Page 215 of The Liar's Reckoning

I stop my knee jerk reaction to say the obvious—that leaving him wasn’teasy. That I’d desperately wanted to figure something out, but everything spiraled so far so fast.

Still, we’ve covered that. Tonight, he’s asking me something different. He’s asking what he was worth to me, and if something he could have done would have raised his value. There’s the answer that would let him off the hook, and there’s the truth. My father offered me a way out of the mess I found myself in andkeptfighting for me.

Silas begged me to ignore all of it, dodge the problem and run away. I’d wanted to split the difference somehow, keep him and leave my family out of it at the same time, but before I could figure out how to do it, the video came out, and it was too late.

When I denied it was me in the video, I admit, I expected something from him. Texts to prove it really was me in the video. His revenge for what the press put him through. But when noneof that materialized, it wasn’t a relief. It was proof we were over and he wouldn’t fight me.

His lack of rage and his radio silence felt like indifference. It felt like he had exactly one hour’s worth of fight for me, and then he gave up. Not that I blamed him. I’d given up, too.

When I don’t say anything, he says, “I think I should have tried harder. Proved to you somehow we could work with or without your family.”

“You tried?—”

“And then I stopped trying. I’m sorry, Graham. I fucked up, too.”

“I get it,” I say. “Probably felt a lot like what Ben did.”

“It did, but you’re not Ben.”

“It was a shitty time. A shitty situation,” I say.

“Yeah, I guess,” he says, dejection evident in his tone. “Right now’s not much better.”

“It’s not worse,” I tell him, wanting him to look at me again.

Instead he changes the subject. “I fucking hate the idea of finding someone else. Dating. God. I’ve never liked dating.”

“Are you trying to make me throw up?” I ask, not loving any of these topics.

“I’m just saying—or at least what I think I’m trying to say is if I couldn’t be good enough for you to want to keep trying, then how the fuck am I ever gonna make it work with someone else I probably won’t love half as much?”

How the hell am I supposed to respond to that? As a friend? An ex? An interested party? His lover?

Not for the first time, the wrongness of where we’ve wound up hits me with blunt force. The difference is my urge to fix it ismuchstronger. While I have nothing to compare it to except the love and loyalty I have for my family, what I feel for Silas is all of that and more. There’s no question I’m deeply in love with him. The idea of being separated from him again is ripping me apart—the only question iswhat do I do? How do I stop him from signingup on a dating app and seeing what else is out there? How do I make him stay?

“You told me a week ago you didn’t know if you could trust me,” I remind him.

“Yeah. I said that. It was true, too. That day, anyway.”

“Not anymore?”

He turns to face me, a scrutinizing look on his face. “What changed, Graham? This last week you’ve been—so fucking amazing. Is this all bullshit, or is this what you’re really like?”

“It’s notbullshit…”

“Then what changed?”

“Idid,” I say without thinking too hard. It’s not that deep. My life these last few years has changed me. This past year most of all. Hell, the last couple of weeks have flipped me upside down. “Look, I made a mistake. Choosing not to ride out a scandal with you—trying to protect us from it—blew up in my face. It hurt you way worse than I could have imagined. Living and knowing that, wrapping my head around why I did what I did—it made me very aware that I was a shitty boyfriend, too. And a daddy’s boy, and all the other things you called me.”

His jaw ticks as he stares at me from across the small space.

“What I want to know is why are you giving me all this time and what feels almost like another chance if you’re just planning to pick up and go? What changed foryou?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I just said, I made mistakes, too.”

“So I’m a mistake?”

“No—not you. Not even this. You asked why, and the reason I met you in Philly was stupid. I thought it’d be all nostalgic and depressing, and it was. Kind of, but it was something else, too. I thought I was ending something, and now…”

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