If I Lie (2 page)

My father returned from Iraq, and I trailed him unnoticed through our house. Tight-lipped and dry-eyed, he studied his uniforms, marching in solitary formation in the empty closet. My mother had committed one last sacrilegious act before escaping. His once pristine blue dress uniforms sported gaping holes from her best sewing shears.

My father’s hand shook when he touched a brass button clinging to a jacket lapel by a single thread. I understood then the golden rule my mother had broken. You didn’t disrespect the
uniform. Ever. Not in a family that could trace five generations of soldiers who had served their country. Not in a town that could claim its forefathers had thumbed their noses at the British during the American Revolution and had lost sons to each war since.

My mother’s name was not mentioned in our house after that day. And I—lovingly named Sophie Topper Quinn after my mother and my father’s half-brother, Captain Edward Topper—became Quinn at my father’s insistence. Quinn, the girl who would be better than her mother.

My father’s epic ability to freeze people out had begun with my mother. Not that she’d ever tried to come back or see us again, but he’d managed to erase her from everything except my memories. He stripped her belongings from our house, barring the few things I hid in the attic. Their wedding photos disappeared one day while I was at school, along with every other photo of her.

Later, I wondered if I really remembered her the way she looked, or if she had become a screwed-up Debra Winger/Elizabeth Taylor collage. Other times, I caught my father watching me with cold, dead eyes, and I prayed he was remembering her, that my resemblance to her made him think of her.

Because I didn’t want to believe my father hated me that much.

Especially when all of Sweethaven thought I’d become her too: the town slut cheating on her Marine.

Chapter Two

I can’t sit still, and I can’t stand to watch the news like I do every day. Men are dying and Carey’s missing, but the reporters go on and on about which country has won gold medals in the Winter Olympics.

After I finish crying, I do exactly what my father has forbidden me to do. I stuff my backpack with my camera equipment, slip on my hiking boots and winter coat, and throw my long black hair into a ponytail. I hit the front door at a run.

My father calls out, “Quinn?” as I pass his study, and I pretend not to hear him. “Quinn, where do you think you’re going?”

He reaches the front yard as I’m backing my Jeep out of the driveway. In my rearview mirror, he looks even more pissed off when my tires skid in the melted snow before gripping the road. He has already ordered me to lock myself away. What else can he threaten me with? The brig?

I need to forget Carey. My house/prison disappears, but the desire to escape hangs in air with the frost puffing from my mouth. The heater takes forever to kick in, but when it does I am wrapped in a cocoon of warmth. I need to remember Carey.

Every thought I have wraps around Carey. Just like it has since I first fell for him.

*   *   *

Fifteen, mouth girded in a dental chastity belt, a black nest of hair even a rat wouldn’t sleep in, and gawky as hell—that’s how I looked the first time Carey Breen kissed me. Me, Sophie Topper Quinn. A goody-two-shoes NOBODY of epic proportions. Forehead stamped:
LONER, LOSER, LEFT BEHIND.

I’d loved Carey forever. Even before his body lengthened into muscles that would fly him right out of Sweethaven and on to grander things. At fifteen, any backwoods idiot could see he was meant for more than this tiny town.
A damned fool hero.
That’s what some people called him when Carey stood up to that drunken bastard, Jim Winterburn, for beating the crap out of his little girl.

Everyone in the Sweethaven Café had seen Jim backhand Jamie, punishing her for her clumsiness when she tripped and fell into him. Jamie had grown faster than the other girls in my ninth-grade class, and she teetered around on her spindly limbs like she was walking around in her mom’s glittery, four-inch high heels. Every day was Roulette Day with Jim Winterburn. That day, the wheel stopped, the ball dropped
into the Preteen Clumsiness slot, and Jamie’s cheek lit up from her father’s hand.

People say Carey was lucky to have walked away from that fight. Jamie’s dad had fifty pounds of muscle and a decade of pissed-off on a fifteen-year-old boy. Jim had fed on bitter hatred so long that the blood pulsing through his veins had hardened to petrified liquor. Hate for the government, hate for the war, hate for the town he’d returned home to, shy one arm and a chunk of his intestines.

“Jim never really came home from Desert Storm,” I overheard my father once say to one of his Marine buddies. I’d bet Jamie and her red, white, and blue body would have begged to differ.

Jim struck Jamie, but it was like he flicked a match on embers that glowed inside Carey. He called Jim a “yellow-bellied coward,” the worst insult you can toss at an ex-Marine, aside from calling him a traitor outright.

Twenty adults watched in shock as Jim tried to pound Carey into the diner’s cheap linoleum floor. My dad and the sheriff were among the first to jump in to put a stop to things. Blood had turned Carey’s brown hair black, and one of his eyes had already threatened to swell shut. He’d never raised a hand to defend himself, but a triumphant Carey laughed in Jim’s face as the police hauled him away.

Years later, Carey confessed he’d done it on purpose, letting Jim swing away. The Sweethaven townsfolk might not step into the middle of a domestic-violence situation, but they couldn’t
ignore a public attack on him. That’s the kind of guy he was. He couldn’t stand seeing Jamie hurt, so he’d done what he had to. Nobody could take a hit like Carey.

Damned-fool hero Carey. SOMEBODY Carey.

So, a year later, when he caught me behind the gazebo at the town’s Fourth of July picnic and kissed me crazy, I thought it must have been on a bet, and punched him in the stomach. For crushing the sweet new feelings I had for him.

Of course, my scrawny fist didn’t have the impact I’d hoped. Carey just laughed and hugged me and whispered that he loved me and asked would I be his girl?

Would
I
be his girl? Stupid, lonely, ugly
me
be his girl?

