Page 92 of Every Silent Lie

I feel my lip wobble as he places our coats on a chair and stands, approaching like someone might approach a rabid wild animal. “She’s pregnant,” I murmur, and he inhales, nodding. “Not even a little bit pregnant.” She’s very pregnant. Must be seven or eight months. He’s kept me in the dark and now I’m a fool. A broken, hopeless fool.

“Let me take you home,” Dec says gently. Pacifyingly.

I shake my head, looking at the bartender. She’s wiping the shelves, keeping a close eye on me. I nod, silently telling her to get me another and make it sharpish. She looks past me and then goes back to her task.

“Don’t tell her no,” I grate.

“I want to take you home.”

“I don’t have a home.” It’s a dull, lifeless apartment I can’t bear to be in. I hold my empty glass up in order, but it’s taken by Dec and placed down. My stool is turned toward him, and he makes sure he fills my vision, a big man with a big presence, his face soft but stern.

“I can be your home, Camryn,” he says tightly, struggling to maintain his cool. “I can be your everything.” He cups my face with both hands, holding me tightly, and puts his nose on mine. “You’ve just got to let me.”

My choked sob jerks my shoulders. “You don’t want me.” I’m certain of it, and he’ll soon figure that out. Why he hasn’t already is beyond me. I can’t comprehend a world where a man could want me, because everything’s so distorted. I don’t see the world with the same, bright, hungry eyes. I see doom and gloom. My mind is warped, my anxiety ruling me. Keeping the mask in place is wearing me down—I don’t know how much longer I can do it.

It’s slipped with Dec.

I need to refix it. Since I met him, the mask has been on and off. On for work, off for Dec. It doesn’t work. I need it on all the time, need to protect myself all the time.

Starting now.

I yank his hands from my face and thrust them back to him. Hurt doesn’t overcome his expression. Anger does. “Don’t do that, Camryn,” he warns. “Don’t think you can fool me with your deceptive bravado and pitiable insincerity. I’ve seen too much, and if you think for one moment I’m walking out of here without you, you better have another think, and make it fucking fast because it’s not beyond me to pick you up off this stool and carry you out. You are not having another drink. You are not staying here. You are not going to try and turn the tables. You are not going to fucking reject me now.” He thrusts his face up close to mine again, his eyes wild, a storm of emotion and anger tumbling through their depths. I blink, and it releases the collected tears, rolling down my cold cheeks.

He exhales as he backs off and holds out his hand. All I need to do is accept it.

“Take my hand, Camryn,” he orders softly.

I look up at him, and he nods. I don’t have the strength to stand or even move at all. So Dec collects me from the stool, and I don’t protest. I don’t fight him. He throws some notes on the bar before getting my coat from where it’s draped over the chair with his, and he lays it across my shoulders before leading me out to a car by the curb.

Ron.

As soon as we’re in and Dec closes the door, he pulls me close and I collapse into his side, drained. “Here,” he says, encouraging my head down to his lap. I stare forward at the rear of the driver’s seat. “I want you to be over him,” he whispers as he strokes my hair.

Be over him?

I squeeze my eyes closed, and I see what I had. The happiness that was my daily.

So how can I ever be over him?

Never.

* * *

I wake up to Dec getting me out of the car, Ron holding the door open. Draped across his arms, he carries me up the steps. “I can walk,” I say, my head a little foggy.

“You don’t need to.”

Ron opens the door for us and nods his goodbye, and I just catch his grave expression before I lose sight of him. “You’re freezing,” Dec says as he sets me gently on my feet. It hits me now, my skin bumpy, every hair standing on end. I rub my arms as Dec hangs my coat on the coat stand, then drops my bag to the floor and slowly takes his off. I can hear his mind running a mile a minute, feel mine spinning too.

Exhaling loudly, he slips his hands into his pockets and faces me. Looks directly at me, no shying away. Am I supposed to talk now? And if so, what on earth do I say? Should I try?—

The silence is shattered by the muffled sound of my phone ringing from my bag. Both of us look down at it, but it’s Dec who dips and helps himself, pulling it out and looking at the screen. A short, sharp huff of unamused laughter rumbles at the back of his throat, and he reaches for the bridge of his nose, pinching it, the crinkles around his eyes springing out.

I don’t know what to do with that. Impatience and frustration dominate every fibre of his being. And for the first time, now I’ve taken a moment past my shock and hurt, I consider exactly what he’s thinking.

I hate my conclusion.

I want you to be over him.