“You can’t stay out forever.”
“I’m going on-site for a few days.” I walked up to my closet to grab luggage. I haphazardly threw things inside the bag. Generally, I had a list and a luggage divider to help me compartmentalize my belongings.
If only I had those for my brain.
“Wasn’t she supposed to join you?” Claire asked, studying me.
“Yes, but I’ll tell her not to.” I made a mental note to send Elizabeth an email in the morning. I couldn’t do it tonight. I wasn’t even sure I could type out her name right now.
Claire sighed. “And after that?”
I tossed a pouch of coffee beans into my bag. “By then, I will have processed.”
Hopefully.
They stayed quiet while I moved around my space collecting items: toothbrush, toothpaste, moisturizer. I needed clothing.
In the smallest voice, Claire asked, “So, she’s really Lily? What are the odds of that?”
Dean elbowed her. She winced but kept her gaze on me. She wouldn’t retract the question.
I dropped my head again. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”
“Did she know it was you all this time?” Dean asked. His curiosity seemed to overtake his gentle and un-prying demeanor.
I nodded. “Seems so.”
“Whoa.”
Again, I nodded.
Claire made her way to my kitchen, where she tossed a few snacks into my bag. “Maybe she’s got a reason.”
“Anders has been insinuating that she’s using me,” I said, facing the words as they left my mouth but keeping my eyes fixed on the bottle of shampoo in my hands.
“But you’ve been chatting for years. You can’t tell me this was a multiyear scheme?” Claire said. “Have you packed towels yet?”
I shook my head, and she threw a few towels my way. I caught them with one hand and jammed them into my bag.
“Anders is wrong,” she said.
Elizabeth could seduce anyone if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to seduce me. I knew it wasn’t just that.
“This is how I process. I have to look at every option, every scenario, even the unlikely answers. I have to play them out in my mind over and over against my damn will, okay? I don’t want to be this way. This is how my brain works.” I could feel my lip quivering. “I wish I could let things go. I wish I didn’t ruminate.”
I replayed the look in Elizabeth’s eyes when I’d asked her if she knew.
With growing frustration, I added, “But I am sure she kept it from me when she figured it out and she kept… flirting with me. As LilyandElizabeth. I wasn’t imagining it, and now I don’t know what happened when. When did the lie start? She’d given me a fakename. How much of what we shared was real?” My voice cracked open along with my heart. “Every night after spending the entire day with me, alone, she chatted with me like nothing was different…” I massaged my forehead. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Maybe she was scared of this.”
I sat on the armrest of the couch. “Maybe I should apply for some positions abroad.”
“I’ll die without you.”
“Fine, but at least survive the next few days, okay? I won’t be very accessible. The signal up there is pretty terrible.”
Dean drummed his fingers on his thigh. “William’s got your laptop, by the way. I can pick it up if you need it.”
