
This won’t end well, Amanda predicted dryly as she buzzed into the old apartment building that belonged entirely to Connor. Grinding her teeth, she pushed through the stained metal door.
As she climbed up the steps of the walk-up, she felt her heart pound in anticipation of a thousand different things. Trying to calm herself, she kept her eyes down, fixed on her beat up Converses as they touched each white-green, fluorescent-lit stair.
Upon reaching the fifth floor, Amanda’s heart fluttered, her eyes meeting the handsome, shiny black shoes that stood at the top step. Her eyes lifted to the hand that held itself out to hers, helping her up the last stair.
“Hey.”
Amanda blinked up at Liam and his casual greeting. It didn’t match the urgency of his texts and voicemails in the past week. Neither did his face. Holding his hand at the top of the steps, Amanda let her eyes peer up at Liam and the warm gaze she was sure she didn’t deserve. She tried to say something or at the very least return his greeting but her lips couldn’t quite manage. Liam wrapped his fingers tighter around hers as if to brush off the need.
“Amanda.” His voice was gentle but tinged with a tiredness that she had never heard before. “I can’t do this anymore. I know you can take care of yourself but I can’t leave you alone with your thoughts and burdens if it’s going to mean you disappearing on me. I need to know what’s going on.”
“Connor didn’t tell you?” she asked quietly.
“You’ve both been acting completely strange around me lately, not telling me things,” Liam gave a short laugh. “He said he wanted me to hear it all from you.”
Of course he did. Clenching her jaw, Amanda peered briefly past Liam into Connor’s open doorframe. She caught his satisfied eye as he passed, swallowing hard when she returned her gaze to Liam.
“I don’t know what happened,” Amanda finally started, her voice cracking. “And I don’t know when it happened either but I turned into somebody else. Someone I’m pretty sure you’d want nothing to do with if I hadn’t hidden her so well from you.” She shook her head, sliding her hand out of his grip. “I don’t recognize the things I’ve been doing lately. They’re not me and they’re no right.”
“I have a feeling they’re not as bad as you’r
e making them seem.”
“I lied to you and not just once,” Amanda said flatly. She studied Liam, waiting for his reaction. The fact that he didn’t give one only compelled her to continue. “There’s a difference between keeping things to myself and lying to you and I lied. I lied to you about leaving Casey alone — I didn’t. I specifically went digging for dirt on her so I could find some way to get her back. I didn’t tell you about how I’ve been spending time with her younger brother just to get close to him, to see if I could get any good information from him. And I didn’t tell you that Casey broke into my building and threatened to go after you if I didn’t stop talking to Jake. She knows we’ve been seeing each other. The guy who’s been following me — I know she’s the one who hired him.”
Chest heaving, Amanda sucked in a deep breath, taking a break to life her gaze. It had dropped to her hand as her fingers counted all her lies. Letting her open palm fall to her side, her eyes darted about Liam’s frustratingly unreadable face.
“And I didn’t tell you about how exactly I saved my job. That I got Jake to trust me enough to tell me the worst memory of his and Casey’s lives. And that a week later, I pitched it as the story for Leadoff’s season finale.”
Finally, Amanda detected a flicker of shock in Liam’s eye. Shame instantly flooded her but she forced herself to continue.
“I made the worst thing that ever happened to either of them a fun story for TV. The one thing that completely screwed with them for the past thirteen years and made Casey into this pathological schemer when she was actually once a good girl who loved her brother and dreamt of opening up a dress shop. And her brother…” Amanda shook her head with disgust for herself. “Jake. He’s the definition of fragile — he’s got this limp and these complexes and zero confidence or friends. He’s survived all these years away from Casey by completely idealizing her as this perfect older sister and I couldn’t even let him have that fantasy. He was on his way home and I still had to tell him all about what she did to Ian, to me. So not only did I talk to him and see him when Casey warned me not to, I told him all about the absolute maniac she actually is.” Amanda drew a deep breath. “And now I’m just waiting. Because if Jake doesn’t end up finding the guts to ask Casey about what I said, she’ll still end up seeing the season finale of Leadoff in a couple of weeks and I don’t know what the hell she’ll have planned for me after that but I was hoping that if I stayed away from you, she’d leave you out of it.”