Matter of Truth, A (2 page)

Ginny bounces up and down, clapping her hands. Maybe I did
win the lottery after all.

Will slides into the plastic seat next to me, slinging an
arm around the back of my chair as Frieda pulls a box out from underneath the
scoring table.

“For you,” she says. It’s wrapped in newsprint, tied with
twine, but rather than looking shoddy, it comes across as retro and kitschy.
It’s a true talent of hers. “From all of us.”

I take my time unwrapping it, which elicits a number of
groans and laughs from my friends. Inside is a pair of my very own bowling
shoes: lavender with bright turquoise stripes. On the backs, in glittery rhinestones,
are matching Zs, no doubt products of Frieda’s latest arts and crafts stage to
bedazzle nearly everything she owns.

Like I said, kitsch.

For the first time in months, a smile overtakes me. A big
one. A big, fat, genuine smile that almost hurts, it’s so wide.

“I told you she’d like the Zs,” Frieda says to Paul. They
used to date and now . . . well, I’m not sure what they are now. Ginny claims
they’re friends with benefits, but I don’t like to pry. Whatever they are or
aren’t, they’re still close and love to bait each other as often as they can.

“There’s no accounting for taste,” he says, but he’s
smiling, too. We all are. Finally, I’m smiling right along with my friends, and
I’m not faking it.

As Will drives me to his house that
night, I finger the raised letters on the back of my new shoes. A small sound
of disgust precedes, “Paul’s right, you know. Those things are bloody hideous.”
He shakes his head in exasperation.

I clutch one to my chest. “Hush. I love them.” And I do. Not
because they’re pretty—which, admittedly, had I picked out my own, these would
not have been the ones, but because they’re symbolic of my life right now. My
friends chose to get me bowling shoes because they like having me around. Not
because they have to have me around, or because Fate made them, or because
they’ve got some skewed perception that I’m somebody important, but because
they
want
me around. And that makes these shoes more precious to me than
gold.

His cell phone rings, a special tone that alerts the both of
us to just who is calling. I chew my bottom lip, sneaking a look his way. His
focus remains on the road. Eventually, the phone goes quiet. He turns the
volume up on the radio; a sad country song fills the cab, which is fitting for
the rest of the drive back to his house.

I pad toward the kitchen sometimes around three a.m., in
search of a glass of water after awaking in a cold sweat from another nightmare
in which I lost Jonah. Months after leaving Annar, I still dream about him
nearly nightly—not the lucid dreams we shared for so long, but the kind where I
have no control over what happens. Tonight we’d been in a forest, and when the
dream died, all that’d been left behind was blackened bits of trees upon
charred ground.

I was the one to leave, and yet, every single time I lose
him in a dream, it cuts me to the core.

My hands are still shaking when I flip on the kitchen light,
and then I jump when Will’s still form at the table comes into view. He jumps,
too, his chair clattering loudly in the night’s silence. “Jesus, Zoe! You
scared the shite out of me.”

“I’m not the one sitting in the dark!”

He smiles sadly, and it’s then I see his cell phone on the
table. I drop into one of the chairs as he rights his fallen one. “Want to talk
about it?”

He shakes his head, just like I knew he would. He and I,
we’re excellent at avoiding the big issues in our lives, which is probably why
we gravitated toward each other so quickly. I resisted getting to know him all
of a week before I couldn’t help myself. I needed a friend and Will seemed like
he’d fit the bill nicely. And I was right—I’d heard the term kindred spirits
before, but never had it applied like it does now with this guy. It sounds
awful, but one of the biggest draws toward Will is that, like me, he puts on a
good front. Inside, he’s just as much damaged goods as I am.

Helpless that there’s nothing else I can do but be here for
him, I motion to the stove. “Want some warm milk?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He stands up before I can
protest and digs a pan out of the cupboard.

“The better question is, why are the two of you up at
three-bloody-o’clock in the morning?”

I turn around to find Cameron Dane shuffling into the
kitchen on well-loved slippers. His barely graying, sandy blonde hair is wild,
his thin robe riddled with holes, but his handsome face is one of kindness.
Acceptance. And, at the moment, paternal amusement. My eyes go wide in guilt.
“Did we wake you up? I’m so sorry!”

He drops a kiss on my forehead before sliding into the chair
next to me. “Just worried about you two, that’s all.”

Will pours milk into the pan, adding a few ingredients that
make it his special recipe. As he stirs it, I stare at his phone and wonder how
long he was in here. How long the call was tonight. How much heartache he’s in.

“Want some, Dad?” he asks without looking up from the stove.

