“But before I say anything else—” she swiped at her eyes leaving dark smudges on her cheeks, sucking in a deep breath “—I have to ask you something.”
I waited, promising myself I wouldn’t cross to her or try to touch her until invited. Strangely, this promise didn’t seem as big as it had yesterday when we were in the pool, or when we were on the couch. Last night I’d promised myself not to touch her, and it had been torture.
Today? It was self-preservation.
When she didn’t say anything, I prompted with forced calm, “Fine. What do you want to ask?”
She licked her lips, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, a nervous habit I hadn’t noticed before. “If I lied to you, would you forgive me?” she finally blurted, shutting her eyes.
Lied to me? I straightened my back.
“About what?” The question slipped out, unplanned.
“No. I’m not—it could be about anything, okay?” Her eyes opened again and she stared forward at my neck. “If I lied to you at any point this week, would you be able to forgive me?”
My mind was racing with worst-case scenarios, my stomach sinking. “Did you sell those drugs? To those kids?” More unplanned questions, but what could I do? She was acting so crazy.
“No.” She was back to whispering again, giving me a clue that the question had upset her. “I didn’t do that. I would never do that.”
I believed her. But the next obvious choice made my throat tighten with the urge to rage.
“Are you back with Tyler?” I asked roughly, determined not to raise my voice, but I was already so jealous. I didn’t want to be jealous. I’d never been jealous. But I was so fucking jealous in that moment, the cloud around my vision turned red.
Fuck.
I’d never experienced anything like this before.
I hated it. Hated it. It felt like being branded with a million tiny hot pokers.
“No.” Her glare turned distracted. “But it’s something like that—” her eyes came to mine, still guarded, still off, still wrong “—something just as bad as that. A lie that big.”
I’d never been so frantic before to recall previous conversations. I went through every day, every interaction, every word that I could remember. I came up empty.
“What is it?”
“Would you forgive me?”
I nodded but didn’t answer out loud, trying to convince myself while also dealing with this insane jealousy. I would. I would forgive her anything. I would—