Page 73 of Lies Like Love

“Wait.” I grab his arm.

He spins to face me, but as he does, he drops the handheld camera to the floor, and it shatters.

“Fuck, Fel.” He reaches down to pick it up as a door behind us swings open.

I look over my shoulder to see Mom standing in the doorway with wet hair, wearing nothing but a robe, like she just stepped out of the shower.

“Have you seen your stepdad, honey?” she asks, and it makes my skin crawl hearing her call him that.

We shouldn’t be family at all. I almost scream it at the top of my lungs, but I don’t. Ladies don’t scream. Alcotts don’t express feelings.

I shake my head, and she frowns before disappearing back into her room.

When I turn back around, Jude’s standing in front of me looking pale—or caught. Anything but himself.

“Why were you in their room?” I ask him again, the pit in my stomach widening. “With that?” My eyes drop to the camera.

Jude shakes his head but doesn’t say anything.

“Were you recording her?” I’ve never gotten the impression Jude had any interest in my mother, but this doesn’t make sense.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He laughs, but it’s forced, and he doesn’t look the least bit relaxed.

“Then explain yourself.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Jude steps in close, looking me straight in the eyes. “Just trust me.”

“Jude—”

But he turns and walks away without an explanation, and this time I don’t follow him as he disappears into his room and slams the door.

Trust.

A big word in a house of lies.

Trust.

A big word for someone breaking it every time I turn around.

23

Jude

Theroomiscloakedin a green haze from the sheer curtains hanging over Fel’s window. I have to blink the morning into focus as the past haunts me from my memories.

They’re the same curtains she had hanging in her room when she was younger. Sheer emerald silk.

Back then, she said the color reminded her of my eyes. And because of that, I assumed she burned them along with every other reminder of me. Apparently, she didn’t.

The sunbeams are dulled by the green glow that illuminates her in her bed. She’s naked and asleep, letting out the sweetest exhales I’ve ever heard.

It took three times for me to fuck her out of her dress before we made it to her room and passed out. But even then, I couldn’t sleep. She closed her eyes the moment her head hit the pillow, while I watched her dream with the kind of innocence I’ve never experienced.

I should leave before we go down this path that will inevitably lead to me hurting her all over again.

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