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I sat up straight, searing him with hot eyes. “Ben is not annoying!”
Max looked pleased with himself for getting that out of me.
I curled my lip at him, disgusted. “He might not be annoying, but he’s a liar. He lied to me.” My voice lowered. “In the worst way.”
Dropping my hands to my lap, I began fussing with the hem of my shorts, suddenly so interested in how they were sewn.
“He feels like shit about it.”
I looked up. “What?”
Max got up from the chair and went to the kitchen to snag his cell off the counter. On his way back over, he tapped the screen, and as he sat back down, he held it out for me to see.
I leaned in, taking in what looked like a capture of a text thread. “What is that?”
“It’s the Elite group chat. It’s filled with a bunch of idiocy.”
“Then why are you in there?”
“Because when I leave, they re-add me.”
My heart pinched again. It hurt knowing they all had some big group chat and I wasn’t in it. Just further proof that everything was a lie. “Why are you showing me this?”
He nodded toward the screen. “Read it.”
ELITE GROUP CHAT
Kruger: I can’t tell Jess about the fake engagement.
Max: You mean that you lied to her.
Kruger: Yeah. I lied. And it makes me feel like shit. It never even crossed my mind she would wake up with amnesia. I thought she’d wake up and we’d laugh about it. But now she’s looking at me with those big eyes like everything I say is the law, and I feel like my insides are being chewed up by a meat grinder.
Lars: You can’t just tell her the truth?
Kruger: Doc said to keep it low stress. Not to argue with her or tell her she’s wrong. He says she needs stability. How am I gonna rip what little bit of that she has out from under her by telling her I lied? She’d be confused all over again.
I bit my lip, looking up from the screen but not directly at Max. “So? He felt bad. Boo-hoo. Didn’t stop him from lying, did it?”
“The doc said—”
I waved my hand. “Yeah, I read that part too. I guess the doctor didn’t think about how I’d feel finding out I had a fake fiancé.”
“Why do you care?”
That question made me feel like I had whiplash. “What?”
“I mean, yeah, it sucks he lied. But he only did it so you wouldn’t be alone in a hospital room. He did it because he cares.”
“You don’t lie to someone you care about,” I argued.
“Is it because you’re disappointed?”
Again with the whiplash. “What?”
He half smiled. “Because you liked being engaged to him and now you aren’t?”
Yes. Yes, because now I know what it would be like to have the one person I always wanted. But I can’t have him because he doesn’t really love me.
