NICK
I never liked lies. I’m an honest guy, blunt, sometimes harsh – but I stick to my word, even when it hurts. Even when it could destroy someone’s life.
I’m honest even when no one asks me to be; I’ve decided to live in the sunlight, without any worries or emotions. Apart from my family, I live with nothing concrete surrounding me.
Sometimes, because of my honesty, people think I’m an idiot: a dickhead who only thinks of himself. A selfish bastard.
Maybe that reallyiswho I am: and I’m not ashamed of it.
But being honest means that you expect people to be honest with you – and it doesn’t always work like that.
People lie: sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes to hurt you, and other times because they’re scared. And that’s the most justified kind of lie – at least, that’s what I used to believe. Until I was the one telling that lie.
A huge, great lie. Something that will take my life, rip it up, and indifferently toss it away.
What are you supposed to do when you realise you’ve been lying for years, hiding something so important that it changed your life forever? When you don’t know how to face it? When it could also change someone else’s life?
Do you just squeeze your eyes shut and take a leap of faith? Or do you turn on your heels and pretend that nothing ever happened?
If it were you telling the lie, would you deserve to be forgiven?
And, more importantly: would you ever be able to forgive yourself?
Prologue
NICK
Two years earlier
Iroll over onto my right side, burying my head under the pillow to try and escape the morning light bursting through the window. Nothing seems to be muffling the drill that someone seems to have installed into my brain. I peel one eye open, trying to decide whether to keep sleeping or listen to the alarm bells in my stomach and run to the bathroom. Nausea creeps up my throat, suffocating me. It was a terrible decision to get drunk last night like some stupid student on their first night out.
I grumble as I roll onto my back, pulling the pillow away from my face and opening both eyes. I stare for a few seconds at the ceiling, before turning my head to the side; first right, then left. Dozens of cardboard boxes fill the almost-empty room. The only things left are the bed I’m pinned down to, the bedside table next to it, and a wardrobe in the corner, where her white dress is hanging.
Images of the night before start to take shape in my mind, making me jump out of bed and head straight for the bathroom to throw up last night’s alcohol, hopefully along with my stupidity.
I splash some cold water onto my face and dab it dry with a white towel dotted with pink flowers. I close my eyes, hoping to send myself back to sleep right there on my feet in her bathroom. Maybe, if I’m lucky enough, the flames of hell will devour me and pull me into the ground.
I let the towel fall from my face and take a look in the mirror above the sink.
Yep, still me.
The world’s biggest arsehole.
* * *
I pokemy head into the kitchen, where she’s staring fixedly out the window. I clear my throat, making her turn to face me: what I see in her eyes only confirms what I already knew.
I’m fucked.
I approach the table and sit down, dropping my forehead onto its cool surface and closing my eyes again. I try to work out how this happened, how I took that wrong step; how I managed to screw up not only my own life, but someone else’s too. I can’t quite work out how I got from giving her a hand to sending everything up in flames.
“Nick.” Her voice is a whisper, but it pierces my heart.
“How the hell did this happen?” I ask weakly, without lifting my head from the table.
Lauren comes over and sits across from me, pushing a cup of coffee towards my hands.
I accept it and lift my head, taking a few sips as I try to ignore the mounting nausea. She lifts her knee up onto the chair and hugs it to her chest.
