Page 186 of Tell Me Lies

He narrowed his eyes as if he could see anything. Having this conversation without being able to read her drove him half-crazy. “Then what the fuck were you doing at my house that day? You can’t deny you weren’t meeting with my father by yourself, in his office, and I might add, in his office by yourself. You two looked mighty cozy when you walked out.”

She scoffed. “A man can’t be alone with a young teenage girl … is that what you’re implying?”

Had that been how he made it sound? If so, it wasn’t what he meant. “He was touching your waist,” he gritted out, the memory clear in his head as if it had happened yesterday. He’d demanded his father tell him what was going on after she left but his dad had remained mute on the topic, almost disappointed in him, as if he’d been the one caught alone with the daughter of the woman who’d ruined their family.

He’d hated the jealousy that had roared through him at the thought that his dad had done more than touch the young girl who was in his dreams every night.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked. “Is it that important? Or are you just looking for another excuse to hate me?”

“I want the truth.”

“You’ve never wanted the truth. You made me into this villain in high school. Only to become your own kind of monster, Elijah.”

He ground his teeth together, feeling a pain in the back of his molars. “Just fucking tell me.”

Her hand clenched on his stomach, grabbing at the material of his tee. Did she realize she still touched him? The bigger question was, why didn’t he move it away? He shook his head to refocus on Violet’s explanation.

“Your dad was offering me money…”

“Of course he was,” he said, disgusted.

“Your dad was offering me money,” she said again, this time louder to talk over him, “to go away to college. To start a new life away from a town where his son had made my life complete hell.”

He scrambled his way through shock and thoughts of betrayal, disbelief. His father had known what was occurring with Violet? Being the mayor of the town, he supposed his dad had a hand in quite a bit, but he’d never said anything to him. Never called him out on what he now knew was a really shitty thing to do day in and out. Holding her mom’s actions against Violet was unfair.

Thinking back on his behavior back then didn’t make him proud at all, but he was surprised his dad had said nothing. Could guilt be a reason for that? The guilt of cheating on his mom and breaking their family up?

“I turned it down, by the way. The money for college.”

“Why?” he asked. If it were him in her situation, he would have taken it. She had come from little, lived in a house smaller than what they used to store their lawn equipment. “I figured with the things your mom did at her jobs…”

“Of course,” she said, and her words sounded heated, angry. “Just because her mom is like that, working her way through men to find the next sugar daddy, the daughter must be the same, right?”

“I’m sorry. It was an asshole thing to say.”

“I am nothing, nothing like her.” She’d leaned in close and as fucked up as it made him, he wished he could see her face right now, see the fire spitting from her eyes, the splash of color from anger on her cheeks.

“I turned him down because I know everyone in that town would have expected me to do the exact opposite and would have held it against me forever. I wanted to prove to all of them I could support myself and didn’t need a man to do it for me. That I was stronger, different from Lucile. And I’ve done it. Despite every hiccup, every shitty hand I’ve been dealt, I’ve done it for myself. With no one else there to help.”

Her words echoed around his head, beating into him as if each were tiny fists pounding against his chest. He felt like the asshole he was for treating her the way he had. Someone who’d disappointed his father, who had most likely disappointed his mother, too. Someone who he’d disappointed himself.

He sighed, then wrapped a palm over hers on his stomach. She’d been moving the tee in her fist, but now froze. She tried to take her hand back, but he held her to him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It may not mean much now, but I really am sorry for how I treated you back then. There’s not much more I can say now to make it up to you, but I will try to find a way to do so.”

“I don’t want anything from you, Elijah,” she said, almost as if she were trying to gentle her words. “I just want to live my life on my own two feet.”

“I know.”

Several silent minutes ticked by. He rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand, still holding it to him. Giving her comfort? Or himself? He didn’t know.

“What are the chances we’re stuck in this box together?”

He winced at her question. “I don’t think it’s much.”

“What does that mean?”

“I think I know the reason we’re in here.”

Chapter Five

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