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Her warm smile and bright eyes were as fresh in my mind as if I’d seen them yesterday, as if it hadn’t been over four years. The memory of her voice floated through the air.
“Don’t you ever get tired of rich people stuff?”
I laughed.
She pointed to the white tent lit up by strings of clear lights and the people laughing and drinking expensive alcohol while a band played.
I broke off a piece of chocolate and stacked it on top of a graham cracker. “Your dad just won a Grammy, and he sells out stadiums all over the world. Pretty sure you guys do plenty of rich people stuff.”
She pulled a marshmallow from the fire and pointed the poker at me. I slid it off the end and piled it on my cracker. Almost burnt on the outside, nice and gooey on the inside. Just the way I liked them.
She licked her fingers, then stuck another marshmallow on the metal poker. “I mean, don’t you ever want to just escape?”
Was that what she’d done?
Was she trying to escape?
Was I as oblivious to her unhappiness as I’d been to the lies that surrounded me?
My vision blurred as tears filled my eyes. I didn’t even blink them away. I let them fall.
I missed her.
I missed her so much I felt the ache all the way to my bones.
And I refused to believe she’d lied to me. The lies hurt worse than the grief.
I looked out over the calm, dark water, and a sense of dread circled around me like a vulture. There were secrets in that lake. I knew it. I’d always known it.
There were secrets everywhere.
***
I managed to avoid Caspian for an entire week, only because I stayed in Lincoln’s guest bedroom. I caught him standing at the double doors, watching our rehearsal almost every night, but he never followed me all the way upstairs afterward—not with Lincoln’s one-hundred-twenty-pound rottweiler guarding the door. Caspian was a lot of things, but dumb wasn’t one of them. That dog had a bloodthirst for anyone who wasn’t considered family. Lincoln had made sure of it.
“I hate the guy as much as anyone, but you’re gonna have to talk to him sooner or later,” Lincoln had said to me one night while we sat on his couch eating Rolos and watchingLucifer—after whom he’d aptly named his dog.
He was right. I couldn’t hide from reality forever. If Caspian was fucking my best friend before she died, I had a right to know.
At the end of Tuesday night rehearsal, the dancers all walked out, and Lincoln was upstairs, leaving me alone. Caspian leaned one shoulder against the door frame. His hands were tucked neatly into the pockets of his dark blue suit pants. His gray shirt was partially unbuttoned, with his tie unknotted and left hanging. He must have come here straight from work.
I sat on the edge of the stage, letting my legs dangle. The haunting sound of the final score floated through the air. Deep cellos and sensual violins told the end of a tragic story. I hoped it wasn’t ours.
Caspian pushed off the frame and started walking down the aisle, stopping a few feet in front of me. God, he was beautiful.
My heart leapt to my throat, and my hands itched to touch him.
“You’re not going to run and hide this time?” he asked. There were dark circles under his eyes, evidence he’d been sleeping as horribly as I had.
“I’m surprised you haven’t tried forcing me to stay.”
He huffed a laugh. “Forcing you is only fun when I know you want it. Otherwise, it’s just me being a dick.”
Heat bloomed inside of me at the thought of all the things he’d forced me to do.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’ve been avoiding you?”
I was ready to get this over with, ready to get back tous.
