Page 54 of Love and Lies

Eli took a deep breath in and out. Then he said, “I’ll say we worked out together,” seeming relatively confident again. “That’s worked before. Take me to Dad’s, okay? Please, Jess.”

I gave a sigh. “Okay.” I turned at the next left and crossed over to Sixth Avenue again so we could head north to where Henry lived.

“You’re not going to say anything to Mom and Dad, are you?” my brother asked anxiously.

“Have I ever done that?” I always covered for Eli with his parents, no matter the situation. “Do you want to tell me what happened? Why were you at Bryant Park by yourself?” It wasn’t on his way home from school, and he didn’t know anybody who lived around there. At least as far as I knew.

“I… I’m going to this new therapist, you know?” he began hesitantly, playing with the rubber band he wore around his wrist, which was supposed to prevent panic attacks by the slight sting it provided when he snapped it against his skin. “The exposure therapy one.”

“I know,” I muttered. I was still against it.

“I had my third session yesterday, and she told me I had to start gradually putting myself in situations that make me anxious, so I thought…”

“You thought you’d dive right in,” I finished the sentence for him. “And where was Frank?” Frank was Eli’s driver, the ex-marine responsible for getting him safely to and from school and other appointments.

My brother’s head sank. “I told him I didn’t need him, that Dad was going to pick me up. Then I took the bus. Jonathan in my class got a puppy and said I could come by to see it. I thought it’d be a good opportunity—you know how I love dogs, and I really wanted to go visit. But I didn’t even make it to Jonathan’s front door.”

“For crying out loud, Eli,” I sighed. “You didn’t really think pulling a spontaneous move like that was going to solve all your problems, did you? What the hell were you playing at?”

“I don’t want to be a freak anymore, Jess!” he burst out. “I don’t want to be scared all the time! I want to meet my friends and go to school without having to worry about it! I hate that these fucking panic attacks are controlling my life, don’t you get that?” He took a deep breath and exhaled again. “Of course you don’t get it. As if you’ve ever been afraid of anything in your life.”

I let out a snort. “Of course I’m afraid. All the time, though maybe for different reasons than you.” I remembered Helena, pinned to the wall by Pratt. But I pushed that thought aside.

“You packed a bag and emigrated to Australia when you were eighteen,” argued my little brother. “That’s braver than anything I could ever do. I couldn’t even get on a plane by myself without freaking out.”

We’d arrived at Henry’s apartment building, and I pulled in before switching off the engine and turning to face Eli. “I was running away,” I said candidly. We’d never spoken about it before—all I’d told him was that I had to see something else besides New York City. But Eli was fifteen now—he could handle the truth. “I couldn’t stand being in this city anymore after my dad died and everything else that happened. It wasn’t some courageous move; it was just a way out.” One with fatal consequences—look what had happened to Adam.

“I can’t stand it here either,” Eli said quietly, looking out the window. He sounded so helpless and desperate, it broke my heart. I’d said after the kidnapping that Eli might not be built for the big city, just like me. But my mother obviously didn’t want to hear a word about moving to somewhere less central. Whenever I brought it up, she would start talking about boarding schools in Europe, but that was the last thing Eli wanted or needed. So I stopped mentioning it and just did my best to prevent the attacks.

“You know what we’re going to do?” I tried to strike a positive note. “We’re finally going to drive up to Swan Lake again this weekend.” Swan Lake was where my dad’s farm was. It wasn’t a working farm anymore, but the place was still maintained, and if I called ahead, they would get the main house ready for us.

“Do you think Mom and Dad will let us?” Eli asked doubtfully.

“Let’s find out.” I opened my door decisively.

Like my mother, Henry lived in one of the most modern buildings in the city, only this one was slightly smaller than Coldwell House. The concierge greeted Eli and me before we took the elevator up, and I waited as my brother unlocked the apartment door. His father was already waiting in the hall, clearly pissed.

“Where were you?” he snapped at his son. “You should have been here an hour ago. Why didn’t Frank pick you up?”

Eli shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, Dad, I… I had…”

“It was my fault,” I jumped in. “I told Frank I was going to pick Eli up from school. We played a round of basketball down at the pier and lost track of time.”

Henry fixed me with his dark eyes, and I knew what he was thinking: the whole time we’d lived in the same house, I had done nothing but lie to him. We got on okay these days, but nevertheless, he knew that I would always take Eli’s side. “Thanks for dropping him off, Jess,” he said simply. “But I’d like to talk to my son alone now.”

I raised my chin. “Actually, I was hoping I could speak to you for a minute,” I replied. Although we’d lived under the same roof for four years, Henry and I had never gotten particularly close, but since Adam’s death, there was at least something akin to respect between us.

The story of how Henry became part of our family wasn’t long in the telling. He was ten years younger than my mother and had started as an assistant in the firm—which was how they’d met. It didn’t surprise me that they’d seen something in each other; they were both equally intelligent, ambitious, and obsessed with success. Trish had married him after dating for just six months; a year later, Eli was born. I was living with my father at the time, but Adam had told me at some point that Henry was eager to have children of his own. Probably his way of attaching himself to Trish and CW for all time. And with moderate success—he had shares in the company, but he hadn’t managed to establish himself in a leadership position before they got divorced. If Eli were to join the firm in a few years, that could change. So it was all the more important to Henry that Eli become a functioning member of society.

Henry nodded curtly. “Okay. Eli, go get changed, we have to get to your grandparents’.”

My brother grabbed his bag and went to his room.

I followed Henry into the kitchen, which reminded me a lot of my mother’s—the decor in the whole apartment was just as cool and sterile, only here, almost everything was black rather than white.

“So what is it?” he asked, without offering me anything. “We’re really very late.”

“It won’t take long.” I leveled him with a look. “I’d like your permission to take Eli up to the farm one weekend. We used to do it before, and it always really helped him.”