Lost King by Piper Lennox (moboreader txt) 📗

“How do I know you’d be telling me the truth?”

She freezes. Gradually, her arm lowers.

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” she whispers.

Finally, we both shut up.

That’s the crux of it, I realize—why we could stand here all night, arguing in circles, explaining the past and present to death without getting anywhere. We can’t trust each other.

I don’t know what it is that finally gets me out the door. Anger, heartbreak...probably some ugly fucking hybrid of both, because I don’t even notice myself doing it. I’m just suddenly in the Jeep, eyes stinging in the heat bouncing off the fogged windshield.

When it clears, I look up through the glass.

Ruby watches me from her front porch. The light from her living room hits her back, turning her into a silhouette.

Maybe it’s better if this is the last look I ever get of her: her face, tears, and everything I’ve memorized completely obscured.

34

My alarm goes off at five.

At five-twenty, I call out of work.

I didn’t sleep. Shapes and shadows danced across my ceiling until I couldn’t tell which were the shifting trees outside, and which were projections from my own exhausted, fevered brain.

“I didn’t film us, Ruby.”

“That webcam wasn’t mine.”

Some part of me knows this is a good thing. A great, wonderful thing. It’s even better than Theo changing, no longer the heartless boy I thought he was; it means he wasn’t heartless to begin with.

If only I could get myself to believe it.

Too many details spawn too many questions. Our versions of that night don’t align. He says it was Paige—her own sick version of revenge.

All I can think about is how kind she was. Not just to me, but to all of them. I saw it. I watched that group every summer and saw her laughing, kicking up sand at her friends and braiding other girls’ hair, teasing newly formed couples around the bonfire, and offering people blankets and jackets when the wind was too strong. She didn’t sit and seethe with jealousy or spit cruel remarks at anyone, like Vivi and Cate. She was the one who invited me to the party in the first place.

But...

The word keeps carving up my skull.

But she was the one who invited me.

She was the one who pushed drinks into my hands.

She wanted to go upstairs.

“Find Theo.”

The rest of the puzzle pieces slam around behind my eyes until I can’t stand thinking about it. It’s too much to fit together. Nothing makes sense.

All I know is that I’ve lost the first thing in my life that did.

At six, I get up and force myself into the shower. The water leaves my skin red and raw, but still doesn’t feel hot enough.

I spend a long time just standing there, crying.

Theo said my plan worked perfectly, but he was wrong. Yes, I did what I originally set out to do...but I never thought the explosion would get me, too. I was supposed to be so far removed when it happened, it couldn’t touch me.

When I get out, nose stuffy from crying and head spinning from the shower’s heat, I swipe off the mirror fog and look at myself.

Focused eyes. Straight teeth. A slimmer face and better hair and better everything than how I used to be. But not a better person.

All those years, I studied my reflection and grew to despise what I saw. That hatred was nothing compared to what I’m feeling now.

By seven-fifteen, I’ve managed the impossible feats of getting dressed and combing my hair. I can’t eat. Even the coffee I brew makes me sick.

It’s a disgusting day. The weather is fitting: cold rain and high winds that seem to push every wall inward. I lie on the couch under the afghan Aunt Thalia crocheted me as a graduation gift and poke my fingers in and out of the holes, the way she told me not to.

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

Every date plays in my head at once. Every night in his house, my bad memories being replaced with ones of deep kisses and white-hot touches, private piano concerts and slow confessions. My old wounds closing up until, finally, I trusted him. Or thought I did.

I keep circling back to that night at the Falls, and how the mist froze my face while his chest warmed my back, all the way through.

“I thought what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

“Not always.”

How right I was. It’s not always the fall that gets us. It’s the complications.

At noon, I open our text thread. I tell myself it’s just to check in—a quick apology, maybe, and a request to meet up in a few days, once things have cooled down.

Instead, I ramble on and on about how sorry I am. How I didn’t mean for anything to happen this way. How I changed my mind, and why that should matter more than my original intentions.

How I don’t think I’ve fallen for him anymore. I know I did.

After twenty minutes of rereading until it doesn’t even sound like English, I still can’t decide if it’s worth sending. Maybe some things are just too broken to fix.

I decide to leave it up to fate. From the bowl of coins and gum wrappers I empty my pockets into every evening, I grab a quarter.

Heads, I’ll send it. Tails...the message gets deleted.

I close my thumb up in my fist and position the coin on top.

My eyes close. I hold my breath.

I flip it.

Only when it hear it hit the table, spin for a moment, and roll into silence do I open my eyes and lean close.

Heads.

The couch screeches into the wall when I sit back, phone in hand, and read the message again.

I