If I Lie (26 page)

A short pause follows my knock on his study door before he calls, “Come in.”

He hides behind his desk with a pile of folders laid out in front of him. Things have changed: I’ve changed. I’m no longer afraid of him hating me. After all, it was never
me
he saw when he looked at me. And I am more than a poor copy of her.

I set a covered plate of food on the desk. “Mom left this for you.”

He shoots me a questioning look.

“She’s gone,” I say. “Back to Uncle Eddy.”

We have tiptoed around this conversation for days. Maybe for years. Without a chair to sit in, I stand. Rather than retreating, I walk the perimeter of the room, trailing my fingers over the books on his Wall of War.

“What’s on your mind, Quinn?” he asks, leaving the plate untouched.

He watches me warily, and I drop my hands to my sides. I won’t fidget like I’m the guilty party. “She told me she tried to see me. That you wouldn’t let her see me.”

Such a strong Marine, my father. He does not betray his emotions the slightest. His voice remains calm and even. “And? You expect me to apologize for that?”

“No.” I shake my head. That would be like holding my breath until the sun stopped shining. I don’t even expect answers. “I just wanted to know if it was the truth.”

“I knew this would happen. Your mom shows up, and you think she’s some kind of hero. She’ll disappoint you. That’s why I kept her away.”

“Then it is true.”

A muscle works along his jaw when he clenches his teeth. “I did what I thought was best.”

“Did you, Daddy?” I ask. I hug my arms about my body. “Because from where I stood, I thought you hated me.” I start crying. “Do you know how much I’ve hated that I look like her? Do you think I didn’t know what you’ve thought of me these last months? A slut just like Mom?”

My father stands, slapping both hands flat on the desk as he glares at me. “Sophie Topper Quinn, I won’t hear you speak like that in my house.”

He sounds angry, like when I was a child and he would draw out my name to let me know how much trouble I was in.

Sophie Topper Quinn, for a spanking and a week grounded.

Sophie Quinn, for no TV and early to bed.

And, once upon a time, I was just Sophie, for love and kisses and my arms around his neck after six months apart.

Quietly I say, “So you do remember my name? I wasn’t sure anymore.”

My father says nothing. I’ve pushed him too far. He will not engage. I leave him in his office, but before I go I tell him, “She’s asked me to move in with her until I leave for college.”

I wait. For anger. For blame. For a crack to show. But there is only rebar reinforcing steel. Big, strong Lieutenant Colonel Cole Quinn is too weak to talk about the past.

The movies have everything wrong, it turns out.

Those big reunions where everyone apologizes and the family lives happily ever after? They’re such bullshit.

The truth is, some apologies never see the light of day.

*   *   *

On my way to my room, the phone rings. I pick up the receiver of our old rotary phone from the table in the hall. “Hello?”

“Quinn.”

His voice sinks me to the floor like a stone to the bottom of a pond.

“Carey.”

“It’s Mr. Breen, Quinn.”

The difference in their voices finally penetrates. No, not Carey at all.

“Hi, Mr. Breen. How is he?” Carey’s parents have been
in Germany with him, sending bits of news back to the town through Blake. It’s taken two weeks. Two weeks for one of them to call me.

There’s a long pause. Finally, he says, “Well. As well as can be expected, considering.”

That is not the same as “good” or “better,” but I’ll take it.

“I’m glad,” I say. “I’ve been worried about him.”

And it’s true. Staying home after George died, there had been nothing to do except watch the news, raking through reports on Carey for some tidbit of truth. Everything’s “he’s a hero,” but nobody will speak of how said hero is holding up. He would hate the kind of attention he’s getting.

There’s another pause. When Mr. Breen speaks, it’s like the words are pulled out of him. “He asked me to call you.”

Mr. Breen did not want to make this call, I realize. Did not want to speak to me.

My heart sinks. I wait, and Mr. Breen does not disappoint me.

“He asked me to give you a message.”

“Did he?” I ask. It’s so obvious Mr. Breen thinks he’s passing along a message to his son’s cheating ex, and it makes me physically sick. Carey’s back, but he’s still keeping secrets.

“He said to tell you he can’t do what you asked. Maybe someday, but not now.”

Anger sweeps through me, burning everything in its path, but it puffs out suddenly in a smoke-ridden cloud of grief. My best friend has let me down. He’s let his family, my family, and
all our friends think the worst of me. Perhaps it’s expecting too much of him to admit the truth right now, after everything he’s been through. And yet . . . it kills me that his father must think I’ve asked Carey to forgive my cheating ways. Condemnation rings in his voice, and I can’t swallow any more shame.

Suddenly I am done. I have nothing left to give Carey. He’s taken everything. All my self-respect and pride. Him, Blake, my parents. The only person who didn’t steal a piece of me is dead.

“Mr. Breen,” I say, “will you tell him something for me?”

His silence is angry, but he grunts in assent.

“Tell Carey . . . tell him I said not to bother.”

“Excuse me?” he says, confused.

“I really hope he gets well, Mr. Breen. I can’t imagine what he’s been through these past months. I know he’s a hero, and I’m so proud of him for that.” I can’t believe I’m saying my second good-bye in as many weeks. “But he’s let me down. And I can’t . . .” I break on a sob, one of those hiccupping ones that dissolves into a series of sighs.

“Quinn?” Mr. Breen asks, and finally there is an ounce of concern in his voice. Too little, too late.

I take a deep breath. “My name is Sophie.”

With shaking fingers, I hang up the phone, covering my face as I cry.

