The Lie(81)

Melissa is halfway inside the door. Brigs has a firm hold on it, trying to shut it on her, and he turns his head to look at me. I meet his eyes and give him the nod to let her in.

He opens the front door wider and she barges inside, hustling right over to me, her eyes flashing.

“What the f*ck are you doing?” she cries out, pointing at him while she stares at me. “How long have you been lying to me?”

“Why are you following me?” I question in return.

“Because I know you’re a f*cking liar, that’s why,” she sneers, waving her arms about. “There is no Bradley in the art history masters. I checked.”

“You checked?” I repeat incredulously. “Why? Why the hell couldn’t you just believe me?”

“Because,” she says, turning to glare at Brigs. “I knew, I knew that he was still hung up on you just as you were hung up on him.”

“Melissa, please,” I tell her, trying to get her to calm down. “I don’t understand. Yes, I lied, but only because I knew you wouldn’t approve. That’s all. You said if he contacted me at all, you’d report him, and that’s the last thing I wanted.”

“Oh, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you because you had to lie? All you do is lie, Natasha. When you first met this wanker, you didn’t tell me anything about it at all. I only knew about him because I showed up at your door. You kept him a secret from me—your best friend.”

Oh god. My heart sinks a bit. Is she really that hurt over it still?

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I told you I was sorry. I was just so in love—”

“That’s bullshit,” she says to me. “Love. You don’t know love. You said so yourself, you left your mother, your single mom, behind in California so you could come out here and do your own thing! At least you have a mother. I don’t even know mine. I was raised by my father and stepmother. And you gave that up and you gave up your acting career in LA. I mean, who do you think you are? That you’re so special you can just cast that shit aside? Do you know I’d kill for that? You have f*cking everything, and then there are people like me, people who struggle, people who have nothing.”

Holy f*cking hell. I can only blink, the blood whooshing loudly in my head. I look over at Brigs and he’s watching her carefully, seemingly as taken aback as I am.

“Melissa,” I tell her, trying to find my voice. “I’m sorry you think that, but you know that’s not me. That’s not my life.”

“Yeah right,” she says, tears coming to her eyes. “You’ve always been better than me in every way. You’re prettier, taller, skinnier, more talented, smarter. You’ve always managed to get by in life, and then on top of all that, you end up having a married man fall in love with you, or so you thought.” She glares at Brigs. “He just wanted some young twat, that’s all.” She turns her vicious eyes back to me, and I’m caught between feeling sorry for her and being completely angry. “And that’s what you gave him. Couldn’t you just for once have passed him up? Couldn’t you have let someone else have him?”

“Who, you?” I ask.

“His wife,” she says. “That’s when I really knew what you were like.”

I shake my head, the tears threatening my eyes, my chest a raging mess. “I don’t understand. Why pretend to be my friend then? Why act like you cared?”

“Because I liked that you needed my help,” she says almost painfully. “I liked that you were at rock bottom and needed a friend, and you only had me. You finally made me feel useful. I was important to you. I was worth something. You have no idea what you’re like, Natasha. You live in your head. You act like you don’t need a soul in the world. I see you pretending to care about the world around you, but you have some different f*cking world inside you, a place you go to, and that’s just not f*cking fair. Everyone else has to be out here, suffering, and you can retreat. I wanted to see in you pain, Natasha, because it’s the only way I knew you were f*cking human!”

“Okay,” Brigs says in a stern voice, coming toward us. “It’s time for you to go,” he says to Melissa.

“Fuck you,” she says. “You’re just as bad as she is. So single-minded. Nothing else but her matters in your world. And nothing else but you matters in hers. You wormed your way into the toughest of hearts. Congratulations.” She looks between the both of us, stepping backward. “You guys deserve each other. Heartless and cruel and too good for the rest of the world. You realize what you did, right? That if you hadn’t f*cking fallen for each other, two people would still be alive in this world.”

Brigs’ face turns red, his eyes becoming hard as iron. He points to the door. “Get the f*ck out or I’m calling the bloody cops.”

“Call the cops, then,” Melissa says. “And I’m calling the school. You can’t f*ck the students, Professor McGregor.”

“She is not my student,” he says through clenched teeth, the muscles in his neck standing out.

“I don’t think that will matter much when I report you,” she says. She looks at me, her expression suddenly becoming meek. “I told you, Natasha. I warned you. I said that if he ever looked at you, came after you, contacted you, I would end his career. And you believed me. That’s why you hid all of this from me.”