Page 70 of Loving the Liar

Still not letting go of my mouth, he lowers his lips to my ear. “I wasn’t wearing cologne yesterday.” My eyes flutter shut as my heart stutters. “Now that you know it’s not the first time, believe me when I tell you it’s not the last.”

He finally lets go of me, leaving me panting from shock.

Zipping up his dress pants, he stuffs my panties in the pocket. And then he takes his time helping me off the desk, combing his fingers through my hair and ensuring I look decent.

“We’re everything,” he finally says. “We’re all that matters. And when things get out of control, I want you to remember that.”

Chapter Eighteen

Ella

Stupid - Tate McRae

“Els?” a voice calls out as I hear the front door downstairs. “Are you home?”

I hear Alex running up the stairs and finally knocking on my bedroom door.

“Are you in here?”

I groan from under the covers, reluctantly grabbing my sleeping shorts and putting them on to hide the new cuts I made before I tell her to come in.

“Hey, pretty,” she says softly. “How are you?”

I turn around in bed, burying my face in my pillows as she comes to sit next to me. Her gentle soul can be felt all around the room and in the way she delicately puts her hand on the covers and pulls them down. And still, I don’t feel safe.

“Did you not go to class this afternoon?” she asks.

I couldn’t when Chris kept my underwear and his cum was leaking out of me. I couldn’t when I bumped into Megan who is now unsurprisingly Maria’s new best friend. The new captain of the cheer team, who replaced me. Not when everyone on campus is looking at me like I’m the devil.

I don’t say any of this to Alex. I can’t even face her.

I know her and Peach must have seen Hermes’s post. I haven’t been able to stop crying all afternoon. After I got dropped from the team by text, after sleeping with Chris, I just couldn’t be around anyone anymore. And to make it all worse, I had a call from Luke to say how disappointed he was in me to have gone to the initiations. As if I didn’t do it to save us all. Apparently, at least I made mom proud.

“Els,” she calls so lightly it feels like the stroke of a feather. “You’re my best friend, you know that, right? A little rumor won’t ever make me change my mind about that.”

My voice is stuck in my throat. I can’t answer anything.

“The truth won’t either,” she adds.

She knows it’s not a rumor. God, it makes me feel sick.

“I love you. I know what it’s like to have the weight of an untouchable man on your shoulders. Even when that man is supposed to love you and care for you.” She sighs, probably remembering her own dad. “Dads are meant to protect you. Yours, mine…they didn’t. Bad men get what they deserve.”

My head pops up from the shock at her words. I wipe the tears that started to spill again. Did sweet Alex Delacroix really just say that?

“Was it true?” she asks. “What Hermes published?”

I nod, another sob pushing past my tight throat. “I’m sorry. That I did it. And that I didn’t tell you or Peach.”

With a shake of her head, she puts a strand of my blonde hair behind my ear. She wipes a tear too. “You were scared.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing at first. And when I found out, he said he would take me down with him.” I burst into tears from the shame and guilt that have been clinging onto me for years. “And now he’s gone, and I somehow feel bad for him?”

“Why do you feel bad?” I feel like I’m with a therapist, but it still helps.

“Because I’m happy that he’s dead.”

Pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes, I try to calm myself. It’s only when Alex takes me in her arms that one of the tight bands wrapped around my lungs snaps.

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