“Do you… miss Yale?” Fey asks after a long moment. Then she snorts, “What am I saying? Of course you don’t. I mean, look at you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve obviously adapted to your new life,” Fey says. “You seem… I don’t know, more mature, I guess.” She motions at my outfit. “I just can’t see you back on campus in something like that.”
I force myself not to roll my eyes. “We’ve been over this already. They’re just clothes, Fey. Clothes don’t change a person.”
“No,” she says. “But getting used to them might.”
Another silence.
“You’re still angry with me. Aren’t you?” I say finally. “Look, I already apologized once. Do you want to hear me say it again? I’m sorry for snapping at you when we met. There. That’s twice. Is that good enough?”
Fey flinches and looks away. “It’s not that,” she says softly.
“Then what?” I feel my temper rising, along with my agitation. My attempt to smother them is unsuccessful. “What did I do wrong, Fey? What do you want from me?”
“Want?” Her eyes flash to meet mine. There’s a new determination behind them. “I don’t want anything you’re not willing to give, Lilly. Who am I to make demands of you? You’ve obviously moved past old college friends.”
“What are you talking about?” My frustration with her is ever-growing. “I’m here, aren’t I? I flew here to see you, didn’t I? It’s not like I’m here for anybody else.”
“It doesn’t add up, Lilly. Six months without a word, without a single phone call, and now you just want to start off from where we were? Without so much as a proper explanation?”
“Oh,” I say. “I get it. That’s what this is about. That’s why you’re angry with me.”
“Yes! That’s what this is about!” Fey explodes. “How come you never called, Lilly? Not even once? Not to check in, not to say hello? Sonja and I tried to find you. We called Corfu Consulting when the fall term began, asking for you. They told us your contract ended when the client pulled out. They said they didn’t know where you were.”
She surges to her feet and stalks across the small room, away from me. “I think I’ve given you ample opportunity to explain, Lilly. I haven’t pressed you because I thought you would tell me in your own time. But now, as your friend, I think I deserve to know. Where were you, really, for the last six months? What were you doing? How did you truly meet Jeremy Stonehart? That is,” she adds, “if you still consider us friends.”
“Of course I do!”
“Then you owe me an explanation.” She turns back toward me. “Robin did some investigating. He found the guest list of everybody in attendance at the product launch where you and Jeremy supposedly met. Jeremy’s name was on the list. Yours wasn’t.”
She looks at me, full of expectation.
Shit. The gears in my head are spinning a million miles a minute, trying to come up with a feasible answer. I should have prepared for something like this. I should have expected it.
I did not.
“Fey, I… I don’t know what to tell you,” I mutter.
“How about,” she suggests, “you start with the truth?”
“The truth?” I almost laugh. How would Fey react if she discovered the truth? How would anybody react? Would they call me deranged, insane for wanting to stay with Jeremy Stonehart after all that he’s done to me?
I have to stay—No! I need to stay—because being near him is the only chance I have to exact my revenge.
“You know the truth,” I tell her. “I was working the entire time. Yes. The Corfu guys terminated my contract. I never told you that because I didn’t want you to worry. It happened right after the late-registration deadline for the fall semester.”
I grip the edge of the mattress. “So I couldn’t come back to school. For about a week, I didn’t know what I would do. But then the client I was working for—Dextran—offered me a full-time position. Corfu didn’t know about it. It probably wasn’t entirely legal, anyway. Employee poaching and all that. That’s why they couldn’t tell you anything about me when you called.”
“And the guest list?” she prompts.
“I don’t know,” I shrug. “Maybe somebody made a mistake. That’s really where I met Jeremy. Robin could be wrong, you know.”
Fey’s eyes widen in offense. “Robin,” she huffs, “is never wrong. Not in his research. That’s why The Economist loves him so much. He’s the consummate reporter.”
“Then, whoever made up the guest list must have missed me,” I say.
Fey looks at me. Her eyes narrow ever-so-slightly as she takes me in. I can see her trying to decide whether to believe me or not.
It’s all about appearance, I know. And thanks to Jeremy, I’ve had plenty of practice putting on my own masks. Fey’s gaze might be searching, yes. But, it doesn’t hold a candle to the ones he’s subjected me to.
So, I meet her eyes, steadfast and unflinching, almost daring her to doubt me. I’m fully committed to the lie now. There is no turning back.
“So, Corfu terminated your contract, huh?” She begins to tap her foot. “Right after the deadline for registration? And I’m only learning about it now?”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s what happened.”
“Lilly…” she drags out my name, making it sound like she’s about to reveal some profound thought. “Just one question for you.”
“Sure,” I say. “Shoot.”
“Do you remember,” she starts, “the promise you made me the last time we saw each other at Yale? Before you ran off on your Californian adventure? Right after Robin proposed?”
The reminder of that makes me uncomfortable. I break eye contact and look at my feet. “Sure,” I mumble.
“Can you repeat it to me?”
I swallow. “You said…” I clear my throat. “You said that you wanted to be the first person I called if anything went wrong.”
