Page 74 of 56 Days
“Just gone eight.”
“Look,” he starts, “about last night—”
“Maybe this was a mistake.”
Her tone isn’t angry or upset, just flat and tired.
But he thinks he can detect an invitation in it, as if this isn’t a declarative statement but a proposal that he’s being invited to discuss.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on his part.
“I don’t know anything about you,” Ciara says, “except what’s in the present tense. What you like. What you’re like. What you’re like with me,tome. Under normal circumstances, that amount of information might be a normal amount to have. I mean, we’ve known each other, what? A month now? But there’s nothing normal about this. We’re living together,beingtogether,twenty-four-seven. But I haven’t met a single other person who knows you. No family, no friends, no colleagues. I was just sitting here thinking, if I had to prove you are who you say you are—”
“Why would you need to do that?”
“—what evidence would I have? On the one hand, it’s like you’re this mystery man, but on the other, you’re the closest person in the world to me right now. It’s like we’re on this road where there’s two lanes going in the same direction, one accelerating everything, the other one slowing everything down, and I’ve got a wheel in each one and I’m stuck. And last night... You made me afraid, Oliver. You made me feelafraid.” She bites her lip. “Of you.”
The words make his chest tight with pain.
“I didn’t mean to,” he says. “I just wasn’t thinking... No, Iwasthinking, but only about how I’d told Kenneth you’d moved back to your own place, and what would happen if he found out I’d lied... And I was right, wasn’t I? Itwasa false—”
“Don’t,” she says in a tone that instantly silences him.
A beat passes.
“I’m sorry,” he says then. “But I can’t undo it. And I’m not trying to excuse it. I can only explain what was going through my head and promise that it won’t happen again.” Oliver pauses to take a deep breath. “So where does that leave us?”
She looks away.
“You know, I could say the same about you,” he says tentatively. “I only know what’s inyourpresent tense.”
“But the difference is Iwantto know more.” Ciara stretches to set the coffee cup on the table, then settles back into the couch and folds her arms: defensive pose. “You don’t seem to be at all interested in the rest of me. Not that there’s anything particularly interesting or exciting there, it’s just... Sometimes I’d just wish you’dask.”
He can’t, of course, tell her the truth about why he doesn’t, which is that he can’t tell her the truth about himself. The more she shares, the more he’ll owe it to her to do the same, and the more lies he’ll have to tell to fulfill that bargain.
If she shares details about her family, he’ll be forced to admit he’s only in contact with one member of his. If she recalls adventures from her teenage years, he’ll have to cover up the fact that he missed his entirely. If she lists her dreams, he’ll have to come up with a good reason for why he doesn’t dare to have any.
Lies are spindly, unwieldy things. Delicate filaments, like bundles of nerves in the body. Easy to twist, hard to control, impossible to keep hold of.
He tries not to tell any more of them than is absolutely necessary.
He says, “What do you want me to ask?”
“Well...” There’s a hint of a smile on her face, which relaxes something inside of him, vents a little fear from the pressurized chambers of his chest. “I suppose I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to rant about how my mother is the worst person in the world. Or about how my best friend up and left for Australia—just abandoned me to go and have this absolutelyamazingbloody time, and I kind of hold it against her that she didn’t ask me to go with her, even though I know I would’ve said no. Or about how I’m not sure I like this job, or want it. I don’t knowwhatI want. I have no clue what my passion is and I worry that I don’t have one.” A pause. “Okay, so. I’m realizing now that I’m just giving you excusesnotto ask me questions.”
“No, no.” Oliver smiles. “All good stuff. Very much looking forward to hearing all about it.”
“You’re going to have to do amuchbetter job of faking being interested than that.”
“Iaminterested.”
Her face falls serious again. “Then why don’t youask?”
A version of the truth is always the safest bet.
“I just feel like I don’t need to know all that right now,” he says. “I kind of like our blank slates. No baggage. Nothing weighing us down. We have these stories we tell ourselves—and other people—aboutourselves, based on what happened to us in the past, or what we did, or decisions we made, and then they become our future just by the telling. It’s like a...”
“Self-fulfillingprophecy?” she offers.
