by Linde, K. A.
When they talked on the phone, all she wanted to do was blurt out what had happened. Somehow she held her tongue. Even when she was away from him over Thanksgiving and Christmas, all Liz could think about was that one word, the one word that threatened to undo her.
Cheating.
She had cheated on Hayden. One kiss. A drive with Brady. The feel of his hands sliding across the waistline of her pants. Emotional attachment that had lasted far too long.
She had taken Hayden back. She had made him feel terrible for how he had treated her. And what kind of person was she? Harboring feelings for another man, hiding secrets from him for over a year, kissing someone else and never telling him. She was a coward. But she had lost Brady, and she hadn’t been willing to lose Hayden too.
They spent their second New Year’s together at a bar in D.C. with Jamie and James. Besides the nagging guilt that settled into the pit of her stomach, their relationship was smoother than ever. And she wanted to keep it that way, so she did the only thing she knew how: she buried the guilt and kept her secrets.
She spent the week before school at the New York Times and wasn’t able to see Hayden once school got back in because she was so busy. Two weeks into the semester, she and Victoria received invitations to a banquet for their Morehead scholarships. It was an annual thing for seniors to thank them for dedicating so much time to the school and the enhancement of their education. It was supposed to be pretty dull, but they were told it had free alcohol so it was always full.
Victoria used anything as an excuse to go shopping, which was how Liz ended up in a dress boutique in downtown Durham looking for the perfect thing to wear to the banquet.
“Okay, bitch, I have fifty dresses and you only have one. How is that even possible?” Victoria asked, holding a pile of dresses in her arms.
“I already have something to wear,” Liz said with a shrug.
“You are not wearing that champagne dress in the back of your closet!” Victoria snapped. “I know that’s what you’re thinking.”
Liz bit her lip. No way was she wearing the champagne dress she had gotten for Brady’s gala event. That would be torture. “I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good. Now find a couple more options to try on so I’m not in there alone.” With that she turned and walked into the first dressing room.
Liz rolled her eyes. She grabbed two more dresses that she had been eyeing earlier and took the room next to Victoria. It all really was pointless. She had plenty of dresses that she could wear to an event like this that no one had ever seen her in. Well, Hayden had probably seen her in most of them, and he was her date, but that didn’t matter. Hayden didn’t count.
The first dress was a knee-length black dress with a high neck and slight shimmer to it. She liked it, but it was a little tight through the hips, and she didn’t love it by any means. Victoria vetoed it immediately. The second dress, a baby-pink lace ensemble, also received an instant no.
Victoria would be trying on her dresses forever, so Liz took her time with the last one, the one that she had liked the most originally. She carefully pulled the zipper down to the bottom and stepped into the silky material. Finding the edge of the zipper, she pulled it back into place.
She stared at herself in the mirror and a sad smile crossed her face. The black dress was exquisitely cut and molded to her body in a way that made it seem it had been made for her. It was cap-sleeved with an extensively beaded bodice that hugged her torso. A soft silk material covered her athletic hips down to just a few inches above her knees. The back created a U shape to the middle of her back.
It was beautiful. Unbelievably beautiful. Probably too beautiful to waste on a scholarship banquet.
Suddenly her vision blurred as tears marred her eyes. Liz saw herself then as a mirage. A woman floating and indistinguishable amongst her surroundings.
It was ridiculous for her to be near tears just from looking at a boutique dress. She hadn’t cried since the night of the argument with Hayden. Why was she crying now? She willed her tears away, but they refused, and she got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She loved Hayden. She adored Hayden. He was everything she ever wanted. Well, almost. Her stomach tightened painfully.
He was everything she ever needed. Taking a deep breath, she accepted that. Listing his qualities would take too long, and she knew what a great man he was. She didn’t need to convince herself. Yet as her eyes lifted back to the mirror, a tear trailed slowly down her pale cheek.
The guilt of what she had done was weighing on her heavier than ever. All she wanted to do was tell someone, anyone. But the one person she could talk to about it never wanted to see her again, and the one person she needed to talk to about it would never forgive her. He loved her, but how could he accept what she had done?
“Hey, bitch, check out this one,” Victoria said, banging on her dressing room door.
Liz wiped at her face and tried to compose herself before opening the door.
“You look great!” Victoria said, checking out the dress. When she looked back up at Liz, though, she tilted her head and furrowed her brow. “What’s this about? You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she croaked. She wasn’t hiding anything from her best friend.
“I mean, it’s just a dress, Liz. I think it looks great.” The look on Victoria’s face made it all too clear to Liz that Victoria knew it wasn’t the dress. “Now, what’s really wrong?” Victoria demanded, planting her hands on her hips.
Liz shook her head. “Nothing, Vic, I’m fine. No worries. Just a beautiful dress, huh?” she said, lying through her teeth.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Nothing! Can’t I appreciate a good-looking dress?” She turned away from Victoria and looked at herself in the boutique’s trifold mirror.
