Page 80 of The Lies I've Told
“Then, why are you running?” Her voice turned serious.
“I’m not running anymore.”
“Does it have to do with that letter? And don’t tell me it had to do with a client because I saw my name on it, Aiden,” she insisted, her eyebrows rising in challenge.
“Is this your version of Twenty Questions again?”
“Our lives are more than twenty questions,” she whispered.
I let out a heavy sigh. “I promise I’ll tell you everything, just give me time. I’m not running anymore; I swear it.”
I could have told her everything in that moment, but instead, I asked her to wait because, as selfish as it sounded, I needed more time.
More time like this.
“Okay,” she answered.
“Oh, so it’s all right for you to say it but not me?”
She nodded on my chest, a wide grin spreading across her face. “Yes, exactly.”
“You know I’ve been living in this country for fifteen years. That’s almost as long as I was in England.”
She shrugged. “And yet when I say the wordokay, it sounds perfectly normal, but when you say it, nails on a fucking chalkboard.”
“Was your family quite cross with me?” I asked, feeling like the largest ass for storming out on them.
Millie’s face scrunched slightly. “My mom kind of already knew you were a tough nut to crack, so she wasn’t too upset by it, although if you do it again, she might just charge after you. ”
“Duly noted. I’m sorry I did. Run, I mean.”
Her hand skimmed the skin on my stomach, drawing lazy circles up and down my happy trail. “I forgive you,” she said. “But you’ll explain?”
“Yes,” I said. “Soon, I promise. Just trust me. Can you do that?”
She looked into my eyes, as if searching for something. “Yes,” she finally answered. “But will you at least tell me one thing?”
“Anything.”
“Who is Ben?”
My throat moved, trying to swallow the deep lump that had formed there. “My brother,” I answered. “My younger brother. He died while we were in foster care together. Millie, I’m not what you read in that bio.”
Her head lifted, and the motion of her hand on my skin stopped. “Aiden,” she whispered. There was pain in her voice as she said my name.
Empathy.
Love.
“No,” she said, reaching up to cup my face. “You’re more. Will you tell me about him?” she asked.
Letting out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, I told the story of my brother Ben.
For the first time.
I told her how we’d met and the circumstances that brought me to him and James.
“Were your foster parents nice?”
