Page 150 of Cruel Lies

The blade spun on the tip of my finger, cutting the skin just enough that a small drop of blood welled up beneath the point. I watched myself bleed with a sick sort of fascination, wishing Icould bleed out all the emotions and feelings I didn’t want to live with right now.

I just didn’t want tofeelfor a moment in time. Just one.

And then life stuck a stick in the spokes of my bike wheel when a lone figure stepped into the shadows next to me and took a seat just inches away, our shoulders brushing as he got comfortable.

Rowan didn’t speak for a long time; he just looked out over the water with me in silence, possibly contemplating his own life.

When he finally moved, it was to look at my hand, where I still spun the blade in the tiny pool of blood forming in my palm.Back, forth, back, forth.

His eyes stayed glued to that knife as he spoke.

"When I was little, before you came into our lives, Father used to beat us."

I held my breath, waiting for him to go on. He’d told this story to me before, but perhaps there was a road he hadn’t traveled that needed to be explored this time.

Maybe it would end differently this time.

"My mother, she tried to stick up for all of us boys, but it only got her the same treatment." His eyes lifted to the horizon, where the first glimmer of the rising moon reflected off the surface of the water. "No matter how badly she was beaten, she’d still come to our defense. I always thought she was stupid for that, you know. I hated that she’d let him hurt her like that. I thought she was weak for it."

His locs fell around his face, falling apart and in dire need of attention from the sleepless nights in hospital chairs, the millions of times he must have run his hands over them, through them, sick with worry for his family.

His words switched to a whisper. "I never realized how strong she really was. How much courage it took her to put herself in harm’s way to save us even a fraction of the pain."

I stopped twirling the blade momentarily, waiting for him to go on. Waiting for him to make some grand gesture and stupid apology, just like they did in the movies. I’d turn it down, and that would be that. They could go back to their lives, and I could . . . go back to mine?

My real one, or the lie I’d been living all this time?

"I was angry at her when she let him take her life to save ours. I hated that she’d leave us, leaveme,with that man, just like that." His hands twisted in his lap, and I had to resist the urge to reach out and cover them with my own. "It took me until today to realize that when you love someone,trulylove someone, more than you love yourself, you do things that don’t make sense to others. You take bullets for them. You take blades in the chest and refuse to blame them. You protect them from themselves for as long as you can."

He looked sideways at me, and I wanted so badly to look into his eyes, but something stopped me.

If I looked into those sad, beautiful eyes, I’d cave. And I didn’t want to cave. I wanted to stop hurting.

I wanted to disappear.

I didn’t want to be seen.

"All this time, I hid the truth from myself, and so did the others. My brothers let me think they needed me because I needed them to need me. I needed to feel useful, in the only way I knew how. By sacrificing myself and my own happiness for theirs." A heavy sigh snuck from his chest, and I felt a single tear gather at the edge of my lashes. "But what I really did was hurt myself. What I did, I thought I was doing because it was what I needed to do. To honor my mother’s sacrifice, I wanted to make the same sacrifice she made for me, for them. But all I did was cage them in. And in the process, I clipped my own wings, too."

He didn’t say anything more for a long time, choosing instead to stare at the sky in the distance as star after star appeared in the blackness. We watched them together, silent and pensive,needing no words to feel the things he’d come there to make known.

"You know, I think somewhere along the way, I stopped living for myself. I forgot who I was. I was an empty shell, going through the motions for no other reason than the idea that my brothers would be lost without me. But they aren’t." His gaze lowered again, this time to my blade once more, and he sighed.

He’d been doing a lot of that lately.

"I lost control when you came back into our lives. I didn’t know up from down, because for once in my life, I was given something I wanted for myself. You saw me forme,and it reminded me that I was still me to someone. That I was more than just a shield. But I got scared when things spiraled out of control, and when the chips were down, I refused to let anyone help. I made you think that you had to take matters into your own hands to save us. I forced you to live in my little bubble for a moment. And that wasn’t fair.

"I wouldn’t wish my existence on anyone."

The blade stilled in my grip, hands shaking though they didn’t move. My whole body was screaming for me to comfort him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t be there for him when he refused to be there for me.

I couldn’t be that weak. I couldn’t give in.

I deserved someone who would see me as equal, who could open up to me and let me in when things got hard.

I needed more. Everything I’d promised myself—not to fall in love, not to trust someone, not to get comfortable—I’d done it all with them, against my better judgment. And I knew in the end I’d get hurt. But I did it anyway. I let it happen, because I’d lived so long without love, it was revitalizing to bask in the glow of it once more.

For a small moment in time, I felt seen again. I felt like a fraction of my old self. And I was too greedy to realize that good things never lasted forever.

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