If I Lie (27 page)

Blake glares. “That’s bullshit. Like I care about that crap.”

“Hey,” I say, holding up my hands. “I didn’t say that’s what I thought. I said maybe that’s what Carey thought. Imagine how I felt when he told me.”

His shoulders stiffen, and I say, “You’re angry at me.”

“I guess I don’t understand why you’d cover for him. Why do you always put him first?” Blake asks. He’s not accusing, but sadness thickens his voice.

“You tell me. You did the same thing,” I remind him gently. He looks down, and I hug myself. “It’s a bad habit I’m trying to break. I suggest you do the same.”

I explain about the night Carey came to me, beaten and bloody. He sacrificed so much to serve, and what did it get him? Even knowing that, my guess is that he’d do it again because, like George, Carey believed in something bigger than himself.

“I didn’t know what else to do, Blake. Do you know how hard it was to see Carey like that? What would you have done in my place?”

After a while he says, “He told me about the night he confessed the truth. The night you and I . . .”

His voice trails off, and I sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m not proud of my reasons for going to you that night.”

He swallows. I know I’ve hurt him when he asks, “Did you ever feel anything for me?”

I kneel down in front of him, placing my hands on his knees. I wait for him to meet my eyes. “That first night, I was confused. I didn’t know what the hell I felt, except a lot of pain. But I figured things out pretty quick.” I touch his cheek, stroking my fingers across his whiskered skin. “I fell in love with you, Blake.”

He twines his fingers through mine, his eyes serious. “You never said. Even after that night in Grave Woods.”

That surprises me. I thought I’d told him how I felt. “Is that why you’ve been ignoring me?” I ask.

“Yes. I couldn’t wait around for you to toss me aside again. Especially once we heard Carey was coming home.”

“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

“Ditto,” he says.

He tugs me into his arms. Maybe we are both thinking about the damage the three of us have done to one another. Best friends, lost friends. When I can’t take the tension anymore, I move to sit beside him. Blake’s shoulder brushes mine, and sparks zing through me. I wonder if that will ever go away and know I will miss it if it does.

Suddenly his tone is fierce. “Do you think we could start over?”

Part of me wants to. Desperately wants to. I would love to give us a chance to put aside everything that’s happened and see
where we could end up. But another part of me knows that the wounds we’ve inflicted are too deep. We can’t pretend they don’t exist.

And I need to leave. If I stay in Sweethaven to be with him, I will be putting him first. Substituting Blake for Carey. I can’t do it. I need to be first for once.

He can read my answer on my face and sighs. “I had to ask. I should go.”

He stands, and I notice his T-shirt for the first time. In cursive writing, it reads
Third grade lied, I never use cursive
. I smile and shake my head, climbing to my feet on the step above him. I really do love him.

“Blake?”

He turns to face me, and I kiss him, surprising him. With sudden strength he pulls me closer, squeezing the breath out of me. And then he holds me for a long time with my head on his shoulder. Another good-bye.

My heart breaks a little more.

Finally he steps back and walks to his truck, opening the door. I call out, “Why did he tell you now? Carey, I mean. Why confess he’s gay now?”

Blake shrugs. “I don’t know. Something about a message you gave his father. He said he’d let you down by asking you to cover for him. And me.”

Before he climbs into his truck, he gives me one last, long look. “I’m going to miss you, you know?”

“No, you won’t,” I say lightly. “You’ll forget all about me.”

He shakes his head. “Never. I love you, Sophie.”

He says it like a promise, and closes his door before I can respond. I watch his truck disappear around the corner, and when he’s gone I rise, brushing off my skirt.

I find my father standing in the open doorway. I think he’s overheard enough to guess the truth when his shoulders drop. He knows what I did for Carey. He knows I’m not who he thought I was. And I didn’t have to break my promise to tell him.

I wait for him to say something, and when he does, I’m stunned.

“I’m sorry,” my father says, his voice cracking. “I was wrong.”

And the world turns upside down and everything I think I know about people flips end to end once more.

Sometimes people
can
admit when they’re wrong.

I hear George’s voice.
You’re the one in control here. Be kind.

I walk into my father’s arms, and he says, “Please forgive me, Sophie.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Since Carey came out to his family and friends two months ago, everything has changed.

My “friends” crawled out of the woodwork, calling me to commiserate about what I went through. Few of them apologized for their part in it, including Nikki, who reprimanded me for not telling her the truth. I hung up on her.

Angel, on the other hand, wouldn’t stop apologizing. Pragmatically I asked, “How could you have known what I couldn’t tell you?”

My own response came as the biggest surprise. Released from lying, I do not feel the urge to scream the truth from the mountaintops. The people I care about are the ones who believed in me all along—like George. The rest of them no longer matter. And I’ve come to realize something: George was right; I was the
one in control all along. I kept Carey’s secret, but nobody really forced me to do it.

As for Carey . . . he hasn’t called. At first, the media swarmed around him. The MIA Marine found alive after months of torture. For weeks, daily reports shared how he was recovering, until one day it seemed like the world outside of Sweethaven forgot he existed.

Then, about a week before I’m to move to Boston, Mrs. Breen calls. Before I can say more than hello, she launches into a breathless plea.

Carey isn’t recovering at all. He’s refusing to do his physical therapy, and the doctors say he won’t walk if he continues on that way. Days, he sits in his room, staring at the walls. Nights, he wakes screaming from nightmares about things he won’t speak of. He’s dying in front of her, and she doesn’t know what to do, God help her.

