Page 30 of Little Liar

If she doesn’t understand that she can’t be with anyone else but me, I might need to kill everyone in the world so it’s only us two remaining. Then she’ll have no choice but to be with me. It’s not exactly a good or healthy way of starting a relationship, but she sure as hell ain’t marrying someone else.

Imagine her having a different surname from me? Not a damn chance.

You aren’t fucking marrying anyone.

Her eyes are watering like she’s trying to make herself cry. They’re fake tears. Or pity tears. Or she’s upset because her dreams of marrying her prince have been crushed by her lunatic brother. She feels sorry for me. The lost kid with no life ahead of him—the defective, black sheep with more baggage and psychotic tendencies than most teenagers. She doesn’t want me—she’s been put in this position. By me. I made her do this entire thing. This isn’t consensual.

My teeth grind together, and my muscles burn with the need to explode—why is she doing this to me? Why doesn’t she want me the same way I want her? Her next words only cement it all as her lip trembles.

“We can’t,” she whispers, making my thoughts worse—shoving the dagger deeper into my chest. “You’re Malachi Vize and I’m Olivia Vize. We’re sister and brother.”

Why did Jamieson and Jennifer need to adopt me?

Fucking why?

Stop saying that. We aren’t blood related. You aren’t my real sister, so what’s the goddamn problem?

She covers herself with the sleeping bag as if I haven’t just been all over her, my eyes taking in every inch and curve and random freckle on her naked skin. “This was a mistake.”

I need to recalculate how to win her because this isn’t working.

“Are they already sleeping?”

Mom is coming. I can hear Dad’s footsteps far behind her.

She’ll see how dirty her daughter is if she manages to get in. She won’t. I have it padlocked, but I secretly wish I’d forgotten, so I can see the embarrassment on her face when our parents catch us naked together.

I want them to see that their perfect little fucking angel is messing with their son’s head—that she’s making their son worse; that his sickness is manageable, without Olivia as a factor.

I shake my head. Ridiculous. Olivia is the reason I breathe.

She hides under the sleeping bag, pretending to be passed out.

“Are you guys asleep?”

She looks up at me. I want her to tell me she’s sorry, that she feels the same, that we can be together. To kiss me and fucking choose me.

“They must be asleep,” I hear Mom say in the distance. “Since when are we the ones staying up late? Grab the beers!”

Raising my hands, I contemplate apologizing for putting her in this position. Then I drop them because fuck her for making me feel this way. Fuck Olivia Vize for making me fall in love with her when she has no intention of doing the same with me.

I lie down, but I don’t want to be here. She’s too close. I can hear her adjusting her clothes, her breaths, until she falls into a deep sleep and her breathing turns heavy.

It takes me an hour of calming myself to the sound of her light snores before I unzip the sleeping bag and get the hell out of the tent. The fresh air hits me, and I run my hands through my hair, grasping the strands hard and not letting go as I head straight for the woodland.

My lungs burn from how much I need a good breath. My brain hurts—pressure all over—and my mouth is dry.

As soon as I’m a few yards into the forest, I give in to the attack and drop to my knees, head still in my hands. I can’t breathe. Everything is tight as fuck, and my head is lowering, burying into the dirty forest floor.

“Breathe, son.”

A hand rests on my back, but it doesn’t make anything better—I still feel like I’m spiraling, like I’m losing my fucking mind while Dad kneels beside me.

“Slow your breathing. You’re hyperventilating.”

I try to push him away and fail—he’s gripping the back of my neck, trying to make me calm my overworked lungs, to listen, to do something other than lose my shit.

The world ripples as I fall in and out of consciousness, a fucking battle to stay awake as he rubs my back, saying something else in my ear as he tightens his grip on my nape and shakes me.