“Uh-huh,” she confirms. “And when Corfu threw you under the bus… when you were left without a place to turn… why on earth did I not hear about it right away?”
“I was… ashamed,” I admit. “I didn’t want to look like a failure in your eyes.”
And with those words, all the walls come crashing down. Fey’s façade of indifference breaks. She rushes to me and takes my hand.
“Oh, honey!” she says to me. “Have I ever told you that you are a miserable liar?”
My gut clenches up in fear. Caught, I think.
“But, I believe you,” she says. She strokes one hand through my hair. “You don’t need to stay invincible. Not for me. We’re friends, Lilly. We’ve lived together for almost three years. I think of you as my sister. You should have called.”
I feel tears coming to my eyes. I blink rapidly to push them away.
Fey’s words mean so, so much to me. The shift back to true compassion means so much to me. It just saddens me, so, so much more, that I have to continue to deceive her.
“I think of you as a sister, too,” I say softly.
She hugs me. I hug her back.
***
Robin comes home soon after. He makes time to say hello. But, I can tell he’s feeling rushed. Dinner is just me, Fey, Robin’s parents, and Jace. Robin stay in his room, working. When I wonder out loud why no one’s brought a plate to him, I nearly get laughed out of the room.
“When that kids locks himself in there,” Jace says, “There’s no getting him out, come hell or high water. He’s been that way ever since high school. We know better than to try talking to him when he’s in one of his ‘zones’.” He makes big, exaggerated air quote around the word.
Fey touches my arm, “I used to worry, too. But, I’ve learned to live with it. He eats on a totally irregular schedule. Dinner doesn’t mean much to him. Neither does lunch, or breakfast. Hell! Some days I don’t even know if he remembers to eat.”
“Once,” Jace continues. “Right around the time university admissions were
due, he locked himself in there for three whole days without coming out.”
“Fey’s right,” Robin’s mom says. “We don’t think he had a bite of anything the entire time. He gets so focused on what he’s doing. He seemed just as surprised as we were when we asked him about it after he emerged. He said he just forgot.”
“See what I have to deal with in my future husband?” Fey smiles.
The remainder of the night proceeds in a light-hearted manner.
When it’s finally time to retire, I’m caught by surprise when Fey follows me to my room instead of to Robin’s.
“You don’t mind if I sleep in here tonight, do you?” she asks. She looks at me with big, doe-like eyes. “It’ll be like a slumber party. Almost like we’re back in college.”
“Sure,” I say, after only a moment’s hesitation. Jeremy asked me to call him tonight. I don’t want to do it with Fey around.
I guess the saving grace is that he did not order me to. I figure it won’t be the end of the world if I don’t.
When the lights are out, and we’re both tucked under the sheets, I hear Fey’s soft voice.
“Lilly?” she says. “Are you still awake?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Barely. What’s up?”
“I just want to say… how happy I am for you. And how proud I am of what you’ve done. I’m sorry for doubting you. It really seems like you’ve got your entire life figured out. It’s pretty amazing, actually. But if anybody could do it, it’d be you.”
I feel an uncomfortable twinge of guilt. If she only knew.
“I think I might even envy you,” she whispers. “You’ve got it made. A perfect job. A stunning man. Access to unlimited wealth. I just hope that it brings you happiness. You deserve it.”
“My life’s not perfect,” I mutter. “There’s something you don’t know.”
She sits up. “What is it?”
Trying to decide whether to tell her this or not is something I’ve struggled with ever since Jeremy told me I could come and visit her. It’s a decision I’ve been unable to make.
But now… now, I think we’ve reconnected enough that I can trust her. And if there is one thing I can share with her that is the absolute truth, without worrying about the consequences, it’s this.
“I met my father.”
“What?” I hear her scramble in the dark as she reaches over to turn on a lamp. “When? How? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“A few weeks ago,” I say. “Jeremy found him for me.”
“Wow!” Fey exclaims. “So? Who is he? What was it like? Why did he abandon you when you were a child?”
“The funny thing is,” I say, “he wasn’t a stranger.”
“Huh?” Fey asks. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I met him before. I just didn’t know he was my father. I thought he was just one of my mom’s many boyfriends. When I was around twelve or so…”
And so I launch into the whole story of who Paul is, how he rescued me from the hole in the ground, why he left, and everything else.
Fey listens with rapt attention. As I continue talking, I find that it feels good—so good—to be able to unload some of my issues onto someone else.
The matter with Paul is something that’s been gnawing at me ever since Jeremy introduced me to him. Until now, I‘ve just chosen to ignore it. I haven’t had time to give him proper thought.
But, he is my father. And I do want to figure out how he fits into things.
I tell Fey everything about my meeting with him in the mental ward. Of course, I leave out the part about the collar. And the way he called Jeremy “Doctor.” But, everything else I recount with absolute honesty.
“Wow!” Fey breathes when I’m done. “Just… wow. So he’s like, mentally unstable?”
“From what I saw, yeah.”
“And you’re sure he’s actually your father? It’s not some story he made up?”
“No. Why would he do that?” I say. “When he called me his daughter, Fey, he was telling the truth. I know. Just from the way he looked at me. I know.”
