Page 2 of The Lies We Play

I know that so clearly it almost hurts worse than my ribs.

Okay, is having a voice and . . . Where is Halston? I try to look around, but my neck hurts.

I try to ask, but nothing comes out.

I try again, and my voice scrapes out, ruined and thin.

“Hal.”

The nurse goes very still.

It’s a tiny thing. A pause. A fraction of a breath.

Most people would miss it.

I have built an entire personality around noticing what people try to hide while pretending to care about others.

“Halston,” I rasp. “Where’s Halston?”

Her face shifts into something gentle.

No.

I hate gentleness.

Gentleness is what people do right before they remove your organs with a sentence.

“Let me get the doctor.”

“No.” I try to sit up, and pain tears through my side so fast that the ceiling swims. My right hand grips the sheet. My left one lies there, twitching, uselessly decorative. “Creed. Where’s Creed? Call him. He’ll know what to do. He always does.”

There’s another pause.

Worse.

“Please,” I whisper.

The nurse says my name again, too carefully, and something inside me starts coming apart.

I want to scream. I want to sit up. I want my phone, my purse, my shoes, my men, my whole life.

Most of all, I want answers in bullet points. I want a timeline. I want a competent adult with a clipboard, a liability waiver, and a healthy fear of disappointing me.

Instead, I am trapped beneath a thin hospital blanket while my own body refuses to obey basic instructions.

My eyes burn.

I close them.

For one terrible, beautiful moment, the hospital vanishes.

And I am back in Halston’s apartment the night before.

Barefoot on the couch. Knees tucked under me. Creed’s old Juniper Ridge sweatshirt is swallowing me whole, sleeves past my wrists, collar stretched from years of him pretending he doesn’t keep sentimental things while owning a garment with more emotional history than most marriages.

I borrowed it months ago.

Halston calls it theft.