She’s sorry, she says. Carey needs me, but he won’t let anyone call me. She will get down on her knees and beg if it will help.
Please, please,
she says, and she sobs.

And I tell her I’m on my way.

*   *   *

It takes more than six hours to drive from North Carolina to Bethesda, Maryland.

My mother didn’t want me to make the drive alone. She fussed over me, pointing out every car accident or carjacking that had been in the news in the past five years, until my father
finally told her, “Sophie, let the girl alone. If anyone can take care of herself, she can.”

They do not get along well, but they try for my sake. My father still won’t talk to Uncle Eddy, and I can’t say I blame him. I don’t talk to Uncle Eddy much, either, despite living in his house. But if I’ve learned one thing this last year, it’s that anything’s possible.

George has made the unimaginable a reality for me. His lawyer had all of his photos and equipment delivered to my mother’s over the summer. Upon opening the boxes, I discovered thousands upon thousands of negatives and prints. The majority were of wars in different countries, covering several decades. Most were of soldiers in varying states of weariness, heartbreak, joy, and despair.

I’ve decided to gather them into a book. I’m not sure if anyone will be interested in publishing it, but I feel like George has left me with this enormous responsibility to tell the stories of the sacrifices our service men and women make for our country. My father has agreed to help me, and we are working on it together. With his knowledge of military history, he’s able to help me piece the images together in some kind of order.

Sometimes I see my father’s hand linger over a particular picture, and I think of how George fell into memories the same way. I wonder, then, how much my father hides. If he experienced even a fraction of what George did, it’s devastating.

Maybe someday I will interview him for the Veterans History Project.

When I arrive at the hospital to see Carey, I call my parents to let them know I’m there. Then I call Mrs. Breen.

*   *   *

“Thanks for coming, Sophie,” she says. She meets me in the hospital lobby. She doesn’t look any better than the last time I saw her crying in the hardware store aisle. Black bags droop under her eyes, and she’s lost weight, considering how her clothes hang on her tiny frame.

“I’m not sure I’ll be of any help,” I warn. “You shouldn’t expect much.”

She shrugs. “Then we’ll be no worse off than before.”

We stand awkwardly waiting for the elevator. I used to love this woman, but now we can hardly look at each other.

“You seem different,” she says finally as we’re walking down the hall.

“I am different,” I say, and it’s true. I’m not the Quinn she used to know. That girl died, and Sophie was born out of her ashes.

We reach Carey’s room, and I stop outside the doorway. After driving all this way, suddenly I’m scared. I’m not sure this is the right thing to do. I back away, losing my nerve. More than scared, I’m ashamed, I realize. I kept Carey’s secret, but he’s given so much more than me. He chose to risk his life for his country, even though he had to hide a huge part of himself.

“Sophie?” she asks, concerned.

“He hasn’t wanted to see me before. What makes you think he’ll want to now?”

Mrs. Breen gives me a piercing look. “He’s been asking for you since they found him.”

I stare at her in shock.

She sighs. “When I first saw that picture of you, I couldn’t believe you would do that to Carey. The way the two of you were together—I thought you would always be that way. As his mother, I was selfishly glad that you would always be there for him. I hated you for hurting him. So I lied to him. I told him you didn’t want to see him.”

I open my mouth and close it three times when the only things I can think to say are all curses. As angry as I’d been with Carey, I would never have refused to see him.

Mrs. Breen stops me. “I know I made a mistake. I thought he would get past it, but once he told us what you did for him, I . . .”

She folds her hands, twisting her fingers until they form a white knuckled knot. This is where a bigger person might forgive her. Maybe go so far as to comfort her. I am not that person. I pull away from her touch. I want to throw up. What must Carey have thought when she told him that lie?

“Go away,” I tell her.

“Sophie . . . ,” she says.

“Don’t worry,” I say coldly. “I’m going to see him. But not for you.”

She backs away from me, and I watch her until she disappears
around a corner. I feel mean. I feel angry enough to rip into her. This isn’t how I want Carey to see me, and so I take deep breaths to calm myself.

I square my shoulders and walk into his room.

He doesn’t notice me right away, and I barely hold in my gasp at the changes in him.

Carey always had a laugh waiting on his lips. Now his eyes droop with sadness as he stares unseeing out the window. His mouth pulls down at the corners, and he lies stiff and silent in his bed, with one leg wrapped in a white brace. Below his shorts, there are scars striping both legs, and I wonder what his torturers did to him. The bruises they showed on the news have faded, but everything about him screams BROKEN.

George said you can’t understand what a soldier experiences unless you’ve been through it yourself. The closest you can come is to hear their stories. That’s why it was so important for him to tell them. To help people understand, so maybe they will treat soldiers differently. So people will show soldiers a little mercy and grace when they come home, not as they were, but as strangers taking the place of your loved ones.

Mercy and grace,
I think. And maybe it’s time I ask for a little forgiveness, because I’ve taken for granted all that he was willing to give up. Once more, I’m glad that I knew George because, without him, I would not know what to do at this moment.

I step forward.

“Carey?”

He rolls his head to face me, and his brown eyes look dead. Until they focus on me.

“Quinn?” he asks, disbelieving.

I don’t correct him. I don’t need to tell Carey who I am. He knows.

“It’s me,” I say. I drop my purse on the floor and stop by the side of his bed. His hand is cold in mine, and I twine my fingers through his. “I missed you.”

He reaches for me, clamping a hand around my neck to pull me to him, until my forehead rests against his. The desperation in his eyes makes my own water.