Page 164 of Darling Obsession

Color me not surprised.

“I see. How?”

“I made up a woman named Darla, who didn’t exist.”

And there it is. The truth.

Finally.

“And how did that come about? You were already in love with the cat, so it just made sense?” Okay, maybe I’m provoking him now, but come on.

I want the truth behind the truth. I want all of him. I want to know how that crazy, giant brain of his works, and why he does what he does.

I’m starving for his truth.

He glowers at me. “No, Quinn. I was not in love with the cat. I’d had a particularly annoying argument with Savannah about my personal life. I hated her prying, being all concernedabout me. But I also hated to disappoint her or upset her. It was becoming a problem. So I did what I do whenever I have a problem. I looked for a solution. And that was the day I met the cat.”

He gazes over at the little black ball of fur, napping in her new bed, the leg with the cast poking out.

“She wandered onto my patio out of the shadows as I was sitting there, thinking. Then she just kept showing up, every day, for almost a week. I had Manus drive her to the vet, to see if she had a microchip and they could find her owners. It turned out she had a chip, and he told me the vet said her name was Darla. It wasn’t a conscious decision ahead of time, but the next time my sister asked about my love life, I told her I’d met someone named Darla.”

I shake my head a little. “Evil.”

“Maybe so. But it worked. From then on, whenever the subject of my love life came up, I told my siblings that I was ‘holding out for Darla.’ I guess it was just interesting enough for them to believe, and just vague enough that I could string them along for a while, keep them buying into the intrigue of it.”

He rubs his face like he’s exhausted.

“And they just kept buying into it? And you were okay with that?”

“It’s not like it made me happy, Quinn. But over time… I guess the myth of Darla became like a security blanket. I was able to keep the walls shut tight around myself, the way I wanted them. I know I shouldn’t have lied to them. It just seemed like a solution to the problem at the time.”

“But how was a lie like that going to hold, forever?”

“It probably wasn’t.”

“So, you were just going to keep telling it, until it became another problem to solve?”

“Yes,” he says, like this is perfectly reasonable.

I guess if you’re him, it seems reasonable somehow.

I’m really trying to understand this.

“Well, I think it goes without saying that I don’t think it’s a great idea to lie to your siblings about something like that. But it seems like you did it because at the end of the day, you just didn’t want to disappoint them.”

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it,” he says.

I frown. “They wanted to know you were okay, and maybe that you would end up in a good relationship one day. I get that. But you wanted privacy and they wouldn’t respect that. And maybe you just wanted them to think you were okay… even if you weren’t.”

He stares at me for a long moment, and I can tell I’m right about that.

“I know how I dealt with it was wrong,” he says quietly. “I never actually thought it was right.” He shifts closer to me. “But I hope being honest with you about this now is the right move. I don’t want to lose you because of something like this.” He looks into my eyes. “I did warn you that I’m a liar.”

Ugh. Those eyes of his.

I used to see them as switchblades. Now I see them for what they are; a beautiful gateway into fathomless depths from which I may never escape.

The way he looks at me makes me weak.

---