If I Lie (20 page)

“How long have you known?”

My quiet question sounded loud in the crisp morning air.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “A long time.”

“Why me?” My voice broke on the question, and he struggled to meet my eyes. “Two years you led me on, letting me think we had a future. That’s unforgivable, Carey.”

“Don’t you know how much I wanted that to be my future?” He spread his arms out wide. “Look at me! Do you think this is what I want? I’m in the military, for fuck’s sake! ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ What kind of life is that?”

“The one you’ve been living the past two years,” I accused. “I didn’t ask; you didn’t tell.”

My words hit him harder than my fist. I could see it in the way he flinched.

“You were wrong not to tell me.”

His chin dropped to his chest, the picture of shame.

It wasn’t enough. I wanted answers, not regret. “Why didn’t you?”

“I was scared.”

I rose and walked forward until I could feel his breath on my face. “Of what?”

He leaned toward me, resting his forehead against mine. “Losing you. We’re the perfect couple, right? What would I do without you, Quinn? You hold me together.”

I sighed. I knew what he meant. Once, during a football game, he’d taken a hard blow to the head from a huge linebacker. For a while, the doctors thought Carey might have some permanent vision damage. He’d been destroyed, thinking he wouldn’t be able to enlist after graduation. I’d held his hand through that crisis and others. We’d always gotten each other in a way others didn’t, even before we started dating. I couldn’t imagine losing him.

“Idiot.”

“I’ll apologize until you forgive me. You’ll see how I wear you down.”

And he would, too. Like water against stone. My insides twisted in a kaleidoscope of disappointment, anger, and sadness. Each emotion crystalline in its intensity, but no one emotion stronger than the others. My own reaction confused me. One thing was clear: I felt stupid.

“You didn’t answer my question. Do I have a target on my back? A sign that says ‘This loser’s gullible’?” I sounded pathetic. But how could I not have seen it?

Carey stroked my hair, tugging on a strand. “It wasn’t like that, Quinn. It took me a long time to accept that this isn’t
something I can wish away or shut off. If I could choose anyone, it would be you.”

“Except you’re not attracted to me.”

“That’s not really a choice.”

I stepped away from him, but he tugged on my hand and continued, “Besides, if you’re honest, I think it goes both ways.”

I was quiet for the longest time. Yesterday, I would have denied his words until I was blue in the face. Then last night happened. Blake happened. His arms and the spidery thrill that webbed through me when his fingers trailed over my skin.

I’d never felt that for Carey.

I looked at him. Really looked at him. At his dark hair and dark eyes. Handsome and confident. His sturdy strength appealed to me, but that wasn’t the same as attraction. ‘Security’ wasn’t a word that made my heart beat faster.

His brows raised as he read my face. “Wow. You
really
don’t want me.”

I considered telling him about Blake, but part of me rebelled. The memory of our night together belonged to me, and I wasn’t willing to share it. But if I chose to tell anyone, it would have been Carey. When something happened to me, small or big, I told him. He was my person. Somehow, his revelation shifted everything except that. The knowledge came over me in a slow, painful crawl.

He’d hurt my pride and my feelings. I could punish him for hurting me. Or I could try to move past this.

Carey’s fingers sweated in mine. My silence made him nervous. I could feel it. Stepping outside myself, I tried to understand him. How scared he’d been to tell me the truth. How scared he still was that I’d reject him, despite his best efforts.

How much was our friendship worth to me?

I finally answered his question. “Well, I’ve been meaning to tell you, you really are ugly as sin.”

I’d surprised him into a laugh. “Shut up, Quinn.”

“No, seriously,” I protested. “Think Shrek. You’re like a half-step removed from being his ogre twin.”

My voice was muffled by his chest as he pulled me into a bear hug, resting his chin on the top of my head. I rested against him, letting my tears dampen his T-shirt, finally letting go of what I’d thought we would become. Marriage, kids, all of it gone. I thought maybe he cried too, as he held me. Neither of us spoke for the longest time. It felt a little like someone had died, and he was the only one I would want to comfort me.

When I knew I could speak without falling apart, I pulled away and wiped my nose on my sleeve. I desperately wished I had a tissue.

Carey lifted a corner of his shirt and wiped my eyes. “Please forgive me,” he pleaded.

I sniffed as he mopped up the mess I’d made of my face. “I hate you,” I said again, without anger.

And we both knew that I meant the opposite.

Chapter Twenty-Three

We talked for two hours after that.

I yelled at him some more. Backed into a corner, he lashed out and then apologized for lashing out. And then apologized again for lying. At one point, I actually kicked him in the shin and he swore at me. Then I asked him how he knew he was gay. I tried to put myself in his shoes, and when I did that, I could understand why he wouldn’t come out. Not in our town.

We talked, but I wasn’t ready to hear about the guy he had feelings for. Nor did I try to tell him about Blake. That would have snapped the tenuous hold we had on our friendship, so we danced around those topics.

After we both cried again, I tried to convince him to give me his shirt to use as a Kleenex. It was his fault I was crying, right? When he refused and handed me a leaf instead, I punched
him in the ribs. I remember thinking how much I would miss him when he deployed.

Carey did not ask me to keep his secret. Not then.

That came later that night, when he showed up in my room with bruises all over his body and a bloody face. It turned out “Don’t ask, don’t tell” also meant “Don’t get caught.”

Carey broke that rule and paid for it.