He saw my disbelief like he saw everything else about me. To Carey, my guts had been sliced open and turned inside out so no secrets remained. His fingers trembled in mine, and he brushed his lips against my knotted fist. He knew my fear like it was his, as if the same monster lived and breathed in him.

“I won’t ever let you down,” he promised, his voice cracking a little.

And I believed him.

*   *   *

I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t really have anywhere to go.

Eventually, I end up at Bob’s Creperie. Sitting at Bob’s sounds better than driving and thinking in circles. At least the restaurant has coffee and a heater that doesn’t quit.

Despite their name, crepes aren’t on the menu at Bob’s, but
every kind of pancake is. Banana pancakes, whole-grain pancakes, maple-bacon pancakes, whatever-you-want pancakes for the regulars like me.

Longing to go unnoticed, I slide into a booth toward the back, away from judgmental eyes. Denise Scarpelli, who sometimes used to play poker with my mom, comes over, unhurried now that the Saturday morning rush is over. Obviously she hasn’t heard about Carey yet because she doesn’t spit in my water before handing me the glass. Instead, she takes my order for pecan praline pancakes and walks away.

Nothing matches in Bob’s. It’s decorated with tag-sale tables and chairs of every style and size. The place reminds me of better times, when Carey, Blake, and I used to come here on weekends before Carey went off to basic. Blake and I haven’t bothered to keep up the tradition since Carey left. Too much water under that bridge.

I can’t think about how life will change if Carey never comes home.

I’m scooting untouched pancakes around my plate when the front door swings open and a bunch of girls from our school’s cheer squad walk in. A few of them sport red, splotchy cheeks and look like they have been crying, including Angel and Nikki. They must know about Carey. Like me, they’ve come to Bob’s for pancakes and comfort. When Angel spies me, she tenses with anger, and I know my father was right. Seeing me makes things worse for everyone. Six months of hating me and this news will only feed their rage.

I throw money on the table to cover my check and rise to leave. I feel their eyes on me, and shame heats my face.

I bargain.
If I can just make it to the door, I will never show my face here again. If I can leave without being humiliated today, I will take whatever my old friends dish out tomorrow. Just please, not today, when I feel bloody and raw.
I’m almost past the squad’s table.
Please . . .

A foot sneaks out and hooks my leg. I crash to the tiled floor, my knees and one elbow breaking my fall. Nobody laughs in the sudden silence. I gasp in pain.

“Watch where you’re going, slut.”

Nikki.
Her eyes narrow. She hates me, but usually she’s just a follower. Jamie starts most of the crap. Jamie, who has loved Carey ever since that day he saved her from her father. Today, with the news of Carey’s disappearance still fresh, Nikki doesn’t need Jamie to humiliate me.

Clamping a hand on their table, I pull myself to my feet. A tear leaks out and my knees throb like hell. Angel won’t even look at me, her petite face turned away as if to deny I exist.

Anger has saved me every time they’ve hurt me these past few months, but I can’t find it now. Maybe because I think I deserve this in some twisted way, though not for the reason they think. Embarrassment flickers through me, and I shrink under the weight of everyone’s judgment.

I force myself to find a backbone, and lift my chin in defiance. Nikki flinches like I’m going to hit her when I lean forward. As if.

“Did that make you feel better about Carey, Nikki?” I ask in a quiet voice.

She crosses her arms and drops her gaze, in a small way acknowledging that Carey would have hated what she just did to me. He always rooted for the underdog, and they all treat me like a dog these days.

“Me neither,” I whisper.

The silence is terrible. Angel finally grounds out, “Just leave, Q. Nobody wants you here.”

From anyone else, those words would have hurt. Coming from Angel, they make my breath hitch in a sob before I stifle it.

I limp to the door, bruised in places they can’t see. And I feel pathetic, because all I want is for one of them to be my friend again and tell me everything will be okay. Six months ago, they would have. I took it for granted.

You never know what you have until it’s too late.

*   *   *

Ten months ago, Carey had come home for a brief leave. He had graduated a semester early so he could start BT sooner. For the three months he’d been gone, we’d only spoken through letters and a couple quick phone calls.

If he had seemed different that May, I ignored it. I was too relieved to have him with me again. If it seemed like he didn’t have a lot of time for me during that leave, I ignored that, too, because I thought, like me, he might be struggling with the separation looming before us.

The last time Carey, Blake, and my friends were all together was on Carey’s last day of leave. The Breens had thrown a party to celebrate his graduation from BT and his departure to Camp Geiger, where he’d make the transition from Marine recruit to combat-ready Marine. I hated the sound of “combat ready” and all that went with it, but Carey wanted to be a Marine more than anything. So I supported him, and arranged a surprise after-party. A party parents weren’t invited to.

Angel and Nikki helped me plan everything and decorate Blake’s house early in the day. They handled getting everyone there, and my job was to bring Carey. He thought I’d planned a quiet night at Blake’s, just the three of us, so he was shocked when fifty of his friends erupted in cheers and hoots when he walked in the door.

Blake gave Carey one of those half-hugs guys give each other, smacking him on the back. But Blake avoided my eyes like he’d done for the past few months.

Carey, overwhelmed by our surprise, hooked one arm around Blake’s neck and one around mine, yanking us into a close circle. Blake seemed to stiffen for a moment as he brushed up against my side before relaxing and returning Carey’s grin.

“I love you guys,” Carey said.

I shot Blake a small smile. “Would you believe he’s not even drunk?”

“We can fix that.” Blake pulled away and headed off to the kitchen where the keg lived.

Carey wrapped both arms around me, and I tucked my cheek against his chest.

His chin on my head, he said, “What’s up with you and Blake? Did you fight?”

He never missed anything where I was concerned.

I shrugged. “You know Blake. He’s always hot and cold with me. Really he only puts up with me when you’re here.”

A warm hand smoothed down my back. “You want me to talk to him?”