Page 66 of A Real Good Lie

Sebastian gestured broadly around them, and Callahan knew what he was indicating. The school, the name, the money, the life.

“Of course not,” Sebastian answered.

“Are you going to make me ask if you got a pre-nup?”

Sebastian made another noise. “I was in love, Callahan. I wasn’t a fool.”

“Aren’t they one and the same?”

Sebastian’s stare fell heavy on him, and Callahan swallowed. The implication of Sebastian’s question settled between them, and Callahan didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t in love with Jace, but maybe in another circumstance, another life, maybe he could have been.

Would that have made him a fool?

“I wouldn’t know,” he said.

“Right.”

“Looks like they started without you,” Sebastian remarked, his attention drifting over Callahan’s shoulder.

Callahan turned, finding a cluster of people gathered before the temporary stage that had been erected in front of the building. Rhys was close by, Ashley beside him, looking every bit the part that Callahan was supposed to play. His first instinct was to go, to run toward the stage, but Sebastian’s words echoed in his ears.

Looks like they started without you.

They started without you.

Without you.

“How can they start without me?” he asked, even as he watched it happen.

“You’re a placeholder, Callahan.” Sebastian sighed and pulled his bow tie off, shoving it into his pocket.

Callahan’s phone remained silent against his sweaty palm.

“If not you, someone else.”

Callahan’s heart skipped and something inside of him twisted in recognition. He watched Rhys plaster on a smile and step up the microphone, no doubt speaking about the history of the college and the ties between the St. George and McMillian families. Sebastian was right. He didn’t even need to be at this event, because his name and his family money existed separate of him. He’d spent his whole life so tangled up in the implications of the society he’d been raised in, and he didn’t know how to separate himself from all of those things.

He wasn’t his name.

He wasn’t his money.

He wasn’t…

He wasn’t much.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“Yeah. I know.”

“What now?” he asked, looking at Sebastian, who now had tears flowing freely down his cheeks.

“You tell me.”

Callahan wasn’t sure what came next, and he definitely didn’t know where to start. He didn’t know how to get his life back. He didn’t know how to separate himself from the things that didn’t matter. A drum beat steadily in his ears and he rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to stop himself from screaming at the top of his lungs because he didn’t know what else to do.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “It seems so big.”

Applause filtered across the quad and Rhys snipped a large red bow with an oversized pair of scissors, then gestured toward Callahan’s name above his head.