A Fine Mess (Over the Top #2) - Kelly Siskind Page 0,72
other options, I steel myself for the truth. If I lose him in the end, better to have it all on the table, my oddity on display. Still, heat stings my eyes, my chest and neck burning.
Soon he’ll know I’m not his Venus. I’m just a girl with a problem, who’s about to lose the boy she loves. But the constant lies are draining—lies to my mother, Kevin, my friends, telling Grace her husband’s belongings have been donated when I’ve hidden them at my farm. Humiliation coats my tongue, the bitterness worsening by the second. In the end, I may lose Sawyer, but I can’t keep on like this. It’s time, finally, to ask for help.
Waiting on me, he hugs me close and stiffens. “Your heart’s beating out of your chest.”
“I’m sorry,” is all I manage. “I didn’t want to tell you. Or anyone. I just…”
He pulls his head back, the skin between his brows puckered in a tight line. “Whatever it is, I’m not going anywhere. And we’re not leaving this room until you tell me. So, unless you want your folks thinking I’m into kinky sex, I suggest you start talking.”
He makes it sound so simple, like telling him will make everything okay. I won’t be strange. I won’t feel the need to shop compulsively—buy, store, keep. They make shows about people like me. Freaks. Addicts.
When I don’t answer him, he dips his head so we’re eye to eye. “If I told you I love you, would it help?”
My breath catches. The room swims. He can’t. “You can’t. You don’t know me.”
“I can, and I do. If I’m not mistaken, you’re kind of taken with me, too. If you deny it and keep telling me I can’t love you, I’ll just fall harder. The whole reverse psychology thing still works like a charm on me.”
If he does, the fall when he realizes who I truly am will hurt that much more. The type where you never land. Still, hope whispers through me. With or without him, I need to face my issues. But if he knew, maybe it wouldn’t feel so consuming, with a lover to share the burden. If he knew.
He kisses my head, both eyes, my ear. “I love you,” he whispers. “I fucking love you, so deal with it.” He hugs me tighter, his heart racing in time with mine.
You’re mine, I’m yours.
Instead of telling him how far gone I am, how much I love him, too, I say, “I shop a lot.”
Poundpoundpound
Whywhywhy
Why am I different? I wait for the floor to drop from below my feet, the walls of my room to crumble. Nothing happens. He moves and pulls me with him to my bed, sitting cross-legged on my quilt, asking me with a nod to do the same. He inches closer, until our knees touch, then he takes my hands. “What does ‘a lot’ mean?”
“More than normal. And I never give the things away.”
“Does this have something to do with those stories you invent? Like at the antique shop?”
I search his face for judgment but find only curiosity and worry in his soft, brown eyes. “A little, I think. No…it does, it definitely does.” I frown, unsure how to describe the feeling that overtakes me when I see things I want—need—wondering if there’s a way to sound less crazy.
“Can you explain it to me?” he says. “I’d like to understand.”
His knees press against mine, his fingers tracing soothing circles on my palm. There’s no point sugarcoating this for him. Time to let my crazy shine. “It started when my nana died, when my mom wanted to donate her stuff. I’d always shopped before that, a bit more than was normal, and always secondhand things, but I didn’t think anything of it.”
I stare at our knees as I spill the whole shameful story, my gaze locked on the rips in my jeans. Keeping my nana’s things in a storage locker until my inheritance came through. Buying the farmhouse. Slowly filling it with more things—purses, quilts, clothing, jewelry—hoping to keep their owners alive. How in times of stress, the purchases and stories keep me grounded. My web of lies. The embarrassment, the guilt. How the need comes in waves, so much so that I convince myself I’m fine. That if I want to, I can walk away from the farmhouse, as though I have some semblance of control. Then Jim passes and I’m drowning again, my compulsion controlling me.