Page 201 of Dream On, Liar

“Tell me everything.”

So I did.

I did not give her the version I had rehearsed in my head, the neat version that made everything sound simple and contained and safe. I told her about the cabin and his mother. I told her about the room we had both avoided naming and the journals that had felt far too personal, as though I were reading someone’s thoughts before they had learned how to hide them.

I told her about the letters and the photograph of him as a baby, the one that had made him go completely still, as though something inside him had shifted and had not returned to its original place.

I told her about the rain that never really stopped, the breakfasts that had become routine without either of us agreeing to make them one, and the books he had bought me without asking. I told her about the ridiculous animal facts he used to throw into conversations just to make me laugh when I had become too quiet.

I told her about the movie arguments that had never really been arguments and the Scrabble game that had felt like a trap, a joke, and something else entirely. And eventually, reluctantly, I told her about the kisses I had not planned for and had not known how to stop thinking about afterwards.

Samyra’s eyebrows had risen higher with every detail. She looked like she was watching a story whose ending she already knew but had not yet decided whether she believed.

“And you stayed there for how long?” she asked finally.

“Nearly a week.”

“Maeve.”

“I know.”

“And you just…left?”

“Yes.”

“Have you tried calling him since then?”

“No.”

She stared at me.

I stared back.

Then she covered her face with both hands.

“Oh my God.”

A laugh slipped out of me, helpless and small. “It sounds worse when you say it like that.”

“It sounds exactly as bad as it is.”

I pulled my knees towards me, suddenly needing something solid to hold onto.

“There was nothing bad about it.”

She lowered her hands and looked at me more seriously.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Her expression softened.

“It sounds like you were happy.”

The word landed differently from everything else she had said. It did not hurt. It simply felt true.

Happy.

I looked down at my hands.