Page 57 of Tell Me Lies

“Unlike you, I’m not a little sex addict, so I’ll probably answer the question,” he teases me, tickling my side as we lie in his bed, both staring up at the ceiling. “Besides, it’s not your birthday. For your birthday, I’ll answer your questions. Fair is fair.”

“You’re going to make me wait till May?”

His deep chuckle rattles through my body and brings me a strange sense of comfort. “When in May?”

“May 8,” I answer.

He quickly sits up beside me. “Wait, are you fucking with me?”

I glance over at him. “No. Why?”

“That’s Amelia’s birthday,” he almost whispers. “That’s insane.”

For weeks, I thought about finding out when her birthday was so that I could help him plan whatever he wanted to do. But I kept forgetting. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we had the same birthday.

At least that makes it a little bright, seeing as I usually hate the day.

“That’s so weird,” I murmur as he lies down again, this time tucking his arm under my body and pulling me against him. The way he holds me makes me feel like he needs me. Like he actually wants me or something.

“Can I ask you a question—even though it isn’t my birthday yet? Does her mom … like … send a card or anything on her birthday, or does she not acknowledge it?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and I know he’s probably uncomfortable. Maybe I asked something I shouldn’t have.

Finally, he sighs. “It’d be hard for her to do that. She’s, uh … she isn’t alive.”

“What?” I crane my neck and look up at him. “I thought … I thought she just wasn’t in her life. You know, by choice.”I thought that because that’s what Poppy told me.

“That’s the story I’ve stuck with because I don’t want the public to know the real story.”

He inhales a shaky breath, and I know that he’s opening up to me because he feels like he can trust me. I hope he knows he can anyway.

“Amelia’s mom, Cassandra, was killed in an accident. But somehow, they were able to deliver Amelia, and she survived. I have never really talked to Amelia about it before because she’s never known any different than it just being her and me. And I’ve never wanted to scare her by telling her that her mother died because I don’t want her to be scared of me ever dying. She’s three, and … I just want to protect her from knowing how fucked up life truly is.” He swallows thickly. “Besides, what kid wants to know their mother died on their own birthday?”

The next words that come from my lips, I have to force them out. Because I’m not sure I want to even know the truth. “Where did it happen?” I whisper. “Where was the accident?”

“Right here in Portland,” he answers. “Cassandra was on her phone and ran through a red light. She crashed into another car that was going through their green light.”

The room begins to spin, and I feel sick to my stomach.

Her name … Cassandra.

It happened in Portland. At a light.

She was pregnant.

The date … May 8.

There are too many things for this to be a coincidence.

“Hey, you all right?” I barely hear Logan say as he gives my body a small squeeze with his arm. “Sorry I didn’t tell you before. I just … I’ve never really talked about it. Like I said, I didn’t want the public to get ahold of it. Because if the press ever knewthat my child’s mother was killed in an accident, it would be in every newspaper. And Amelia doesn’t need to face that. The kid already doesn’t have a mom. Or a grandmother.”

His words pierce my soul, cutting deeper than I ever thought words could. I feel myself sinking into a deep black hole. The same black hole I spent years trying to claw myself out of. And I almost made it out too. All because of them.

How can the reason I was almost out of it and the reason I’m falling back in be the same?

He tugs on my body until I flip onto my stomach and am looking at him, which is the last place I want to be looking right now. It kills me to gaze into his eyes and know I’m holding in a secret. This is like Pandora’s box, and I wish I’d never opened it.

He cups my cheek. “I guess I’m telling you now because … well, it feels like things are changing between us, Mace. Like … really changing.”

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