Page 12 of The Lies We Tell Ourselves

An evil smile spread across Tristan’s face. “You made the right choice, Dillon. See you tomorrow with my keys.”

I nodded and hightailed it out of there before I gagged on the suffocating air. My chest pulled tight, and my eardrums pulsed with their own heartbeat, seconds away from exploding.

Only once I closed the door of my truck and stuck the key in the ignition did I allow myself to take a breath. My head crashed onto the steering wheel as I wrapped my fingers around it in a white-knuckled grip. “Fuucckk,” I bellowed into the silence.

CHAPTER

SIX

JAMIE

The last few days were some of the best in my life. I felt safe and secure in a way I hadn’t in as long as I could remember. Ava was the most amazing tour guide, just as Mal said. She took us around campus, and showed me the best routes to go from lecture to lecture to avoid the crowds. She’d quickly worked out my aversion to overcrowded, loud places and people in general.

You could get lost in a crowd but you could also be found, and there were just too many moving parts to keep watch on. It made my skin crawl and my anxiety spike through the roof.

I saw questions in her eyes and prayed she’d never voice them. I wasn’t ready yet to talk to anyone about what haunted me. I didn’t know if I ever would be.

After sharing a room for a few nights, Mal suggested I meet with the college therapist, due to my nightmares waking him up multiple times every night. I wasn’t sure that was wise, and I rebuffed him every time he raised the suggestion. He accepted my unwillingness with a sad smile and didn’t push the point too far.

I wasn’t ready to share that part of myself and wasn’t sure I ever would be. So instead, we danced around the issues we both had and avoided talking about. Me, my mom, and what haunted me, and Mal with the lack of contact with his sisters and his parents’ disownment. We made a happy pair—or not—but we both put on a front and wore it like armor.

The late afternoon sun painted the sky with striking bands of orange, red, and gold, making the silhouetted buildings look like they were on fire as I crossed the main quad from the library and trudged toward my dorm. It had taken nearly a week for my final architecture books to come in.

Not that I minded; I loved the peace and solitude the library offered, and as far as I was concerned, not much beat the smell of books. Maybe bacon, or freshly cut grass, the smell of the earth after it rained, or one other that I resolutely refused to think about. Sea salt, musk, and sweat. One that was all man, even though when I’d last seen him, he was in that in-between stage—no longer a boy, but not yet a man. Dammit. Even my mind was against me, the damn traitor. I licked my lips as saliva pooled in my mouth at the thought of him.

I’d been an avid reader for years now, completely addicted to the escapism literary worlds offered. Nothing beat living vicariously through characters who overcame all the pain and suffering in their lives to find their happily ever after. It was a well-guarded secret that I was a romantic at heart, one who longed for a love worthy of Shakespeare’s poetic words. I wanted the epic love, the fight to keep it, and everything that came with my favorite three act book plots. Although I hated the third-act breakup that seemed to be a common theme in so many romance books, I guess it added a touch of reality to each story, and reminded the reader that no matter how epic the tale, how strong the main character’s love was, it was still balanced on a knife edge. One wrong move, one miscommunication, and the happiness they’d lost themselves in was ripped away.

“Hey, watch it, kid.” The loud nasal voice froze me in my tracks. The next thing I knew, someone shoulder checked me, making me lose my footing and stumbled forward. My knees crashed into the sidewalk, my books falling from my arms as I reached out to brace myself before my face smacked into it. I felt like I’d been hit by a train. I struggled to breathe, my lungs refusing to expand as I tried to draw air in.

Dazed and confused, it took me a couple of minutes to pull myself together enough to grab my books off the ground and stand up. Groups of students that were previously chatting stared at me, watching and waiting to see what would happen next.

A girl in a short red dress stood before me, her long blonde hair swaying in the breeze. Her hands rested on her hips, head cocked to the side. “Look where you’re going,” she sneered, her red lips curled in a snarl. Her friends giggled and looked at me like I was beneath them. Maybe I had ‘poor kid’ branded on my forehead and that’s why they looked at me like that. I didn’t know but I was grateful for this opportunity more than anyone knew.

“S-sorry,” I muttered and stared at the ground, waiting until they walked away. I heaved a sigh of relief when they moved on, but they weren’t quiet. I heard every one of the insults they hurled in my direction and just like that, the glow dimmed on what had been a great day.

My fingers flexed on my books as nervous energy ricocheted through me, turning my knuckles white. I needed some space, some time to decompress and let down my walls. But I couldn’t go back to my room because Mal and Ava were there, getting ready for a party they spent the day going on about. My bottom lip quivered as I bit back the tears burning the back of my eyes.

I made a split-second decision and turned away from campus, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. I walked until the voices of other students were nothing but a distant memory, until the cement path under my feet turned to grass, then leaf-littered dirt. Soon, I found myself in the woods that bordered the grounds and continued walking, even though my feet ached.

A study of maps of the local area one day in the library brought about a discovery of a lake located in the middle of dense woodland about twenty minutes from Briar U. Water and being surrounded by nature always calmed me in a way I could never articulate. It called to a part of me, resonated with my soul in some way that made me feel like I could breathe when it felt like the world was closing in around me.

Evening bird song filled the air, and cicadas chirped around me. The sounds of the forest enveloped me in a cocoon of safety as I followed an animal trail through the dense undergrowth. I could almost smell the water, feel its calm energy as I broke through the tree line and stepped onto a sloped grassy bank that led to the water’s edge, where the freshwater lapped against a sandy shore line. The water was stained with the colors of the sunset; burning golds and reds faded to shades of amethyst and indigo as another day drew to a close.

I dropped my books and bag on a flat expanse of rock that edged the shore before collapsing, unable to hold myself together any longer. I sat with my knees pulled up to my chest with my arms wrapped around them, and allowed the tears I’d been holding back to finally fall.

The world blurred around me as I cried silently, the trees the only ones to witness my pain. I cried at the injustice of the world. I cried at the cruelty of humanity. I cried because despite how much I pretended, I was all alone in the world.

I missed mom more than I could ever put into words. I missed him. I felt like I’d been shot and five years later that wound still festered, refusing to heal. The pieces of shrapnel that had embedded into me that night were killing me slowly as they filtered through my bloodstream, heading toward what was left of that broken organ.

The shrill ringing of an unfamiliar phone pierced through the tranquil silence and had my heavy eyelids pulling open. “What the fuck?” I muttered, blinking in a daze, trying to see where the noise was coming from. It cut off before my brain was back online, then started again. The bottom of my bag vibrated against my foot, and I yanked the zip down and dug around through all the crap I’d accumulated. My fingers wrapped around the burner phone I’d all but forgotten about.

“I thought I told you to call after you unpacked and Clara had gone?”

“Hello to you too, Uncle Daire,” I croaked, wiping away the drying tear tracks on my face.

“Jamie?” Concern laced his voice, and his tone softened. “You alright, kid?”

I snorted, the sound of snot popping in my nose echoed in my head. “Not a kid.” I cleared my throat. “Y-yeah, I guess.”

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