Page 84 of Where Happiness Begins

“Lift up your shirt.” For all the times we’ve been intimate, I just realized I’ve always been the only one completely naked. Even when I saw him in the shower, he never faced me.

Please, lift up your shirt and prove to me that this is all just a misunderstanding.

Carter’s eyes fill, but I don’t budge. His head drops between his shoulders. “I can explain everything,”

“Lift. Up. Your. Shirt.”

He gives me a look that will forever haunt my nights before he stands and lifts his shirt just enough that I can see the eight-inch-long scar that’s a mirror image to mine.

I bring a hand to my lips, twin tears falling down my cheeks. I couldn’t have been this naive. This blind.

I want to puke, throw my phone against the wall, and rip out my hair.

“When did you know?” I blurt, my pulse thrumming in my ears. “When we met? Before?” My voice is shrill, like a fire alarm during the quiet night.

“God, no,” he says, pleading with his stare.

“When then?” My teeth are clenched so tight it worsens the ache in my body, but it’s the only thing I can do not to break down entirely. “Tell me.” I can’t have fallen for another man who only ever saw me as a pity case.

He runs a violent hand through his hair. “I only connected the dots when I heard your full name at the wedding.”

My entire being shuts down.

“All this time?” I breathe. I can barely hear the words coming out, so full of shock, of self-disgust. They’re the cry of a dying man.

“Lilianne, I—”

“Get out.”

“Please, I can explain.”

“It was all fake.” I’m talking to myself now. All those moments of found connection, of sacred touches and whispered truths. All a lie.

“No, baby, it wasn’t—”

“I said get out.” I can’t even look at him. It feels as if he’s just stolen my heart right out of my chest and thrown it in a lit pyre. Nothing makes sense. Nothing ever will.

He knew the truth about my father all along. He left me rotting in my doubt and never planned on letting me know. And above all, he knew aboutthat.

I look down at my belly, at the pink scar I know is hidden under the green hospital gown.

The room once again starts to spin. Acid climbs my throat, and a wave of heat stuns my body.

“Lili?”

The world turns black.

Chapter 34

Carter

Three years ago

I’ve been sober for almost a year by the time I step foot inside a bar again.

Eighteen more days, and I could’ve said I’d done it. I’d pushed through every single day and made it on the other side.

Who knew all it’d take for me to crack was a stupid birthday.

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