The Lying Game Complete Collection - Sara Shepard Page 0,455

turn and walk down the mountain without saying another word. But like I always do with Garrett, I rise to the bait. “You liked these shorts just fine the other day,” I snap. Just a few days earlier we’d gone to see some boring superhero blockbuster together, and he’d been so distracted by my legs draped over his lap that we didn’t do much watching.

“That was before you were wearing them at midnight in the middle of nowhere,” he says. His words slur sloppily together. “Are you trying to get attacked?”

I know why he’s saying this, where his venom is coming from, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I turn away from him to hide the tears in my eyes. “Go home, Garrett. You’re drunk, and you’re being a real asshole.”

But he reaches out and grabs my arm. “Stop trying to act like you’re so innocent,” he hisses. “Stop trying to make me feel like the bad guy. I know what’s going on.”

“You don’t know anything,” I say angrily. After everything I’ve already been through tonight, I don’t have any patience for one of Garrett’s temper tantrums. “And I really don’t appreciate you acting like I’m a total ho just because I want to . . .” I can’t finish the sentence. All summer, I’ve been hoping that Garrett and I could cement our relationship, that we could finally take it to the next level. I think part of me has been hoping, deep down, that if we finally make love I’ll be able to commit to him and him alone, that I’ll be able to let go of Thayer and quit all the sneaking around and lying. I’ve given Garrett about a thousand opportunities to seduce me, and he’s rebuffed me at every turn. It’s almost enough to make a girl doubt her own charms—except I know it’s just Garrett’s own weird hang-ups holding him back. He’s been funny about sex, ever since what happened to his sister.

Now, though, I’m glad we didn’t go all the way. I don’t want to be with him anymore. What Thayer and I have is so much more real than anything between me and Garrett. I just can’t believe it’s taken me this long to see it.

“I know what you’ve been doing out here, who you were with,” Garrett says. He lets go of me, and I stumble backward. My wrist is tender where he gripped it.

“Why? Have you been following me?” I think about the feeling I’ve had all night that someone’s been watching me, and my skin crawls. “That’s gross, Garrett.”

He gives a derisive snort. “You know, I went to Nisha’s house tonight. Looking for my girlfriend?” He says the last word almost sarcastically. “Since that’s where you told me you were going to be tonight, after all. But they said you hadn’t been there all night.”

I shrug. “I decided not to go to Nisha’s lame party. So what?”

“So I was pulling out of her driveway and just happened to see you running up the trail. I thought I’d come up and surprise you. But you weren’t out here alone, were you?”

The clouds around the moon shift, casting weird wispy shadows over the trail. To my left, Tucson sparkles like it’s made of fairy lights. To my right is the drop-off to the ravine. This is the part of the trail my father used to warn me about—when I was a little girl he’d make me hold his hand as we passed the drop. He’d always told me that the cliff was too steep for climbers to rappel down, and that there were bodies no one had ever been able to retrieve at the bottom. A shiver runs up my spine.

“Admit it,” Garrett says, his voice ragged. “You were with Thayer, weren’t you?”

My mouth goes dry. I don’t even have the heart to deny it anymore. But I don’t want to admit the truth right now either—not in the middle of nowhere, when he’s this drunk, this angry. Before I can move, he rips a sapling up by its roots and snaps it in half, screaming with rage.

“Goddamn it, Sutton!” His voice echoes, ricocheting around the ravine below. He throws the broken halves of the little tree over the side, and I watch as they are swallowed by the darkness. “How could you do this to me? I love you.” He pulls at his own hair, grabbing it with his fists.

Terror flashes through me, and suddenly I think of the