Page 66 of City of Liars

No matter what I did, she wouldn’t quit believing in me—in us. Desperate, I said the worst thing I could think of. “It’s best if we just think of it as fucking.” The words tasted like ashes in my mouth. “Really great fucking, but that’s it. Anything more is a lousy idea.”

“I see.” She eyed me as if I were one evolutionary step above a cockroach. Anxiety reared its ugly head inside me, and I struggled to tamp it down. Didn’t she get that I was trying to save us both from making a horrible mistake?

“But you said we were friends,” I pressed on. “I don’t want to lose that. Plus, we still need to see Diane later, right? I’m not giving up on our search.”

“Sure you’re not.” Her cheeks heated with the flush they always held when she got pissed off. “Because that’s what’s really mattered all along. I’m just a side dish.”

I didn’t understand why she was so angry. We’d both agreed a relationship was off the table. So we’d screwed. So what? Was she expecting a marriage proposal? Her expectations were unreasonable. What did she want from me?

The longer we stood there, the more uncomfortable I got. But I couldn’t just walk away. We were tangled up in the same mess. I needed her, and I hated it.

“You’re mad,” I said finally, stating the obvious.

She looked away from me, across the street to the park, her eyes lingering on the place where Ella had disappeared. “I should’ve known better than to do what we did last night. And not because you took advantage of me,” she said, raising a hand to quiet me. “I wanted it as much as you did. But last night meant something to me. More than ‘just fucking.’” She parroted my words back to me, making me wince. “It’s not what you want. You’ve made that very clear. And maybe when I’ve come to my senses, I won’t want that either. But right now, I’m mortified.”

The sick, twisting feeling had spread to my stomach. “Jesus, Liv. I’m sorry.” Again.

She shook her head, still not looking at me. “Don’t apologize. Like I said, you made it clear you weren’t looking for a relationship. And when we met, I wasn’t, either. I thought Gray might’ve put me off dating for life. You were the last thing I expected.”

Were those tears in her eyes? God, they were. And this time, it was my fault.

I wanted to hold her, to wipe her tears away. I wanted to tell her I wished I could be the guy she wanted. But that guy didn’t exist.

She deserved better than me. She deserved everything.

“I didn’t expect you, either,” I said, my voice rough. “Maybe if I was a different person—or if things were different⁠—”

“Don’t.” She raised her head, setting her jaw. “There’s no point dwelling on this. It’ll make things worse for us both. Let’s focus on why we came to New York. I’m going to go grab some breakfast. I’ll see you at three, to meet Diane.”

All the warmth had bled out of her tone, leaving it empty and cold. I told myself this was what I deserved. That wanting her to say my name the way she had last night, like I was her personal hero, was selfish, macho bullshit. If I couldn’t give her what she wanted from me, the least I could do was respect her wishes. I wouldn’t tell her how sorry I was to have made her miserable, how being inside her was like a goddamn religious experience. How when I was with her, I felt like the best version of myself. That would not make things better.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said instead, rocking back on my heels.

And when she turned to go, I let her walk away.

43

Liv

Ididn’t know who I was more disgusted with, Theo or myself.

Last night had felt different to me, special. When he’d crossed the room and kissed me, I could’ve sworn there was a quality to his kiss that hadn’t been there before: honesty, vulnerability, and a need that went beyond the physical.

Not that the purely physical hadn’t been amazing, damn him.

Every time I thought about how he’d reduced what happened between us to fucking, I had to fight the urge to cry. Why was I always alone, in the end? My own parents didn’t understand or accept me. Krista had all but told me I wasn’t part of the family. I was a single parent with a laughably under-functioning ex, responsible for financially and emotionally supporting my daughter. I’d dared to hope that with Theo, I’d finally found the more I’d been searching for, the place where I’d belonged. And now he’d thrown it all in my face, basically told me I’d invented the connection between us to make myself feel better.

I wasn’t sure what made me angrier—his accusation that I managed everyone in my life, or his assertion that he thought he knew what was best for me and Chloe. It had been all I could do not to lash out at him, to demand to know what the hell he thought he knew about parenting, with a mother who belittled him on street corners for all the world to see. Only the thought that stooping to his level would make me no better than Mom, who would’ve perished before she aired our dirty laundry to all of Manhattan, had kept my mouth shut.

Well, eff him. I wasn’t going to think about Theo Dressler any more than I absolutely had to. I needed to find out whether my great-grandfather’s journals existed, and if so, whether the New York Historical Society had them. I still planned to meet with Diane Hayes. The more I could think about next steps, the less likely I would be to start sobbing in the middle of the sidewalk.

Staying with Krista was out of the question, so I found a hotel and Ubered over. I perched on the bed, Googled the Historical Society, and called.

It took a while to find the right person, but finally, the woman on the other end of the line seemed to get it.

“Charles Carter’s journals,” she said, her keyboard clacking.

“If they exist,” I said, drumming my fingers on the tacky flowered bedspread.