“If it makes you cry that much, then don’t get it,” Victoria said flatly.
A tear rolled down Liz’s face when she stared at her reflection again. She very clearly looked as if she had been crying. God, she needed to get it together.
“Okay. I can’t make light of this anymore. What the fuck happened? Just fucking spit it out.”
“I kissed someone else!” Liz said, covering her mouth as soon as the words left it. She crouched in the middle of the dressing room and covered her face. Even as her tears continued falling, she brushed them away and looked back up at her friend.
Victoria’s mouth was hanging open and she was staring at Liz as if she had never seen her before. Liz shrank in on herself even more at the expression. Yeah, she was a terrible person.
“Oh my God! Was it recently?” Victoria asked, her eyes as large as saucers.
“No.”
“Was it that night when you and Hayden got into an argument last October?”
Liz stood up and pushed her hair off her face. She felt clammy and slightly nauseated, but it felt good to get it out for the first time ever.
“Yeah. It was.”
“I knew it!” Victoria shrieked.
“Yeah, you guessed it. I’m a terrible girlfriend who cheated on her perfect fucking boyfriend. Yay! So glad you were right,” Liz said in frustration. She felt like shit.
“Oh, please, your boyfriend is not perfect! He pushed you into someone else’s arms. I would have fucked someone else that night. You were totally in the right.”
“I was not!” Liz cried. “Are you insane? I kissed someone else while I’m dating Hayden.”
“Well, don’t tell the whole world,” Victoria said, nodding her head into the boutique.
Liz shook her head. She hadn’t been paying any attention to what was going on around her. “I’m going to change. I just want to go home.”
“Yeah, but you should get that dress.”
“I don’t want it.”
“But it’s like your meltdown dress. You
need it.”
“Whatever,” Liz said, walking into the dressing room.
“So, who is the guy?” Victoria prodded after a couple silent seconds.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Liz took the dress off and put it back on the hanger before sliding back into her jeans and sweater. She was in and out of there in no time at all, but when she walked back out, Victoria was still in her dress.
“But really . . . you’re not going to tell me?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Um . . . it does.”
“Let’s just go,” Liz said, placing the dress on the return rack and folding her arms over her chest.
“You have been beating yourself up about this since October, and you’re not going to even talk about it with me now?” Victoria asked. She actually looked hurt.
Liz ran her hands over her face and tried to decide what to do. She had already confessed to Victoria, and her friend wasn’t judging her. In fact, the only thing she seemed perturbed about at all was the fact that Liz hadn’t told her sooner. Maybe she could trust Victoria.
It would be so nice to have someone to talk to about this. It wasn’t as if Brady were ever coming back into her life. The secret wasn’t even that important anymore. It was just something she had always kept at this point. But really, who was Victoria going to tell? Certainly not Hayden, and anyone she and Brady had been concerned about was long out of the picture.
“So . . . you remember last summer, not this past year but the year before that, how I told you I was seeing someone?” Liz offered.
“Yeah,” Victoria said eagerly.
“I called him that night Hayden and I argued. He picked me up and we went to his condo. We made out. I freaked out and he brought me home.”
“Holy shit! You’re sneaky.” Victoria jumped from one foot to the other. “This is so exciting! I’m usually the dirty one.”
Liz couldn’t help but laugh. What else could she do?
“How could you call him, go to his condo, and kiss, but not fuck? I’m astonished at your self-control!”
“I wanted to, but it didn’t feel right. It’s complicated,” Liz told her.
“Um . . . it’s not complicated. You insert his dick inside—”
“Whoa!” Liz said, holding her hand up. “You don’t have to give away Victoria’s secret.”
“Oh, ha ha! You’re so fucking original.” Victoria rolled her eyes. “So seriously, who is the guy?”
Liz sighed heavily. She couldn’t tell. She just couldn’t. Especially not out in public.
“Can we talk about this somewhere more private?” Liz pleaded.
Victoria clapped her hands together and dashed into the dressing room. A few minutes later, she had all of the dresses hanging haphazardly on the rack, with her selection and Liz’s black beaded dress in her hand. She paid for both through Liz’s protests and then quickly hurried Liz out of the boutique.
“Okay,” Victoria said when they were finally seated in her car.
“Let’s go home. It’s probably safer,” Liz said ominously. She didn’t trust Victoria not to drive them into a telephone pole.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Liz swallowed, her throat constricting the closer they got to home. She was warring with herself on what she could and couldn’t tell Victoria. She desperately wanted to confide in someone. It was making her crazy. She had held this in for a year and a half and she didn’t want to have to hide anymore. She didn’t want to reveal it to the entire populace or anything. In fact, that was the last thing she wanted.
She still valued Brady’s career and would do everything in her power to keep their relationship from hurting him. That was the reason she had left in the first place. If she didn’t believe in that, then she never would have left.
Victoria pulled into their driveway twenty minutes later and practically skipped to the front door. At least someone was enjoying this.
