Page 192 of The Lies We Play

The words come too fast.

“No. Not yet.”

The pain in his voice undoes me.

The hurt in those words undoes me. I want to reach him, find him. Console him because I can’t stand knowing what this is doing to him.

“I have to wait.” He sounds like waiting is violence.

I close my eyes again. The city keeps moving around me. Coffee orders. Brakes. A horn. The world is conducting business while the three of us hang suspended in a story none of us agreed to enter.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“For what?”

“For her. For you.” My mouth twists. “For . . . I feel like I’m causing all this pain, and I’m useless.”

“You’re not useless.”

“Creed, I am hiding from my stepmother behind a decorative gate, holding a burner phone like a divorced accountant in a crime drama. Let’s not romanticize my contribution.”

A breath leaves him, it’s almost a laugh. It warms me in places I don't know how to name.

“There he is,” Creed murmurs. “My guy.”

The tenderness is too much.

I look away, as if he can see my face through the phone. As if he can see the exact moment I become softer than I trust myself to be.

“Don’t,” I say.

“Don’t what?”

“Sound like that.”

“Like what?” He asks.

“Like you’re relieved I still resemble the old me.”

Another silence.

Then Creed says, quieter, “I am.”

“What do you need from me?” I ask.

Creed’s answer comes fast. “Stay visible.”

“That seems counterintuitive.”

“To the asset, not your family. Do not go anywhere isolated. Do not confront anyone—” He pauses, then adds, “Listen, the old Halston would try to make their life miserable—don’t.”

I scoff. “Sounds like I was fun.”

“You were,” he chuckles. “It doesn’t matter who you are now, though. I know your essence is still there, and I’m here for whatever you need.”

“It sounds ominous—or like a goodbye from old Hal,” I suggest, there’s something in his words that sounds clinical, almost distant.

He chuckles. “Nah, apparently I need to deal with the fact that I might not get the old Hal.”