“Don’t mind if I do.” It’s then that Cameron also spies the
phone. His dark eyes are troubled but unsurprised. Like me, he knows better
than to push, though. “What’s got you up at this god awful hour, hen?
Everything alright?”

As I cannot tell him the truth, I smile weakly. “Just
thirsty.”

Will looks up from the pan. “Coming right up.”

“Learned this from his mum,” Cameron tells me, arranging the
mugs down in a straight row, handles aligned nicely. I already knew this, but I
love hearing stories about Molly Dane, so I gladly listen anytime Will and
Cameron reminisce about the woman whose influence on their lives still runs
strong.

And yet, despite their happy memories, there’s so much
heartbreak in this kitchen, it’s nearly dripping off the walls and ceilings,
into our hair and skin. I try not to think of my own mother, who never made me
anything to help me sleep. Or my father, who never asked what was wrong, let
alone spent time with me in the dark of night to ease my worries.

The chair creaks when Cameron sits back down. “I heard there
was a mugging not far from your boarding house this week.”

I’m not surprised by the crime or by Cameron’s gentle
disapproval. He’s letting me off the hook for why I’m up in the middle of the
night, but he won’t let me off for where I live.

The Dane boys have been after me for weeks to just move in
with them already. Both object to where I live, citing “shifty characters” in
an “unsavory neighborhood” filled with “transient workers” that apparently
think of nothing but “accosting innocent women” after being at sea for weeks or
months.

The guys have a point. It’s not like I think of where I live
as home anyway. The boarding house is cramped; I share a bathroom with some old
dude who smells like the Preparation-H he must buy in bulk, and there’s some
other guy missing teeth who’s always on the stairs, ready to pummel me with his
requests for a date, or, worse yet, a night of “raging, unencumbered sexual
gratification.”

But living here? With Will and Cameron? That’d be the same
as putting down roots, which doesn’t seem fair to them, or me no matter how
much I want to. Because, sooner or later, somebody is going to come looking for
me. And when they do, I’ll have to run. And yet . . . I feel safe with the Dane
boys. Their house has been my sanctuary. The love they’ve shown me, the utter
acceptance into their lives and home, have been a lifeline. For nearly twenty
years, I’ve been starved for what they offer so freely. Security. Acceptance.
Love. Honesty.

And most importantly:
family
.

“Having a girl around full-time will cramp your bachelor
style,” is what I finally say, even though I know it’s a lie.

This amuses Will. “You spend the night at least five times a
week anyway. You’re over here every day as it is. There hasn’t been a single
dinner we haven’t had together as a family—except when any of us work—since the
week I met you. You have a toothbrush in the bathroom. Deodorant. Your clothes
hang in the closet. You picked out our Christmas tree. You buy Nell food. Hell,
I even heard you call her
your
‘good girl’ the other day.”

I glance down at Nell, who’s curled up underneath the table.
She snorts in her sleep and kicks a leg; unlike the rest of us, Nell only
dreams of good things, or so I hope. But he’s right. This old girl is the dog
I’d always wanted growing up but was denied due to my parents’ beliefs that
pets were irrelevant and burdensome to their crafts.

“I mean, I found one of your bras in the hamper this past
weekend.”

My cheeks burn. I’d wondered where I’d put that one.

Cameron chuckles at my shame. “Nothing either of us hasn’t
seen before, lass.”

Could this get any worse? What’s next? Did I leave behind
stray tampons, too?

Will turns away from the pan to face me, hip propped against
the counter. “We can even go over to your place right now and box everything
up. It’ll take, what—a half hour at the most, between the three of us?”

I study his dark eyes, gauging his seriousness. It’s three
in the morning, after all. And he’s just gotten off what was, no doubt, a
hellishly difficult phone call with his technically ex-girlfriend, even after
all that’s happened between them. “I would never ask you to do such a thing in
the middle of the night.”

Cameron rubs at his neat beard. “You need not to ask. We’re
more than happy to go and pack you up and bring you home.”

Home
.

After resisting it for so long, I finally allow the word to
sink into me and spread out.
This
place is home to me, has been for
weeks. Months, if I’m being honest with myself.

Cameron must see the sheen of tears in my eyes—they won’t
fall, I refuse to let anyone see me cry anymore—but he must see them, because
his large hand covers mine. “I cannot stand the thought of you being alone in
that place when you have a room here to call your own.”

I should say no. It’s the smart move. I’ll only hurt them in
the long run when I have to disappear. But the truth is, I love Cameron Dane
like a father. More than my actual father, which sounds awful yet liberating to
admit, if even just to myself. And I love Will, too. In these short months,
these two have truly become more of a family to me than anyone I share blood
and genetics with. So I take a deep breath, count to ten in my head, and say
the only thing that I can and be completely true to myself. Something expands
in the hollow of my chest, something warm and comforting, when I murmur,
“Okay.”

