Page 279 of The Lies We Play
“Is he someone from your past?” he asks.
The second question lands closer to the skin.
I nod. My voice drops. “Yes.”
“Are you safe?”
I think about that for too long.
His eyes change.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m safe. I have help.”
“You need help from him or because of him?”
“We got help from people who care about him,” I say automatically.
I don't say Creed.
Not here.
Not yet.
“About me,” I add, because that is also true, and I don't know what to do with the fact that it is true.
Moises nods once.
His jaw works.
“Livia,” he says, “I won’t ask you to tell me more than what you believe is necessary, but this feels so unlike you.”
I almost laugh.
Not because it is funny.
Because I don't know what like me means anymore.
I reinvented myself because everyone praised reinvention when the alternative was grief. I became a conservator. A provenance researcher. A woman who restores damaged things with tiny tools and great patience, who can look at a cracked panel painting and know the difference between what time did, what neglect did, and what someone tried to hide.
I became useful.
I still don't know what happened to the old Livia. The one who loved without apology. The one who wore a ring and believed paperwork could protect a vow from violence. The one who let two men touch her left wrist in an East Village tattoo parlor and thought forever was a thing people could choose hard enough.
Bella is going at full speed now.
My hand on the edge of the counter has gone from a small, irregular shake to the rhythm she takes when something I have not allowed myself to feel finally clears the wall of my mouth and finds my body. I close my hand into a fist to make her less visible.
Moises looks at the fist.
Then at my face.
He crosses the room.
He doesn't touch me.
He stops at the corner of the counter, close enough that I can smell his cologne, the one he started wearing six months ago after I said I liked it once. He sets his palm flat on the marble next to my closed fist.
That is Moises.
