If I Lie (16 page)

I seriously loathe high school and wannabe mean girls and idiotic field trips.

A quick walk down the hall to Mrs. Peringue’s room and my roomies will be in a load of trouble. Then I could look forward to sleeping with my eyes open while Janet, Amery, and Danielle plot to do me in after a little prodding from Jamie. The others are not as malicious as she is, but Jamie has a way of looking like
a leader to the clueless, and they’re happy to follow. What’s the point?

I sigh. Nothing to do but wait them out and hope they eventually let me in. No sense in desperately hanging out in the hall, though. Barefoot, I turn on my heel, taking the ice bucket with me. I hope they really wanted that ice and die of thirst.

A bellman eyes me when I step off the elevator, and I hold up the ice bucket and shrug as if to say,
My parents sent me to get ice. What’re you going to do?
There’s a sign for an indoor pool, so I head down the hallway. I test the door to the pool, thinking it will be locked, requiring a room key which I obviously don’t have, but it opens under my touch.

The shrieks of two kids echo in the long, well-lit windowed room as they play Marco Polo in the shallow end of the pool. Their parents watch from a nearby table, but the room is otherwise empty. This seems as good a place as any to hang out for a while.

I pad to the edge of the deep end, set my ice bucket down, roll up my jeans, and plunk both legs into the heated water. Leaning back on my forearms, I stare out the wall of windows where my reflection is superimposed on the night skyline.

I’ll give the girls an hour to get over their prank, and then I’ll sick Mrs. Peringue on them. And then they’d better hope they don’t fall asleep, because I have a camera and plenty of batteries. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch them drooling. Hello, Yearbook. We’ll see how they like having their pictures posted for the world to see.

“Hey. Mind if I join you?”

Blake stands over me in olive green board shorts and a T-shirt that says
IF LIFE GIVES YOU MELONS, YOU MAY BE DYSLEXIC.
I’m not even surprised to see him. It’s that kind of night, that kind of week, that kind of life. I shrug, too tired to fight the overwhelming tide, and he sits, sinking his legs into the water too.

He nods at the ice bucket at my side. “What’s up with that?”

“Fool’s errand,” I mutter. He looks confused. “Jamie. She and the others locked me out of our room.”

He winces, but at least he doesn’t say “I told you so.” “Sorry.”

“You should be,” I say. My nasty tone startles him, but he relaxes when I add, “Now you’re subjected to my ugly feet.” I wave them, swirling the water. “My shoes are in the room, probably filled with lotion or toothpaste.”

Straight-faced, he shakes his head in pity at my submerged legs, but his eyes smile. “You do have the ugliest feet I’ve ever seen. Your right pinkie toe creeps me out the way it looks like it’ll swallow the others.”

He’s said this to me before, making Carey and me laugh while we lazed about his house watching TV. That day, he’d wiggled the toe in question and I’d fought back a shiver, pretending his touch had no effect on me. Now I shove him with one foot, splashing him a little.

“Shut up, jerk.”

His laugh sands the rough edge inside me, and I smile.

He stills, staring at me in that intense way he does. “I missed that,” he says finally, lifting his eyes from my mouth.

“What?”

“Your smile. You never smile anymore.”

And just like that, reality dismisses my smile. “Yeah, well, I don’t have a lot to smile about.”

We’re both silent then, watching the mother call her kids out of the pool. The family gathers their things, the youngest whining the whole way to the door about life not being fair. I swish one leg in a circle and then the other, watching the water ripple toward Blake in chaotic rings. How wrong is it that I missed the way he stares at me?

“I got a letter from Carey,” I say without thinking.

He sucks in a breath, the only sign he’s heard me, until I turn to look at him. He’s choked up and way too happy about a simple letter. It hits me what he may be thinking—that Carey was found. I grab his hand.

“No! He sent it before he went missing.”

In less than thirty seconds, I’ve managed to take him from joy to grief. He loves Carey like a brother and looks after Carey’s parents as if he is their son. He turns his head to get himself under control and clenches his jaw so tight I can see the bones working.

