Page 102 of This Beautiful Lie
And terrified.
Because when Dean looked at me—like he saw me, all of me—I wanted to believe him.
Twenty-Nine
The restof the day blurred into something that felt almost like a dream. The water became our playground. We floated and splashed and explored each other's bodies—then, when exhaustion set in and we could barely keep our heads above water, we sprawled out naked on a sun-warmed rock, eating the food Dean had stolen from the kitchen.
He told me stories of summers past, memories so vivid they almost seemed too perfect to be real—sneaking out with Mason and nearly getting caught skinny-dipping with some girls from a neighboring property. Or the time he and Thomas tried to build a raft from spare lumber and rope, only to sink less than ten feet from shore. I laughed until my stomach hurt, and when I caught him looking at me—wet hair slicked back, eyes glowing with unguarded joy—I realized this was it. This was what life was about. Little moments. Fragments of time that seemed insignificant until you shared them with the right person.
Later, after we’d dressed, he stretched out across a patch of grass, his head resting comfortably in my lap. The trees dappled sunlight across his features, as though trying to memorize him for me, and I found myself doing the same. His lashes lay likeshadows against his cheeks, his mouth soft, parted—lips that had kissed every inch of me only hours earlier.
For a moment I thought he’d fallen asleep, his face angled into my legs as though this had always been home. My fingers moved before I could stop them, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead, smoothing it back into his hairline. His lashes fluttered, then lifted, and when his eyes met mine, something in him softened in a way that made my breath catch.
“Sorry,” I whispered, jerking my hand back. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
But before I could retreat, he caught my hand in his, threading his fingers through them as though to keep me there. My chest tightened as he turned my palm over, tracing the delicate lines. The memory of his grandmother’s voice flickered in me—her thumb pressed to these same lines as she told me what each one meant. As if he’d thought it too, his finger swept across the break she’d shown me. Slowly, he opened his own palm, revealing the same mirrored line.
“We match,” he whispered, almost like he didn’t want the trees to overhear.
My throat ached, but I nodded. “We do.”
Then he turned my hand again, the sunlight glinting off the ring on my finger. His thumb brushed over the band with a kind of weight that made the air shift—gentle one moment, heavy the next—as his gaze lifted back to me.
“What was your childhood like?” he asked suddenly.
The question snagged in my chest, and I paused for a second.
“What childhood?” I finally stuttered, trying to make it sound light, but my voice sounded strained even to my own ears.
Something shifted in his expression, and he pushed up on one arm, eyes searching mine. “You must have stories. You and John—I bet he got into loads of trouble.”
A humorless laugh slipped from my mouth, and I looked out toward the trees as though the shadows could absorb the ache that suddenly filled my chest. “John and I were only in the same home for a few months,” I stated.
For a long time that was it. I went silent. My mind flashed with bits and pieces of a childhood that looked so much different than Dean’s. One where I was alone a lot. Trying to fit in. Trying to matter to anyone with a heartbeat.
I thought Dean had given up on me, that he’d forgotten his question altogether, but when my eyes locked on his again, I found his expression soft, as though he’d been there the whole time, patiently waiting. “Go on,” he urged.
“Honestly, I don’t have many memories,” I began. “And the ones I do have are mostly of getting into trouble.” I plucked a blade of grass from the earth, folded it in my fingers, over and over again. “But the thing is, I alwaystriedto be good. Did my chores. Followed every rule. But…” My voice scraped raw against my throat. “By my tenth placement, I gave up. I stopped trying to make them love me.”
I took a deep breath, as though what I was sharing was more like a confession than a story. “I never graduated, was always hustling, always too much,alwaysa handful,” I whispered.
Dean slid his hand beneath my chin, tilting my face up until I couldn’t look anywhere but at him. His eyes burned into mine, fierce and unwavering.
“You were never too much,” he said in a low voice. “You were just asking the wrong people.”
The words cracked something open in me—like I was being given permission to exist for the very first time. “Wise words,” I whispered.
His knuckles grazed lightly along my cheek, the back of his hand tender against my skin, grounding me in a way wordsnever could. “I’d like to take credit for them, but those words are my grandmother’s.”
A smile tugged at my mouth, a feeble attempt to hide the ache in my chest. “Your grandmother’s a wise woman.”
“She is. A little quirky, but she always had the right words when I needed them.” He hopped to his feet, offering me a hand that pulled me up to stand. “Speaking of my family—if we don’t get back soon, I’m pretty sure they’ll send out a search party.”
I laughed softly, tucking my head against his shoulder as though reality wasn’t something I was ready to face.
We walked back to the lodge in silence, our steps slow at first, as if neither of us wanted to disturb the fragile magic we’d built in the trees. The trail wound on for miles, and for a while it felt like we were suspended outside of time––the world narrowing to only the crunch of pine needles beneath our feet and the fading warmth of the sun on our shoulders.
As the path stretched on, I felt the air shift. The light slanted lower through the pines, shadows lengthening, and with each bend of the trail, reality pressed closer. Voices began to carry faintly on the breeze, distant enough to remind us that the world was waiting.
