Page 8 of The Lies We Play

“Livia, look at me,” Dad orders.

“We have to take her,” Mom begs. “Keep her sedated until she’s safe.”

“Don’t touch me.” I try to pull away, but my body betrays me with a pathetic half-movement. “Get Creed. Get Halston. I need⁠—”

“Push two milligrams.”

“No.” Panic rips through me. “No, don’t. I have to⁠—”

A nurse presses a needle into my IV.

The room begins to blur at the edges.

I fight it.

Of course, I fight it. I fight traffic patterns, poorly formatted spreadsheets, men who say “circle back” when they mean “avoid responsibility,” and every soft little attempt the world makes to move me out of my own life.

But whatever they give me is stronger than terror.

Stronger than rage.

Almost stronger than love.

Almost.

The last thing I hear before the dark takes me again is my own ruined voice dragging their names out like a prayer.

“Halston. Creed. Please.”

Chapter Two

Livia

Now . . .

The next time I wake, the room is wrong.

Not just different.

Wrong.

The air tastes cleaner. The ceiling is higher. The curtains are pale and expensive in a way no hospital has ever managed without also charging three thousand dollars for a Tylenol. Someone has washed my hair. I smell almond, cream, and a stranger’s careful hands.

A window is cracked open. The landscape looks . . . new, different. Not New York, not Boston. . . not even Connecticut.

Bells ring somewhere beyond it.

I lie there for a long time before I let myself understand what that means.

I'm not in the same hospital.

I'm not close to home. What is this? California?

Not sure, but I feel their absence. I'm not close to Halston or Creed.

The names move through me, and grief follows so fast I can’t separate one from the other.

Halston.