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The breath left my lungs in a whoosh, and a sharp pain fisted my chest. His words were a punch to the gut. Why would Lincoln say that?
He canted his head to one side. “Didn’t think so.”
No.
It wasn’t true.
My brother was lying.
He was lying the same way he’d lied about the scar on his face.
Caspian wouldn’t have kept something like that from me.Lyricwouldn’t have kept something like that from me.
Right?
The rush of memories of Lyric’s death and the sting of betrayal—of constantly being trapped in a web of lies—were like ice water flowing through my veins, freezing me in place.
The deeper you dig, the darker it gets.
Had I not dug deep enough?
I looked at Lincoln as he studied my reaction. I wanted to hit him, to hitsomething. I wanted to claw my way out of the suffocating wall of anger and hurt that was closing in on me. I wanted to scream so loudly it blocked out all the thoughts that swarmed in my head. My heart was racing, and I had the urge to run. Like I needed to escape before all the emotions that were bubbling up inside rose to the surface and exploded, destroying me in the process.
Lincoln closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath. When he let it out and opened his eyes, they were kind. He was the Lincoln I’d built blanket forts with in the living room again, not the tattooed lunatic who fed his dog raw meat and set things on fire for the fun of it. “Look, Tatum. I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m just looking out for you. I know you can handle your own shit. All I’m saying is be careful.” He bent down, grabbed the flowers, and walked backstage toward the stairs that led to his apartment.
Anger continued to swirl within me.
Lincoln was looking out for me.
Caspian was protecting me.
My family had lied to me.
Was I that oblivious to the world around me?
You don’t have a fucking clue how the world works.
Maybe Caspian was right when he’d said that. Maybe I didn’t know how the world worked. But I knew I wasn’t weak. I knew someone was lying. Who it was, and how tangled up those lies were, I wasn’t sure.
Yet.
But I was quickly learning that the world was full of monsters walking around with beautiful faces.
***
When I left the theater, the last place I wanted to go was home. I had no doubt Caspian would show up, and I wasn’t ready to see him yet.
My car seemed to drive itself down the interstate and into New Jersey. I heard myself singing the words along with the songs on my playlist. I watched the other cars on the highway as I passed them by. I saw the white, painted lines disappear with every mile I drove. But it felt as if someone else were doing all those things, and I was just a bystander.
The gravel crunched beneath the tires as I followed the road from the front gate down to Clearview Lake. Summer had come and gone, and the lake was quiet. There were no families having barbecues or rowers racing across the water. The leaves had just begun to take on their orange and scarlet tone, but most of them were still green. The freshly mowed grass covered the ground like a plush emerald blanket.
I parked my car at the top of the embankment near the boat launch. Down a pathway to my right, there was a row of cabins where we stayed every year—grown-ups on one end and kids on the other. I shared with another girl until Lyric started coming with us, then it was the three of us. Behind the cabins was a grove of trees that always made me uneasy. The trees towered over everything like watchful guards, capturing our secrets while hiding their own beneath a shield of lush branches. Dad told me to stay in the clearing. He’d said there were bears in those woods and other things that would hurt me. It was likely just another ploy to “protect” me because I never saw a bear, but I did see a man there once. He’d looked hungry, so I brought him some food. I remembered the pang of sadness I’d felt for him when Lincoln had told me the man was homeless.
I followed the walkway down to the big square platform where I’d first met Lyric. After the emotions that Lincoln dredged up, I suppose in some way, I wanted to feel close to her again.
I climbed into one of the boats and sat down.
“What happened to you?” I asked for the millionth time since she’d died.