“I don’t know,” she says, hesitating. “It just seems so farfetched…”
“You don’t think he told the truth?”
“Well, you said it yourself. He’s insane. Look at where Jeremy found him. Have you talked to your mother about this?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s been years since we spoke. I’m not about to seek her out, even for this.”
“Maybe you should,” Fey says thoughtfully. “You never told me the full story of what happened between you and her.”
I exhale. “It was bad, Fey. I don’t like to think about it. She was the one who ruined things between us, not me.”
“Yes, but now you’re older… smarter… more mature. Maybe it’s a good time to approach her. Patch things up?”
“Trust me,” I say. “They’re unpatchable. Besides, I live in California now. She’s god-knows-where on the East Coast. I haggled hard enough to get these two days off to come and see you. I don’t think my boss would look kindly on me asking for more time off.”
“Nobody says you have to do it in person. A phone call could be enough.”
“You think I have her number?” I give a laugh. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t want to do it that way. When—if—I ever choose to reconnect with her again, it’ll be face-to-face. It has to be, after the way we left things.”
“I’m just thinking out loud here…” Fey says slowly, “…but if we’re to assume that Paul is actually your father, wouldn’t a lot of your mom’s behavior in the aftermath of their last break up make sense?”
Yes, I think to myself. Yes, and that is why I’m so afraid to see her.
“No.” I shake my head stubbornly. “What she did was unforgivable. The things she said, the names she called me… You weren’t there, Fey. You don’t know what it was like.” I motion around the room. “You see Robin’s family. They’re all happy and get along. You grew up with two loving parents. I’ve never heard you say one bad word about them.”
“I guess that’s true,” she admits.
“I don’t want to say this to make it sound dramatic, but in a way, you’ve been sheltered your whole life. You’ve never had bad family drama.” I sigh. “It wasn’t like that for me. For half of high school, I dreaded coming home and finding one of my mom’s new low-life boyfriends shooting heroine on the bed. That was the better half. You don’t even want to know what the worse half looked like.”
Fey touches my arm. “I’m sorry.”
“So, I’m not going back to her,” I say. “If Paul is my father--and I believe he is--it still doesn’t change things. Not much. It’s not like I have this overwhelming urge to reconnect with him and make up for lost time.” I force a laugh. “Even if I did, I couldn’t just go and see him on a whim, you know. There are procedures in place. The institution is run almost like a prison.”
“Don’t you want to help him?” Fey asks. “You’ve always been so altruistic. Don’t you want to see if, maybe, reuniting with you could help his mental state? You said he was lucid when he called you his daughter. But now—and don’t take this the wrong way—you seem kind of blasé about the whole thing.”
I think of the collar around my father’s neck… and of the man responsible for it. Yes, I want to help Paul. I want to help him more than Fey can ever know.
I shrug. “It’s not like I have the luxury to do anything. He’s locked up tight in there.”
“How does a place like that work, anyway?” Fey wonders. “It sounds like a private facility. It’s not a state-run prison. But the way you described things, it doesn’t seem to me like the occupants can just leave at any time.”
“They can’t.” I remember the locks on the windows, the tall fence around the outside. “I don’t know how it works either, Fey.”
“You haven’t looked it up? Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“It’s just been low on my priority list,” I say. “I can
actually sympathize with Robin. The way you say he’s working? That’s been pretty much every single day for me at the firm.”
“Except, of course, in the evenings, when you’re with Jeremy.” Fey giggles.
“Yes,” I say, feeling a tinge of sadness at how much I still have to keep hidden from her. “Except then.”
Chapter Sixteen
I say good-bye to Fey the following morning, and even catch a peek at the elusive Robin. He looks exhausted, absolutely haggard. Fey tries to fuss around him to show her concern. He just brushes her off.
I bet he didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.
Fey directs an evil glare at my driver when he arrives. But, otherwise she keeps her mouth shut. We hug each other and she makes me promise to call her within the next week. I tell her I will.
And then I find myself back in the limo, heading toward the private airfield where Jeremy’s jet is already waiting for me. I’m going right back into the lair of the beast.
It’s funny. When I think back on this trip to see Fey, I don’t feel any overwhelming emotions. I view the entire expedition with a detached sort of distance.
We didn’t really reconnect. Not until late last night, anyway, and not in the way I hoped we might. Part of it probably has to do with how much I’ve had to keep hidden. But, a part of it might just be our growing apart. Our lives are different now. She’s still in college. I don’t think I’m ever going back. We’re not kids. After all the things I’ve experienced with Jeremy, I feel so much older than I really am.
Somehow, sitting in the back of the limo gives me more comfort than reuniting with Fey. It’s not just the familiarity that comes from returning to his world. It’s a sort of peaceful tranquility that arises from knowing that I am firm in my position, and that, that position puts me in a place to accomplish my goals.
***
After the flight back, I pull up in front of the doors to the mansion. I climb the steps and open the unlocked door. As expected, an empty house greets me.
I try my luck, anyway. “Rose?” I call out. “Are you around?”
There is no answer.
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 57