They both blink, startled, like they can’t believe I finally
caved in.

I exhale another fragile laugh. Two in one night. I’m on a
roll. “This will be fuel to Frieda’s fire, you know. Did you hear her earlier
at the bowling alley? She was egging Ginny into a bet over when we’ll seal the
deal.”

Will fills our mugs with the milk; more importantly, he
fills the kitchen with his addictive laughter. “How much?”

I’m smiling. Oh, gods, I’m smiling and almost laughing and
it’s amazing. “Twenty bucks. Paul collected the bills from both girls.”

Both men are amused. Will asks before sipping his drink,
“What were the conditions?”

“I think Frieda thought we’d last a week at most. Ginny says
we’ll wait until we’re married.” And . . . the smile drops right off my face.
Because I should’ve been married by now. My last name, my real one, would’ve no
longer been Lilywhite. I should be a Whitecomb, but I’m not.

And that hurts more than I can articulate.

“You two are too young to even contemplate marriage,”
Cameron grumbles.

If he only knew.

Will joins us at the table. “Hypocrite, thy name is Cameron
Dane. Didn’t you get married at twenty-two? Sired me at twenty-three?”

I mouth,
sired
? He winks in return, the corners of
his lips tilted upward.

“Times were different.” Cameron wipes at lingering milk on
the edges of his moustache. “You two have your whole lives ahead of you.”

Will’s long fingers curl around his mug. “Luckily, Zoe and I
have no intention of ever marrying one another. Or shagging, despite all of
Frieda’s urgings.”

I stretch my mug out to clink his in agreement. It relieves
me to no end that he and I are on the same page about that. But I need to shift
the conversation to something less likely to drown me in what-ifs and
what-could-have-beens. “Think we can figure out a way to collect the money
instead?”

His dark brown eyes, so similar to his father’s, light up.
“Listen to you, wanting to encourage our friends’ gambling tendencies. I’ve
finally corrupted you, haven’t I?”

I swat at his arm and he laughs all the more.

Fifteen minutes later, while we nurse our milk and eat
slices of homemade banana bread, Cameron raises his mug. “Zoe White, we
officially welcome you home.”

The urge to cry this time doesn’t stem from the overwhelming
anguish I drown in daily. Instead, I’m swaddled in relief. And a belief that
maybe, just maybe, I can do this after all.

Cameron is upstairs in the boarding
house, taping up the last two boxes of my meager possessions, while Will and I
slide the pair we’ve brought with us into the back of his truck.

“Earlier, in the kitchen, we were joking around about that
ridiculous bet of Frieda’s. You were happy, and then . . .” His head tilts
toward me. “It was like someone punched you in the gut. What happened?”

He knows me, knows how easily I can go from being okay to
being decimated within seconds, because he’s the same. But even still, I shake
my head, hating the pain that spreads at the thought of what could have been. I
ask, whisper soft and white in the frigid January air, “How do you know whether
you made the right choice?”

He knows what I mean. He knows I’m asking about Becca.

“I don’t.” Another cloud forms between us from his deep sigh.
“I fucking kick myself nightly, wondering if I have.”

I wipe a dirty slush off the tailgate and think how I
reevaluate my decision on an hourly basis.

“My parents were this grand love story. I grew up knowing
nothing differently.” He kicks his boot against one of the large tires. I know
this story, and yet, I love to repeatedly hear it. It gives me hope that there
are true love stories out there filled with people who make it work. “I thought
I had it and . . .” He stares into the distance.

Part of me wishes I could fall in love with Will, how this
could solve so many problems for all of us. But even considering such a
betrayal leaves me rotting in guilt, an emotion I try desperately to outrace on
a daily basis. Because, the fact is, my heart belongs elsewhere. It always
will, which makes accepting harsh truths a bitter pill.

“Sometimes I drown in the What Ifs,” he tells me quietly.

“Love isn’t always enough,” I whisper into air. My words
lift up and dissipate before my eyes. I wish it were. I wish love were easy.
Gods, I wish that so very much.

“No matter what you do, love never fails to kick you in the
arse,” he agrees, but there’s no vehemence behind his words. “Look at Dad.
Happy as can be until his wife dies, leaving him to be a single parent to a teenage
boy. It eats him up every day, wondering if there was something he could have
done to change the outcome.” He slips off his beanie, runs a hand through his
sandy hair before tugging on his ear. I can practically hear the words running
through his head, the ones he won’t say out loud, even to me:
Just like I do
.