The strangling lies.
They’re finally snapping free, letting us fall into truth’s destruction.
“Until it stopped being safe,” I mutter. I can’t fucking breathe, feeling Alena slip through my grasp, and I can’t hold on, confessing, “Until I came around.”
She looks at me, eyes wide, wondering. “What? You? What do you have to do with them?” She asks about me, Nash, and Vale, having no idea how we’re connected.
God, if I could take away Alena’s pain, I would.
Please, give it to me. Not her.
But she stammers, turning back to Vale. “And… and you love my dad? Likelovelove him?”
Vale nods, sobbing. “I’m so sorry, but I do… I mean, Idid. But he lied to you. To me. And now I don’t know what to feel.”
My gut twists at the most lethal word—LIES.
All they do is make you question love.
And it’s instinct; I reach for Alena, but it’s too late.
She pulls away. “Lied? About what?” She asks Vale and Nash, “If you two are… Whatever… Then yeah, it freaks me out. A lot. It’s weird. I never saw it coming, but it’s not a lie that you’readults. You can do what you want.”
It’s ironic.
I stand in the truth’s wreckage, watching Alena prove the maturity Nash has always underestimated in her. I told him she’s stronger than he knows. If he had only believed me.
She reasons about her dad, loving her best friend. “So, am I pissed?” She shouts, “Yes! Will I get over it? Give me a goddamn chance to breathe, and maybe I will!”
And I just wait.
Wait for Alena to catch up. Wait for her to realize how deep the lies and secrets go, and how I’m dying at the bottom of it all.
I just wanted to love her.
“So why the hell are you freaking me out?” Alena challenges her dad. “Days before I get married, and what does this have to do with Loch?”
She turns to me, eyes pleading to understand. “What’s going on?”
“Alena, I…” I choke. I cry at the pain in her eyes, knowing I’m about to lose her. “Babygirl, I love you. Please believe it. You have to…”
I want to rewind the clock. To ask her when she was fifteen, on the beach, about what book she was reading. We would’ve fallen in love then. Simple. Fated. Forever. I know it.
But now?
“Nash,” Mom calmly directs, “go speak with Alena, and we’ll wait here. Then, she can speak with my son.”
Alena’s brown eyes widen in shock, and I close mine, bowing my head in shame.
“Yourson?” Alena gasps, overwhelmed.
I’m right here with her. I can’t find my breath inside this pain. I don’t deserve to.
“Come on, sweetpea.” Nash pulls her away. “Just, please,” he urges, “let me tell you everything, and then you can hate me as much as Vale does.”
He’s trying to make Alena feel better, but it’s not working. Everyone she loves has lied to her. A betrayal the soul fights to survive.
And I know it’s the right thing for Alena’s sake. To hear it from her father first, but goddamn, I need my chance to fight for her.
