stand the thought of going through exactly what we’re going through right now.
“All I do is lie, huh?” I snap. “Well, it’s the Zoric way. You should have known better.”
She glares at me. “Fuck you, Luka.”
The elevator dings and the doors slide open.
“C’mon, Kibby,” she says, tugging the dog’s leash. He’s still hovering at my feet.
But as she wheels her suitcases into the elevator car, the little traitor actually runs to her and sits on a wiggly bottom, gazing up at her with his ears back, anxious for attention. He’s leaving me. They’re both leaving me.
My mind goes blank, and I feel like I’m watching this all happen from a distance. A hole could open up and drop me a thousand feet right here, right now, and I wouldn’t feel a thing. I’m just…empty. Numb.
I know this feeling. It’s one that visited me often as a kid after my mom died, and my father was physically in the same house, but never truly present. When I was upset or lonely or scared, but I had nobody to tell me it would be fine. Part of me would just go someplace else.
“Goodbye,” Brooklyn says, her gaze cold as the elevator doors start to close.
Something in me breaks, and I kick the doors so they slide back open.
“It was never about you and me at all, was it?” I say accusingly.
Her brow crinkles, and her look of hard resolve wavers. “What?”
“All of it. Every moment we spent together. It was never more than a way to further your pathetic career.”
“Pathetic?” she shoots back. “Get the hell out of the way. I’m leaving.”
I keep one foot over the threshold so the elevator doors stay open. “You were a failure when I met you! A nobody. I could have chosen anyone to marry, but for some reason I still can’t figure out, I chose you. But you’re still nothing, Brooklyn.”
“Fuck you,” she says. With that, she kicks me in the shin and I finally pull my foot back. The doors start to close again, agonizingly slow.
I know how to low-blow her to her knees, and I’m going for it.
“You want to know why you didn’t get the job?” I tell her. “Your image was too clean. You’re just not sexy enough, Brooklyn. That’s why they chose Monica.”
I’m acting like a monster and I know it. I wish I could feel regret for what I’m saying, but I can’t. The only thing fueling me right now is the need to defend and protect myself from pain.
Brooklyn jabs the Door Open button and smirks as she hurls her final words at me:
“Well, whose fault is that? Maybe if you’d done a better job of putting me first and not your little fuck buddy Monica, I would have had a fighting chance. But it’s always been about her. You should have just married Monica Shore, so you could be part of the power couple you’ve always wished for.”
The doors slide together and just like that, she’s gone.
I don’t stop her, but her words dig down and rip me apart. I’ve known Monica for years, and I’ve never wanted her. From the moment I met Brooklyn, though, something was different, was real, and that feeling has never changed. No matter what we’ve gone through, we’ve been connected. Stronger together than we ever were apart. I know I’m not wrong, that it isn’t all one-sided. I’ll never tell that to Brooklyn, though, because she’ll just use it against me.
I kick the closed elevator doors, the contact vibrating through me as I storm over to the liquor cabinet to pour myself a drink. As I gulp it down on the balcony, I tell myself repeatedly that I don’t care, that I never wanted Brooklyn to begin with. She can go. I don’t need her.
But the more I try to talk myself into believing it, the more the truth hits me.
I really am a liar.
Brooklyn
Chapter 2
I’m done.
Done trusting Luka, done believing things might actually work out between us, done hoping my career will finally take off if I just let other people make decisions for me. Luka is the whole reason my image turned squeaky clean in the first place. He tried to play it off as some kind of masterful branding strategy, but in reality he was just too precious and too jealous when I did my job the right way—when I’d been free to express myself as a real artist should.
Well, those days are over. I’m ready to become