Once Liz was inside, she took a seat on the couch and tucked her feet up underneath her. While Victoria sat in the chair across from her, bouncing with anticipation, Liz picked at her nails. She didn’t even know where to begin or what to say. Maybe she shouldn’t say anything.
But the one thing she had learned about the entire situation was that secrets were heavy. Mentally, physically, emotionally—they exhausted her. And she had quite the secret tucked away in her heart.
“Well . . . we’re home and it’s safe,” Victoria offered. “I’m literally dying over here. I’ve been curious about this guy since you first told me about him, and to think you saw him in October.”
“It’s really not something to be excited about. There’s a reason I’ve been keeping it all secret,” Liz explained.
“I remember you saying that he asked you to keep it secret. Still shitty to me, if I do say so.”
Liz breathed out heavily. “I know why you think that, but it’s a necessary precaution. I just want you to promise me that you’re not going to tell anyone about this. I’m already kind of freaked out. I mean, I think I should tell Hayden about what happened, but God, I don’t even know how to do that. I don’t want him to hate me.”
“He’s not going to hate you.”
“You don’t know that.”
Victoria rolled her eyes. “I do too. He’s crazy about you.”
“Maybe. So, do you promise?”
“Of course, who am I going to tell?”
“Absolutely no one,” Liz said, trying to drill it into her head.
“Right. I promise not to say anything. I can’t see how it’s that big a deal though,” Victoria said dismissively.
Liz took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. She didn’t have any idea how to start, so she just blurted it out: “Brady Maxwell.”
Victoria sat very still for a second. Her eyes were glued to Liz, but didn’t give anything away. Then slowly the name seemed to sink in and her eyes gradually grew in size. Her mouth dropped open slightly and she stopped bouncing.
“Wait . . . like Brady Maxwell, Brady Maxwell? Like the congressman you interviewed?” Victoria asked.
“Um . . . yeah,” Liz whispered. She felt as if she could breathe properly for the first time in a long while. She had been carrying that secret around for so long. She hadn’t known she would feel so relieved now that it was out.
“Whoa!” Victoria said, falling back into her chair. “You were banging a congressman. Is he married?”
“No. He’s not,” Liz said tensely.
“I just . . . wow. You were right. I wasn’t expecting that at all. I definitely thought you were going to tell me one of Hayden’s friends or something and that’s why it was a big secret. I never in a million years would have guessed you were fucking that hot specimen.” She was clearly shocked, because Victoria didn’t ramble. “Is he good in bed?”
Liz laughed softly. “Um . . . yeah. Very good.”
“So wait . . . a sitting congressman picked you up from the newspaper, took you to his condo, and you didn’t fuck him?” Victoria asked, slapping her hands on the armrests. “Are you out of your mind? Are you not attracted to power? Why did it end? What happened last summer? Gah, give me details! I need to know.”
Tears sprang to Liz’s eyes again without warning. She pushed her palms into her eyes to stop them. “You don’t understand,” she murmured. “I was a liability to the campaign. I’d written negative stuff about him and they already weren’t sure he was going to win. He only won by a slim margin as it was, and if anyone found out we were together, he wouldn’t have. Any small slipup had the potential to ruin him.”
“So he broke it off? They forced you out?” Victoria whispered. “Bastard!”
“No,” Liz said, shaking her head. Victoria hopped off the chair and plopped down into the seat next to her. “I left.”
“You left? But why?”
“I didn’t think he’d choose me over the campaign and I didn’t want him to. I believe in him and I wanted him to pursue his dreams, but after I saw him, he told me that he was as much of a wreck as I was after the split,” Liz said, her hands shaking as she finally spilled everything to her best friend.
“Oh my God, then go to him!”
“It’s complicated. He’s dating someone. I’m with Hayden. Brady closed that door, Vic. He told me that he didn’t even want to be a memory to me anymore. I hurt him past the point of recovery and I was too much of a coward to tell Hayden. And ever since I’ve just felt like complete and total shit.”
“Oh, Liz,” Victoria said with a sigh. “I really don’t know what to tell you. If you feel like you were in the wrong—which, trust me, I don’t think you were—then maybe you should tell Hayden.”
“You think?”
She couldn’t do it. It hurt too much. He would leave her. But maybe she deserved it. Maybe the truth would set her free. Maybe it would lift the weight off her chest.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Victoria asked.
“He would leave me.”
“And considering you were making out with a politician a couple months ago, that might not be that bad.”
Chapter 20
THE BANQUET
Is that your politician?” Victoria asked, coming out of her bedroom dressed to the nines for the banquet tonight. Liz couldn’t believe the first month of her last semester had already passed so quickly.
Liz stared at the screen where Brady stood in front of a podium in a three-piece black suit. He looked gorgeous. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“He’s so smoking hot.”
“Mmm . . .”
“What’s he talking about?” Victoria asked after a minute.
“He’s running for reelection. It’s not a surprise,” Liz told her. “Everyone knew that he would. He’s into it for life.”
“You make it sound like a prison sentence.”