Page 109 of Lies Like Love

His fingers graze the skin of my inner thigh. A pendulum ticking back and forth in the silence. Wrong. Right.

The beginning. The end.

“Jude, you’re worrying me.” I turn in my seat to face him, grabbing onto his hand with both of mine. “What’s wrong?”

He tips his head to the side to look at me, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him this defeated. “I need to tell you something you aren’t going to like.”

“Okay…” It feels so drawn out my stomach’s in knots.

My heart pounds as if one more confession is all it will take to break it free from my ribs.

Jude sits up taller, grazing his thumb back and forth over the back of my hand. Pausing for a moment before he pulls his fingers from mine and reaches for his phone in his pocket. He flips through it for a few minutes quietly.

“Here.” He hands it to me.

I’ve known Jude for years. I’ve seen sides of him no one else has, and this man sitting beside me with barely any fight left, isn’t him.

Taking the phone from his hand, I hope he doesn’t spot the goosebumps prickling my arms, but one look at the screen, and I’m sure there’s no hiding it.

The screen illuminates with a picture of me at fifteen. I’m sitting in the middle of my bed at our parents’ house, reading a book. My hair is in a long braid, swept off to one side like I used to always wear it.

“Keep swiping.” Jude wraps his arm around the back of my seat and waits for me to do just that.

I move to the next picture.

It’s me again, but this time, I’m standing in front of the mirror brushing my hair.

And the next I’m singing into my hairbrush.

The next I’m in nothing but a T-shirt and underwear because I’ve stripped off my pajama bottoms to get in the shower.

Then I’m walking into the bathroom.

I was alone in these moments, so there’s no reason anyone should have these pictures.

The next few photos follow me gathering things in my room before I head into the bathroom. But when I swipe again, the photos end.

“What are those?” I set the phone down, numb, but still shaking. “Did you take them? Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“No,” Jude answers me flatly.

“Is that—” I stumble over my words. “Is that all of them or do they…”

Air—breath—life catches in my throat.

“I deleted the others.” He reaches for me, but I pull back.

The sides of the car are closing in, and I’m losing my grip. There’s no space in this universe for what’s about to burst out of me, much less this car. How can Jude have pictures on his phone from when I was alone at fifteen?

Pictures of moments no one should have been there for.

I open the car door to climb out, almost tripping as my foot meets sand. It tries to drag me backward, but I manage to fight it. I vaguely hear Jude getting out of the car as well, but my head is crashing like the waves at dusk. A current with no light and no escape.

“Fel.” Jude grabs my arms from behind, spinning me around so fast I almost fall again.

“I don’t understand.” I’m still trying to catch my bearings.

Jude rubs my arms up and down, and part of me feels like he’s the only thing grounding me right now. Proof of my stupidity, as he’s clearly been keeping bigger secrets than I imagined. And like the dumb girl he makes me, I trusted him not to.

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