*   *   *

Sometimes I wonder how Carey’s parents would have reacted if he’d told them the truth right away. Sure, his dad acted macho. A former Marine himself, plus the owner of the only auto shop in town kind of locked that in. He put a lot of pressure on Carey, pushing him to be more, do more. His mother worked long hours, teaching history at the high school and coaching the cheer squad. Like me and my father, his family sat down to dinner every night too. Aside from the fact that both his parents attended, the shining difference was the glaring love in his house.

If they cared about you, the Breens spilled that love all over you, making you feel it right down to your toes. Carey got his ability to love wholeheartedly from his parents. But I’m not sure he trusted them to treat him with the same affection if they found out that he was gay. Part of me thinks he betrayed them, too, with his lack of trust.

*   *   *

It’s Saturday and I’m still upset from the run-in the day before with my mother. So it completely figures that I run into Carey’s
mom when my father drags me to the home-and-garden center two towns over. He’s determined to solve the puzzle of why his garden refuses to grow. Guilt gnaws at me. I decide to buy new bottles of weed killer and plant food to replace the ones I switched. That is, as soon as I can I abandon him in front of a table of kitchen herbs.

Mrs. Breen stands in front of a shelf of clay pots, which is right across from the Miracle-Gro. She sways slightly, her eyes staring blankly at the six-inch pots. I consider walking away, but something holds me there. This woman hugged me when I showed her my report cards. She listened to me complain about Nikki and comforted me when I fought with Angel. And when Carey and I began dating, she threatened him, telling him he’d better treat me right or he’d have her to deal with.

The very sensible thing to do would be to leave. My presence causes her pain. Everyone, especially her, has made that clear.

Yet . . . I can’t do it. I can’t leave her alone like this.

She doesn’t move when I approach her. She doesn’t even acknowledge my existence, until I call her name twice.

That blank gaze turns from plant containers to me, and I inhale. Blake was right. She’s in bad shape. It takes everything I have not to hug her right then. Instead, I say her name a third time.

Finally she focuses on me. I can tell the instant it happens because she goes from blank to black in two seconds flat.

“Quinn,” she says, and she sounds exhausted, like she can’t even summon the energy to hate me today.

“Mrs. Breen, are you okay?”

She doesn’t respond.

“Mrs. Breen, is Mr. Breen here? Or Blake?” I hope someone’s there to help her.

“Why, Quinn?” Her brown eyes, so much like Carey’s, pierce me. “Are you looking to break his heart too?”

For a moment, I wonder if she knows about Blake and me. If she somehow figured out we were together. That thought flicks into the wind, though, when she adds, “He’s at the shop pulling an extra shift.”

This is the most she’s said to me in months. I take a step closer. “Have you heard anything?”

Smart, Quinn. Really smart to bring that up.

She heaves this sigh that comes from her gut. “No. No, we haven’t.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

If things were different, I would go to her and hold her. I could help her. I could be there for her.

She rolls her shoulders and laughs. “Well that just makes everything okay, doesn’t it?”

The anger returns in her raised, acidic voice. She looks around the empty aisle. “Did you hear that, everyone? Quinn is sorry she cheated on my boy. Thank you so much. I didn’t
know how I was going to get through another day without your apology!”

She takes a step toward me, her entire body rippling with aggression. “Do you want to know what I think of your apologies? They’re useless!”

I stand there, biting my tongue so hard I taste blood. Warm hands come to rest on my shoulders, and I nearly jump out of my skin.

“That’s enough, Denise,” my father says.

Carey’s mom starts, and she takes a couple steps back at my father’s sudden appearance.

“You have no idea what I’m going through, Cole,” she answers. “Don’t tell me what’s enough.”

Calm and sure, he does not waver. “Yelling at Quinn isn’t going to make him come home.”

She begins to cry, and I wish I’d never approached her. She looks like she believes he’s dead. That he’s never coming home.

My father tugs on me gently to steer me away. I begin to follow him, but I remember the letter. I pull away from my father to go to her.

“The week before he went missing, he wrote to me.”

This gets her attention, and I continue. “He talked about sitting on my front porch and teasing me about always having to be right.”

I think she’s not going to answer, but she whispers, “What else did he say?”

“That he misses your cooking something fierce. MREs just aren’t the same as your cooking.”

She gives a tiny, husky laugh. “That sounds like Carey.”

“Yeah. He asked me to tell you how much he misses you and that he loves you.”

Her eyes look a little less empty than before. Again I wish I could hug her or touch her hand. But I don’t dare. My father waits for me at the end of the aisle with surprise and something like sympathy on his face. I pace toward him.

If I thought Mrs. Breen would thank me, I was wrong.

But she does call my name. “Quinn.”

Tears track down her stony face like rivulets of rain on a statue. “He’s a hero. That’s what his squadron leader says. The last they heard he was going after a rebel using a child as a shield. They didn’t find him, but he helped that child get away.”

I inhale a breath that turns into a smothered sob. “That sounds like Carey.”

“Yeah,” she whispers. Her shoulders pull back and she stands straight. “Good-bye, Quinn.”

The conversation’s over. I can see she’s finished with me. Permanently.

My father follows me when I rush past him, holding my stomach to keep the kerosene in. One good light and I’ll take down everyone around me in an explosion of truth.

*   *   *

At the hospital, I wait for George to wake.

He dropped off to sleep almost midsentence, something he’s doing more and more frequently. I pretend it’s the medication, but there’s a reason he’s in the long-term care ward. A reason I don’t want to face.

Sitting in the chair by the window, I listen to George snore and watch the window do a pas de deux with the rain skipping over its surface. I finger the piece of paper with my mother’s phone number and obsess over last week’s confrontation with Carey’s mom. Both women said they loved me once-upon-a-perfect-time. But they have both washed their hands of me.