Page 28 of The Lies I've Told
“I’d ask you if you date much, but seeing that look on your face right now pretty much sums it up for me. How could any woman compete?”
I nodded. “An artist’s work is often his one true love. And this one?” I said, running my hands along what was left of the granite base. “This one was one of the great ones.”
I didn’t know how long we were out there, but she stayed silent as I mourned.
As I remembered.
My hands moved over what remained and glided over what was not. I closed my eyes and recalled every chiseled edge, each hard line, and the hours it had taken to make them.
“God, I would have loved to see it here. Finished. Whole. Where it was supposed to be.”
“Oh!” Millie said suddenly. “I think I can help you out with that,” she said, reaching for her phone. I moved closer to her as she fiddled with the screen for a moment. “I came home not too long ago for my sister’s wedding, and when I drove in, I actually pulled off to the side of the road and took a few pictures of it.”
“You did?” I said, feeling a bit stunned.
“Yeah,” she answered, her eyes avoiding mine as she pulled up the photo.
“Why?”
“Well, I guess you could say I was sort of taken by it.”
Her eyes finally met mine, and in them, I saw honesty. Maybe for the first time since I’d met her.
It electrified me.
Moved me.
Scared me.
Not breaking the connection I felt between us, I asked, “You were taken by it?”
She took a deep breath and blinked. Just like that, like a rubber band snapping on the back of my hand, I felt that deep, far-reaching connection break as her eyes tore away from mine.
“Yeah, well, because of Dean, you know? He nearly died out there.”
I swallowed, feeling like the worst kind of moron. “Right, of course. Dean.”
“I’m going to go grab a drink from the vending machine. Do you want anything?”
Still no eye contact.
And the photo she was supposed to show me was gone, the phone shoved back her purse.
Along with her emotions.
“No,” I answered. “I’m fine.”
“Right. Okay.”
But I was anything but fine.
I turned back to look at my statue, reduced to nothing more than a pile of rocks on the shore.
Hadn’t I learned enough by now?
This was what people did to you.
They used you, destroyed you, and abandoned you.
