Page 78 of Little Liar
He knew.
He always knew how I felt about her.
Molly slows down to walk beside me. She moves her hands to make a few signs, but they’re wrong. Olivia corrects her, and she turns back to me again.I’m happy,she signs then takes a few seconds to figure out the next movements.You’re out of prison.
And just like that, my heart rate picks up, and I want to go home.
Olivia always cried about you,she adds while Olivia isn’t looking.
Swallowing a lump threatening to strangle the shit out of me, I inhale my smoke deep and make sure I blow the poison in the opposite direction from the kid.
“Dad’s been teaching me a little. I’ll try harder.”
“You’re doing great,” Olivia says. “It took me a long time to figure it out. Dad and Malachi taught me.”
Her eyes move to me, and she smiles. I remember growing up, I’d write down the words and sign them to her. Dad was teaching her, but she always came to my room to ask to teach her some more.
I taught her how to sign my name—and hers.
It’s a shame she never got the chance to teach me how to say my name like we planned when we were eighteen and nineteen.
I taught myself how to say hers in my cell. And even then, I was terrible at it.
“Did Dad teach you?” she asks me. “To sign?”
Why is this kid giving me anxiety? My heart is racing, and I feel sick all of a sudden.
My jaw ticks, and I focus on the entrance of the mall, my teeth crushing together, not because she’s annoying me or because she won’t stop talking. No. I’m caught off guard because she didn’t say “my dad”. She said it in a way that suggests Jamieson is still my father, despite everything I’ve done. Meaning she still views me as his son and her brother.
I gulp and look away, an intense heaviness pressing into my chest. Like it’s trying to crush my soul and remind me I’m an empty shell and useless.
When I got arrested, I accepted I was alone again. My bio-parents left me, and I ruined my relationship with the Vizes because I fell in love with their daughter. Until Olivia came back to me, the only person I could talk to was myself. My inner voiceis a dick and thinks he’s funny one minute and suicidal the next, so it’s good to drown that side out and replace it with Olivia and this kid who’s still talking.
We cross the street and head towards the mall—I’m counting down the hours until we can go home so I can forget this day exists.
“Can I come and stay over one night?” Molly asks me, and my right eye twitches. “Our big sis said we could watch movies and you’d show me your spider! What kind is it? Does it bite? Do spiders make noises? Has it ever bitten you?”
Fucking hell.
“Olivia,” I say, gesturing to the hyperactive teen, silently begging her to take over before I pretend to have an aneurysm and pass the fuck out. She’s on the phone, leaving me to deal with this fucking child and her incessant voice.
Molly’s eyes widen. “Oh my God. You just said her name! Can you say mine? It’s easier than Olivia’s. Moll-ee. It rolls right off the tongue! Are you even listening to me?”
I want to die.
While Olivia still talks on the phone—to Abigail I think—I push Molly from my left to my right when I realize she’s walking on the curb side. It’s an automatic thing I always do with Olivia. For some reason, I feel uncomfortable having Molly close to the busy road. One swerving car could hurt her.
I toss my cigarette and open the glass door, letting Molly and Olivia walk in first. Olivia takes my hand, and some of the tension lifts from my shoulders. “Be nice. Please. She’s trying so hard, and you won’t acknowledge her,” she whispers. “Please. She was so excited to meet you.”
I nod and huff. There’s no point in me trying to build any sort of relationship with the kid—she’ll hate me when she’s old enough to understand everything that’s gone down with thefamily and why I’ve been kicked out of the Vize unit. And the fact I fuck Olivia on the regular and how it’s technically wrong.
Molly’s gaze drops to our clasped hands, and she attempts to hide a smile.
Does she know I’mwithwith our sister?
“Oh, this is the store!” Olivia pulls us towards a shop filled with dresses and shoes, and I inwardly sigh when they both squeal in excitement.
This is going to be the worst day of my life.
