Page 39 of The Liar's Reckoning

“You obviously didn’t lose my number. What do you have to say now you couldn’t have said months ago?”

“A lot, actually.”

“Did something change?” I ask, regretting the question as soon as it leaves my mouth.

“Yeah. A lot of things,” he says softly, his familiar gaze gently caressing my face.

I like it, and I hate that I like it. It feels like he’s not only memorizing me but remembering me. Like he’s eating his own heart out. I settle on the last to keep my defenses up. I try not to let any emotion show. Seeing him now reminds me how much losing him hurt. The way he looked at me in the end. So much disappointment. Like I’d fallen too far for him to reach down and help up.

“I don’t want to do this tonight,” I say.

“When then?” he insists.

“I don’t know. I mean, what is this about? You want to apologize? You want to be friends? You want to explain yourself and make me feel like shit all over again?”

“Sy…that’s not—I never meant—It wasn’tyou.”

“Oh, Jesus,” I mutter, kicking at the pavement and turning to face the street. “Well, nothing aboutmehas changed. I’m still working the same three jobs. I still have almost no spare time. I’ve still got no plans to be anything else.”

“I get it. And yes, I want to apologize for some of the things I said. I was hurt—I was insecure—I was scared about moving to a different country. I knew I’d hate it.”

“Are you serious? You were thrilled when you got that offer,” I say, remembering his surreptitious excitement he always tried to hide from me. The congratulatory texts and calls I pretended not to notice. He practically shouted it from the rooftops, but to me it was severely downplayed. He was cold about it, even.

He shut down on me around the time I started selling myself for Katia. It wasn’t like I didn’t understand where he was coming from—I only hoped for more understanding about what I was juggling—why I felt like it was a good option for me.

“Thrilled for the offer—sure—but leaving the country?”

He doesn’t have to say more. He hates change. A real creatureof habit, this one. I shiver, unable to suppress it. “Here—” he says, moving to shrug off his coat.

I hold out my freezing hand. “No. I’m going back inside. If you wanna call, call. Just don’t expect me to answer.”

“Silas—”

“What?” I snap, both from the cold and from this total blindside. Another one.

“Give meonechance, okay? I fucked up. I get it. But I refuse to believe we can’t come back from it.”

I stare at him in disbelief.

“Not if you’ll give me the smallest chance and justlisten. Let me in for thirty fucking minutes—that’s literally all I’m asking.”

I’ve never been a master of communication. I tend to let my body do most of the work. Words, too often, aren’t sufficient to get my point across, especially when it comes to the way I feel about someone, which half the time even I don’t understand. My brain is a hurricane, which leads to misunderstandings of all kinds.

Ever since my mom got really sick, it’s been easiernotto feel things. To put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. Do the jobs, make the money, pay the bills, help where I can.

“Fine,” I tell him. I need to get this over with and go back inside.

“When’s your next day off?” he presses.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and scroll to the calendar. I don’t have a day off anytime soon—not a full one, but he’s asking for half an hour. “I can do Monday evening.”

“You’re not working that night?”

“Not overnight,” I say, my tone grim. I’m already dreading this, and I can’t even decide why.

“Okay,” he says. “Monday then. Nine o’clock?”

“Sure.”

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