Chris has goneout when I find it.
He said he had a meeting, a “boring work thing” and would be back for dinner. He kissed me and left me alone in the house, which still feels a bit strange.
I’m not uncomfortable, but the only personal items in the entire place belong to me. My toothbrush, sweater, a few hair ties on the counter, and the clothes I brought over from my apartment.
Maybe I’m being a snoop, but I decide to explore the house.
There’s really nothing to explore. No other furniture, no pictures, no nothing. I go to the closet to grab some sweats I brought over, but the door doesn’t open all the way. Something’s blocking it from the inside.
I push harder, and the door gives way. Something big and heavy falls from the shelf above and lands at my feet.
A duffel bag.
It tips over, and out spills countless stacks of banded cash. More money than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Beneath thecash are two driver’s licenses with Chris’s photo but different names.
Beneath that is a phone I’ve never seen before and something that looks like a folded-up blueprint titled Pacific Waves Bank and Trust. I know that bank. Why does Chris have blueprints to a bank in his closet?
I freeze. I don’t touch anything. I just stare.
My hands are trembling, and not the romantic trembling I get when Chris is around. This is the kind that comes from a chill going down your spine. I stand there, unmoving, waiting for the floor to fall out from underneath me.
Fake IDs…stacks of cash…a burner phone…and a blueprint.
Every potentially sketchy detail about Chris I chose to ignore comes crashing back over me like a wave. The book on security systems, the way he took apart those muggers like it was nothing, the empty house with no personal information. The way he so skillfully deflects every personal question like a man who’s spent a lifetime lying.
Jules’s voice echoes in my head.
Men get those tattoos in prison…you don’t know anything about him…
And then the truth hits me like a punch to the gut. She was right. Jules was right about everything.
And I told her she was wrong. I just told her he was good, that I trusted him.
God, I let him take my virginity and whisper a fantasy to me about a house by the water where we’d spend our days together. And this whole time, he was lying to me about who he was. Who heis.
I close the closet door and fall back on the bed. I want to cry, but I can’t. Not yet. I’m too angry for tears. Those will come soon.
Chris knowsthe instant he walks through the door.
I’m on the couch with the lights off. The sun is going down, and the house is dark, aside from the last strip of purple over the ocean.
I haven’t done anything since the closet. I’ve sat here thinking, replaying every moment, every conversation, every kiss. Looking for cracks in his story and finding dozens.
He stops at the doorway, eyes on me, reading me the way he always does. What he sees makes him go still.
“What’s wrong?”
I almost snap at him. “Who are you?”
Silence. A long, heavy silence. Even from the couch, I can hear him breathing.
“Avery—”
“I found the bag, Chris. Cash, fake IDs, another phone, and a blueprint?” Somehow, I’m keeping my voice steady, and I’m proud of that. Because inside, I’m falling apart. “So tell me who you are. Right now. Or I walk.”
He closes the door behind him and moves slowly into the room like he’s approaching a wounded animal. He doesn’t sit. He just stands in front of me with his hands at his side. Slowly, the mask he’s been wearing all this time falls away.
“I rob banks.”