“I’m sorry,” I say when he swipes a hand across his face. “I didn’t think about how that would sound.”

He nods and squeezes my fingers. “No, I should’ve known better. I just . . . you know.”

Wished for it so hard, you thought it might be true.

“Yeah, I know.” I let him go.

“What’d he say?” he asks, changing the subject.

“That he missed us.”

“That’s it?” He bumps me with his shoulder and gives me a doubtful look. Carey tends to be long-winded in his letters.

“No. There was other stuff. Personal stuff.”

Blake seems to guess I’m leaving the important things out. He searches my face for an explanation, but luckily he’s not Carey who can read my thoughts.

“Before . . . when Jamie was giving you a hard time . . . you said he knew about the picture. He saw it, then? He knows it was me.”

It’s not a question, but I nod.

“The tattoo,” I say slowly.

A longer answer isn’t really necessary. The three of us got tattoos together before Carey left for basic, sneaking to Blake’s tattoo-artist brother since my father would never have agreed to me getting one. Only three people in the world could recognize the ink on Blake’s back. His brother, Carey, and me. His mom hated tattoos, so he’d purposely placed it low enough on his back that his clothes had to be coming off to see it. Say, like in a picture, with a half-naked girl all over him. I still don’t know what the bird means to him. We’d all agreed that the tattoos had to mean something we could live with for a lifetime, but he wouldn’t tell us about his.

“But . . .” He sounds puzzled, and I glance up to find him staring into space. “I talked to him, Q. We talked after the picture came out. He didn’t say anything. Why?”

I shrug. “You’d have to ask him.”

“What’s going on? He acted like everything was fine with you.”

Two guys and I love them both. Loyalty divides and subtracts me from both of them.

“We were friends before all this,” he whispers. “That has to count for something.”

Carey comes first. Right now, he has to come first. But there has to be a middle ground. What can I say without breaking my promise? I weigh my words.

“He doesn’t have the right to be upset.”
He’s gay.
“I told you we broke up that night.” That much is true.

For six months I’ve let Blake think that I lied to him the night we slept together. When I agreed to pretend to still be Carey’s girlfriend, it seemed easier to let Blake think of me as selfish: a manipulative bitch who’d used him in some kind of game with Carey. Easier to let him hate me for using him, as if my heart hadn’t been involved at all, than to admit I had to give him up for Carey. And how Blake hated me!

The kiss in that picture Jamie posted . . . it began so differently. It happened out of anger and frustration and Blake’s need to prove that I cared about him. I’d shown up at the summer scrimmage as Carey’s date, before he deployed, and Blake had pulled
me under the bleachers. An argument about our night together turned into the kiss that was our last. If Blake had wanted to punish me for using him, it didn’t work. The kiss became more than we expected. Something far more real.

I can’t think about that, can’t remember how much more I wanted. For months, I’ve shoved my feelings for Blake aside. It’s hard to do that now, when he looks like I’ve punched him in the gut. The taut way he holds himself. Mouth turned down and drawn tight.

“You really broke up?” He leans forward in desperation when I won’t respond.

This matters more to him than it should. Knowing I didn’t lie that night doesn’t change the fact that—in the world’s eyes—I went back to Carey the next day. It’s obvious that it does matter, though. All I can say is “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

His eyes pinch. I’ve hurt him. A lot.

This might be my breaking point. If anyone but Carey had asked me to keep this secret, I would tell. Right now. Because I want Blake like I’ve never wanted anything. But there’s more at stake than my feelings.

An image of Carey’s battered body floats in my memory. When he came to me asking for help and asking me to keep his secret, it wasn’t words alone that swayed me. Nor did I make my promise lightly.

As for Blake, as far as he’s concerned, I toyed with him. I slept with him and rejected him. Keeping my promise hasn’t
made me a saint. No, I’m fucked up and wishing I could have Blake, the one person I’ve hurt the worst.

