Space (Laws of Physics #2)(32)

So beautiful.

Faking it or not, even sorrowful, even pale and tear streaked, this woman was unbelievably beautiful to me. Ethereal beauty, not of this world, inhuman in its hold over me. There was something else about her, devastating gentleness and strength, ruinous sweetness and vulnerability despite the severity of her intelligence. Or maybe because of it?

And a genuineness that was so convincing, despite everything I knew to be true, I believed it.

I knew for a fact that she was a fucking liar . . . and yet I believed her to be genuine. How was that possible? How did that make any sense?

Another pulsing wave of heat pushed me toward her, one that demanded action and urged me to go to her, grab her, and finally, finally fucking kiss her. I ignored it by telling myself that she wasn’t really the one I wanted. She wasn’t my Lisa.

She’s not my anything.

Instead, I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and bit it. Lowering my eyes to my hands, I held the lip in place until the impulse dwindled and I could trust myself to speak.

But when I did, I spoke to my palm because I didn’t trust myself to look at her. Not yet. “I thought it was just more of me being crazy, grasping at something that didn’t exist. But then, the next day, or maybe the day after, I caught an interview you gave on Fox News, or maybe CNN. You ended a sentence under your breath with, ‘And then the wolves came.’” Another sound of amusement escaped my throat, and I admitted softly, “And that’s when I accepted it.”

She was quiet for several moments. I sensed she was looking at me, but I wasn’t ready to look at her. The urge to kiss her hadn’t yet fully passed. I waited for calm, for my heart to slow, for my chest to expand enough for me to breathe normally, but it—all of it—never happened.

Sitting there, unable to look at this woman, this liar without craving the feel of her in my arms, I confronted the pitiful truth: I still wanted her. Or maybe, I still wanted the idea of what she represented.

My muse. My inspiration. The desire in me to take care of her, and the hope that she’d take care of me in return hadn’t diminished. It lived in me, a constant corrupting companion, a foolish optimism that refused to yield. It was the reason my mind drifted to her before falling asleep, the reason she’d appeared in my dreams and was on my mind when I awoke. The reason all my songs were ultimately about her.

But why? I shook my head, tracing the lines of one hand with the thumb of the other, asking myself for the millionth time, Why her?

Six days. It had been nothing. We’d barely touched. We’d never kissed. Why did the idea of this woman feel so essential? I thought we’d clicked seamlessly into place. Together. Counterweights that balanced a scale. I’d given myself over to the idea fully, without reservation. And she had been a lie.

“What do you want?” Mona asked softly, her voice steadier than before. “What can I do?”

Again, I spoke without thinking, “I don’t want to be crazy.”

“You’re not crazy. You’re right. I was . . . it was me. It is me.”

No. It wasn’t you. It’s not you.

I readied myself, and then lifted my chin to level her with a glare. Mona swallowed, but otherwise she didn’t move, and she didn’t look away. The tears had dried on her face, but her nose was still red, and her eyes were still glassy.

God, how I wanted to touch her, to brush away her tears and whisper words of forgiveness. Without reservation. But I wouldn’t, because that would make me actually crazy.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I was exhausted. What was the point of this? Why keep asking questions? Nothing could change the past.

I’d fallen for the contradictions, the surprises, how she’d challenged my expectations. I’d felt the pull, the draw intrinsically, without searching for it, without giving it much thought. With “my Lisa,” I’d never had to force the wonder, and being soft hadn’t seemed so hard. But this person wasn’t her. All of it had been imagined.

And yet, even knowing, I asked softly, “Why’d you do it?” Her reason didn’t matter, but I wanted to know.

“She needed my help.”

“Lisa? How so?”

“She’d been arrested.”

I blinked at that, the puzzle I’d thought was finished suddenly had another piece. “Lisa was arrested?”

“Yes. She called from lock-up the night before I arrived. She asked me to help her, to be her, to take her place until she was released. She promised me it wouldn’t take more than a week.”

“And you did it.” It wasn’t a question. Obviously, I already knew the answer.

“She’s my sister.” Mona’s voice broke on the last word and she finally looked away, her eyes moving to some point over my shoulder, her lips forming a stubborn line.

Unable to tear my eyes from those lips, I mentally filled in the rest of the story I hadn’t realized were blanks, and it all made so much more sense: Gabby’s hovering, the missing phone and wallet that “Lisa” didn’t care about picking up from the post office, how exhausted real Lisa had looked the morning after Mona left, why real Lisa hadn’t budged on telling me the truth. She’d been in jail.

“Abram.”

The pleading edge in Mona’s voice had me looking at her.

“I wanted to tell you.”