Down the hall, my father closes the door to his study.

Chapter Thirty-One

It’s June now, and I’m leaving Sweethaven.

There’s nothing left for me here, and I feel like I will never be able to make a fresh start in this town. I will always be Sophie Topper Quinn, the slut who cheated on our hero. So between school and my work at the hospital, I pack my life into boxes and crates that will go to my mother’s.

Sweethaven High has come alive, buzzing with news of Carey coming stateside. Mrs. Breen takes a leave of absence to move to Bethesda so she can be near him at the hospital in Maryland where he will make his recovery. I am happy for him. Happy he’s pulling through and happy his mother will have her son back.

But I am not happy.

I’d always thought school would end with a bang. An explosion of trashed homework, fond memories, and signed yearbooks.
Instead, I’ve regained my magical powers of invisibility. With Carey found, I’m no longer important.

I am merely a blip in his primetime
20/20
story—the part before he became a hero.

*   *   *

On the last day of school, I clean out my locker, piling my few belongings into my bag. I’ve never left much in the locker, for fear that Jamie would destroy everything, so it doesn’t take long. I snap the door shut one last time, and my hand lingers on the marks scratched into the surface. Mr. Dupree had done his best to paint over the words, but I can still make them out.

TRAITOR.

WHORE
.

I wish the words didn’t hurt. The best I can say is that I no longer believe they are true.

“Hey, Q.”

Angel stands behind me when I turn. At some point in the past weeks, she’s gone back to her brunette color. It looks better on her than the cool blond she’s worn all year.

“Hey, Ang.”

“I bet you’re glad to get out of here,” she says, nodding at my locker.

I shrug.

“I heard you’re moving to live with your mom.”

So they are still talking about me. The only people I’ve told are my parents. But then, I’ve had to buy boxes and supplies to
pack my things. And I guess I should have expected gossip to fly with my mother popping up around town. She’s determined to be part of my life, and she doesn’t care who knows it.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Well . . .”

Angel’s reaching for something to say. Maybe she wants me to excuse how she treated me, or how she let the others treat me. Then again, I’ve seen her with Blake lately and maybe the two of them are together now and she suspects something about us. She could just want to bridge the gaping hole in our friendship. Whatever she wants, I’m not the person to give it to her anymore.

I’m moving on.

I zip up my bag, toss it over my shoulder, and give my locker one last, hard look.

“Q?” she asks, when I walk away.

“Good-bye, Ang,” I say. “Take care of yourself.”

And I leave her and this whole miserable place behind.

*   *   *

Graduation moves me more than I thought it would.

Not because getting my diploma feels like being handed the key to the cell I’ve been locked in; it’s only a little of that. Mostly I’m freaked out by my father, mother, and Uncle Eddy sitting out with the families in the crowd. They do not sit near each other—that would cause hell to freeze over—but they’re in the same town and the same gymnasium.

That’s enough. That’s a lot.

After the ceremony, my father takes me out to dinner. It’s my choice because I felt I owed him that much, and it’s my last night in our house together. Since I told him I was moving, he’s been quiet. Too quiet. They haven’t been the punishing silences of the last year, but more thoughtful silences. I catch him watching me with an emotion I can’t read.

Dinner is strange, with lots of awkward pauses. When we get home, my father enters the house ahead of me, and I wander out to his garden shed, glad for the reprieve. With everything that’s happened, I’ve never switched the bottles of plant food and weed killer back. He’s remained mystified by the barren state of his garden.

I should feel guilty, and I do, a little. Enough that I toss the two containers in the trash, feeling a pang of regret for taking the one thing he loves from him.

But I wanted so much from my father, and he disappointed me.

Some people just don’t have it to give, though.

I sit on the porch to catch my breath in the evening summer heat, curling up on the swing where Carey once turned my life upside down. Tucking my skirt around my legs, I’m half-asleep when I hear a truck pull up.

Blake doesn’t get out right away. He stares at me through the windshield, and I think maybe he’s been crying. Even from this distance, I can see how red his eyes are. He finally gets out and I meet him on the steps, clenching my hand around the banister for support.

“Is Carey okay?” I ask, worried.

His hands clench into fists.

“Blake?”

“Yeah.” He laughs, but the sound of it is angry. “That bastard is just fine. I just got off the phone with him. He told me the truth, Q.”

Shocked, I sit on the top step with a thump that jars me. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s gay. He’s fucking gay, and he let you take the rap for him this year. He says he didn’t know how everyone treated you, that you never told him. But fuck, what did he expect?”

“You told him?” I ask, though I can see the answer on his face.

“Every damned insult,” he says vehemently. “The ones I know about anyway.”

Well,
I think.
At last.
I should feel vindicated. Triumphant because the truth is out. I can’t figure out what emotions are winding through me, but none of them resemble happiness. I wonder who else knows and what the consequences will be for Carey.

“I want to hate him,” Blake continues, sitting on a step below mine. “But he cried like I was breaking his damned heart. I’ve never heard him cry.”

He shakes his head. “How could he lie to me like that, Q?”

“Sophie,” I say quietly.

“What?” he says.

“My name is Sophie. Not Quinn. Not Q. It’s Sophie.”

Nobody gets why this is important to me, but I’m done
being who they think I should be. I am Sophie, whether they like it or not.

“Okay,” he says, sounding confused.

“I don’t think he lied,” I answer. “Not to hurt you, anyway. Maybe he hid who he was because he didn’t know if you’d still be his friend.”