Still, he lets me shoulder the blame alone.

“Why haven’t you come forward?” I ask bitterly. “Confessed it was you in the picture?”

“You destroyed me, Q.” Hurt rubs under the anger in his rough voice. “You knew I cared about you.”

I’d guessed. The way he’d watched me had hinted at what he felt. Why else would I have driven to his house? I had something to prove to myself, and I knew he wouldn’t refuse.

“You wanted me. Not him.
Me.
” He’s daring me to deny it, and I can’t. “But the next morning, you ran away while I was sleeping and then you showed up at that damned game with him. Like we never happened.” He drops his hand. “How could you fucking do that to me, Q?”

Shame swallows me, and I wish I could disappear into its belly. I did use him. At first.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and the words aren’t enough to make up for what I’ve done.

He turns away, and I can see his Adam’s apple slide when he swallows. “Yeah . . . so am I. When Jamie posted that picture, I thought, ‘Good. Let Q see what it feels like to be stabbed in the back.’ ”

Ouch.

He adds, “But then I saw how they were treating you . . . I meant to confess a long time ago. I really did.”

“So what happened?”

“The Breens happened.” He kicks a leg out, making a small splash. “They’re not doing great. They fight all the time. Mrs. Breen kind of fell apart after Carey deployed. I’m doing everything I can to help them keep it together. Working at the shop extra hours, so Mr. Breen can spend more time at home. Taking care of things around their house, things Carey would do if he were here on weekends.”

I imagine Carey’s mother as I’ve seen her these last months. It’s hard to picture her clearly when I’ve hardly been able to look her in the eye. Part of me hates that she hasn’t guessed that I didn’t cheat on Carey—she should know I’d never betray her son. The problem with looking down to avoid obstacles, though, is missing what’s up ahead. I didn’t see what Blake obviously has.

He continues. “When Mrs. Breen found out about the picture, she lost it. Carey refused to speak to any of them about you. He said they didn’t know what they were talking about. She thought for sure he’d go off and get himself killed because he was upset about you. I couldn’t tell her I’d betrayed him too. I couldn’t do that to her. And now that he’s missing . . . I promised him I’d take care of them if anything happened to him.”

I wrap my arms around my waist, feeling sick. How frustratingly ironic.

I sacrificed Blake for Carey. Blake sacrificed me for Carey’s parents. The whole thing is so screwed up. I don’t know how to even begin to unravel the mess we’ve made.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone it was me?” Blake asks. He gives me the same look he used to give me when I’d done something he thought was illogical. Like when Carey and I started dating years ago.

“Why, Q? If he knows, and you were broken up, why not tell everyone?”

His eyes are bleak and shadowed. We’ve really done a number on him, Carey and me. Blake isn’t perfect—far from it—but he loves us. And I brought him into this mess, even if I didn’t mean to.

“I made a promise to Carey, too.” He opens his mouth, but I cut him off. “I can’t tell you. Please don’t ask. The thing is . . . if I say more, I’ll be breaking that promise to him.”

He thinks about that, and then Blake laughs. The raw, tired anger threading through it echoes in the room. “Damn, Carey.”

I know what he means. Carey’s at the heart of everything that’s happened between us. Almost everything.

“I’ve got to go,” I say. I pull my legs from the water and rise. Standing over him, I study the top of his head and wish things could be different.

He must be thinking the same thing because he looks up and says, “I’m sorry. If I could figure out a way to confess and keep my promise to Carey, I would. Tell me you know that.”

“I do.” On impulse, I lean over and touch his face, running my fingers over his shadowed jaw just to feel the scratch of his sandpaper whiskers. “You were wrong, you know.”

“About what?” he asks, confused.

“I could never pretend that night never happened.” I surprise him by bending over and kissing him. It’s dangerous because I want more, but my loyalty is still with Carey. I let my lips tug on his for
one-two-three
seconds before I reel myself back in. “It meant too much.”