Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(101)

Before he realized what he was doing, his arm had whipped out and he’d grabbed her chin, forcing her to face him.

“That’s right,” he said, fuming at her flippancy. “I was in love with you, Laire. I would’ve done anythin’ for you.”

She narrowed her eyes, pursing her lips as she jerked her chin from his grasp. “You’re a fucking liar.”

He flinched like she’d slapped him. “No. I’m not.”

She was shaking her head, her face tightening in anger, even as her tears started falling again. “Yes, you are. I know about Van, Erik. I know.”

***

“Van?” he asked, leaning away from her, though he still looked at her face, his own increasingly more confused.

“Van,” she spat. “Remember Van? Your friend Van, who Pete was interested in? The gay couple you were friends with?”

“Laire,” he said, sitting up straighter and leaning away from her, “there’s a reason—”

“What reason?” she demanded. “Oh! So you could date both of us that summer? So you could chase after me every night and and screw her every day?”

“You’ve got it wrong,” he said.

She rebelled against these simple words.

“No, I don’t!” she said. “Stop lying! Everyone in the Western world knew that you were with her, kissing her at a party in Raleigh while I was at my sister’s wedding!”

“Fuck,” he muttered. His eyes shuddered closed, and he bent his head, running his fingers into his hair. “If you calm down, I can explain.”

“I don’t want to hear it!” she cried, hating him for making her go through this all over again. “I know you were with Vanessa that summer! You lied about her being a boy. I know, Erik. You were cheating on me all summer.”

“I never cheated on you,” he said softly, his voice flat, his head down.

“How can you say that? There are still pictures of you kissing her on the internet, Erik! Take out your phone. Let’s look at them together!”

“I don’t need to look at them,” he said, looking up at her. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “But I do need you to calm down so I can explain some things to you.”

“Like how her mouth suddenly landed on yours?” she shouted.

“Like how my mother would have hunted you down if she’d known about you!” he yelled back.

Wait.

What?

Her body was coiled into a tight ball, her knees up against her breasts, her arms around her knees under the shearling blanket, protecting herself or braced to spring.

She searched his face.

She opened her mouth to say something but closed it because his words had shocked her, and at the very least, they sounded like the beginning of an explanation she might actually want to hear.

“I used Van that summer. I used her,” he said softly, all the fight ebbing from his posture as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I let my mother think I was datin’ her so that she wouldn’t ask me questions about you. I pretended she was my girlfriend so my mother would leave us alone.”

“No,” said Laire. “No. That’s not how it was.”

“Fuck,” he whispered, exhaling whatever breath he’d been holding. “All this time. All these years. You thought I was cheatin’ on you that summer?”

“You were,” she whispered, but her voice lacked conviction.

“God, you must have hated me,” he murmured, staring at her with such profound sorrow, she sobbed, looking away from him, unable to bear his pain.

“I thought . . . I don’t understand,” she whispered between sobs. “I saw the picture.”

Peripherally, she saw him nod. “She was at that party. And yeah, as the photographers started clickin’, she leaned over and kissed me. But I didn’t kiss her back. I held her at arm’s length all weekend, while still tryin’ to act convincingly like we were together for my mother’s benefit.”

“No,” she mewled, because the far-reaching ramifications of his words, if they were true, meant that she’d willfully destroyed their chance at happiness, and she could hardly breathe under the weight of what she’d thrown away. “No, Erik.”

“Yes, Laire,” he said, steel in his voice, waiting to continue until she looked up at him through tears. “I was never with her. Never, darlin’. There was only you for me.”

He leaned back into the couch and sighed, long and hard, his gray breath disappearing into the night sky. And she watched him, scanned his face and observed his body language, and all of it told her the same thing: he was telling her the truth.

“You were never with her?”

He shook his head against the back of the couch, then looked over at her, finding her eyes with his. “Never.”

She looked away from him quickly, remembering Thanksgiving night at Utopia Manor—the engagement ring, the way he had his arm around Vanessa. Could it have all been an act for his mother’s benefit?

“I heard you gave her a ring at some point.”

He shook his head again. “Nope.”

She blinked, her brows furrowing with confusion. Then what exactly had she seen that night?

Suddenly he shifted, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his phone. She watched as he dialed a number and put the phone to his ear, turning to nail her with his eyes as he spoke.