Page 49 of One Twisted Lie

Crap. “No, I didn’t mean that. I…” I trail off. The look on his face is one I can’t lie to. It’s open, trusting, seeming to want nothing but the truth from me, perhaps even a little bit lost. If I’m confessing to this, I might as well confess to everything else. It’s the only way we can start with a fresh slate. “No. I did mean it.”

“Did your father ask you for something else?”

“He just asked me to get close to you. But I never knew why.”

“When?” he snaps, coldness lining his voice, a harshness I haven’t heard in a long time lingering in the air. “When did he ask you that?”

I drop my head. My breaths are uneven, and I bite my bottom lip. This will be fine. It’ll all be fine. “He…”

“Fucking tell me!”

“Months ago, okay!” I shout back, throwing my hands in the air. “He asked me months ago!”

“You’ve known he’s wanted something from me for that long?” he gasps, pushing his glasses furiously up his nose. “You knew about this?”

“No. He wouldn’t give me a reason. All he said was that he wanted us to be friends. I knew he wanted something else, but he didn’t tell me the details.”

“So, when you called a truce. That’s when he asked you.”

His voice sounds like he doesn’t want it to be true. It’s not a question, but a statement, and Carter’s too fucking smart to not know the answer. “Yes.”

“You’ve been lying to me this entire time?” he asks, his voice cracking, his face morphed into something I never want to see again. It’s a look of agony, a look of complete despair, a look of a man that’s had his heart broken.

“No,” I say desperately, reaching for his hands. “Babe. No, I haven’t.”

“I’m not your fucking babe right now, Ozymandias!” he shouts, ripping his hands away from me. He curses at me as he stumbles out of bed, naked and bare. “What else have you lied about?”

I owe him the whole truth, so I don’t leave the details out. I tell him about how my father called me out of the blue after we’d already kissed the first time and started our weird relationship. I tell him that the truce was a ruse, only slightly. I really did want to experiment. I really was drawn to him, but I just needed a reason to act on it. I told him I was kept in the dark, that I didn’t know the details, and that I should have said something sooner.

He rattles me with what he asks next.

“Would you still have approached me if it weren’t for him?”

He’s asking if any of this would have happened. If it weren’t for my father, would I have ever called the truce that led to us getting here?

“No. Probably not.”

My honesty is meant to comfort him, but it does the opposite. His face falls as he yanks his joggers up his legs. His face twisted in nothing short of betrayal. “Probably not. Do you even love me, Ozymandias?”

“How can you ask that?” I cry, standing up and rushing to him. “Of course, I love you!”

“How can I believe you?” he rounds on me, stepping just out of my reach as he hastily puts on his shirt. “This entire time, everything’s been a lie. I can’t trust you.”

“You can trust me. Trust us. Trust that there’s nothing more important to me than you.”

He’s it now. I didn’t know it before, but I know it now. I never thought one measly truce could lead to this, but it has. I love Carter with my entire being. More than Heathcliff loved Cathy. More than anything. He’s given me the strength to go against my father’s wishes, to be vulnerable, to beme.

“But your father was more important,” he seethes. “You would have told me earlier if I was important.”

“Don’t think that way. That’s not true,” I say with a shake of my head, frustrated that he won’t let me just fucking touch him. “I didn’t know what he wanted. It wasn’t a big deal until he asked me to steal, and now I’m telling you the truth. You’re making this a bigger deal than it is.”

“Oh, am I? What would you do if I lied to you, Ozymandias? What would you do if you figured out that we were only together because my father was planning something for you that I was in on?” He’s mocking me, taunting me with his words, punching me with every question.

“I wasn’t in on anything!” I argue. Why can’t he just fucking get it? I did thisforhim. I told him about the flash driveforhim. I’m disobeying my fatherforhim.

“You’re not a fucking idiot! I—” He bites his fist, pacing back and forth, and Jesus Christ he’s crying. “I fucking love you, you bastard! I love you and you betrayed me!”

“I didn’t do anything! I came clean!”

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