Page 38 of Love and Lies

I heard a whispered curse word, and something banging. Had it come from the storage closet? Dread filled my bones as I crossed the room in a few purposeful strides. The second I opened the door, Helena almost ran into me.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked.

She stared at me in shock, a dark blue hoodie in her hands that seemed vaguely familiar. It had been among Adam’s things—it was a Columbia hoodie, although he’d gone to Cornell. And then suddenly it dawned on me.

“Was that why you came here today?” I asked coolly.

“Jessiah, I wan—” she began, but I cut her off.

“Is that why you’re here? To get Valerie’s hoodie?” I stared at her, bewildered and furious—and then just furious when I saw in her eyes that I’d guessed correctly. “So you come here, acting all friendly and serving me up some fake apology, just to steal something from my apartment? Did you pull that stunt with the car to trick me into going outside so you could look around in peace?”

She took a few steps away and put the hoodie back in a box, presumably the one she’d found it in. “The apology wasn’t fake,” she said, but she sounded so guilty, it confirmed my suspicions that everything else was true. So the whole thing had been a setup. And I’d totally fallen for it.

“Did it ever occur to you to just ask me for it?” I asked angrily. “Oh no—you Westons wouldn’t do that. Everything neatly behind closed doors, that’s just your style!”

Helena raised her chin, and I saw that familiar anger in her eyes again—her go-to emotion when it came to me. “As if you’d have just given it to me, after how things went down at Tough Rock.”

“Of course I would have!” I snarled. “Do you think I want to keep anything that belonged to her?” I pushed past her, picked up the hoodie, and pressed it roughly into her hands. “Here, take the damn thing. Before I set fire to it.”

She grabbed it, her fingers touching mine, and for a second we both paused. There was so much left unsaid, along with everything that had passed between us today. But then I pulled my hand away, went straight to the front door, and opened it. “I think you got everything you wanted.”

She didn’t meet my eye as she picked up her jacket and stuffed the hoodie into her bag.

“Thank you for the pasta,” she said quietly as she passed.

“It was in no way a pleasure,” I replied darkly, closing the door behind her. I leaned back against it and swore loudly.

Fucking hell. How could I have been so stupid? I knew what that family was like, how the Westons went about things when they wanted something. And yet I hadn’t seen it coming, and had let her make a complete fool of me. There was just something about that girl that made me let my guard down in the vain hope that she felt the same way I did.

In that moment, one thing was for certain, I swore grimly to myself: it would never happen again. Helena Weston was dead to me.

Once and for all.

18 Helena

My heart was pounding against my chest the whole taxi ride home. My body seemed to know how close a call it had been and wasn’t about to let me relax—to say nothing of my guilty conscience. And on top of all that, once I’d thanked Malia for her help and said goodbye, I was extremely late for dinner. Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. How had everything gone so wrong?

I could still feel the disappointment on Jessiah’s face like so many pinpricks, and that stayed with me more than anything else. Except perhaps the moment when we’d made eye contact over dinner, and I’d felt, more than ever, that there was something between us. Something neither of us could explain, and yet we both couldn’t ignore. I’d enjoyed our conversation so much—the laughter, his honesty, the way he’d looked at me. Nothing about coming back to New York City had felt so good as that half hour.

I felt a punch to the gut when I realized he would never look at me the same way or talk to me like that again. I could still hear him cursing through the apartment door as I ran toward the stairwell. He was angrier than ever at me. And he didn’t even know that I wasn’t there for the hoodie; I’d come to steal a notebook from his dead brother’s personal items.

I exhaled heavily through pursed lips, staring out the taxi window. I shouldn’t care what Jessiah thought or felt. And yet I felt shitty for going behind his back.

My mother was waiting for me in the hall when I got back to the apartment. She was perfectly put together in a gray checkered ensemble and matching shoes.

“Where have you been, for goodness’ sake?” she asked fiercely. “Paige will be here with her parents any minute, and you look like you’ve been living on the streets. Didn’t I tell you to get rid of that jacket?”

“Sorry. The traffic was a disaster,” I lied, cursing myself for even wearing my leather jacket today. But I hadn’t planned on being so late to dinner; usually I was able to slip it off and hide it before my parents could see me in it.

“Well, hurry up, then. And put on the dress I bought for you, please.”

“You bought me a dress?” I frowned. It was only Paige’s family, and strictly speaking, they were below us in the social hierarchy. Why was Mom making such a fuss about this dinner?

“Yes, since you seem to have no interest in your own wardrobe. Now get a move on, Helena, or you’ll be unacceptably late to the party.”

I simply nodded and ran upstairs, clutching my bag tightly. In my room, I took out Valerie’s hoodie and hid it, along with Adam’s notebook, behind the loose board in my closet. If my mother found it, she’d only start worrying again whether it had been a good idea to bring me back. I could pretend to have bought the hoodie for myself, since I also went to Columbia now, but Valerie’s sweater was too faded to pass for brand-new.

It wasn’t until I was done that the dress laid out on the bed caught my eye. It was powder pink, with a tulle overlay and delicate lace sleeves—exactly the kind of style I used to wear before I left. Seventeen-year-old me would have flipped out with excitement, but twenty-year-old me pulled a face. I took a quick look at the label: Dolce & Gabbana. This dress had probably cost more than a thousand dollars. Why would my mother buy me something like that without asking first?