Page 219 of The Lies We Play

“I’m okay.”

Her eyes narrow, waking up fast now. “Where’s Hal?”

“Bathroom. He’s washing his face.”

She is quiet for one beat.

Only one.

Then she says, “Something happened between the two of you.”

I close my eyes. “Liv.”

“Are we okay?” she asks, and there it is—not panic, not doubt, but the quick reach of someone who loves the structure of us and needs to know if any beam cracked while she was asleep in another country.

“We’re okay,” I say.

Her mouth relaxes a little. “Then what happened?”

“He told me about Annaline.”

“Oh.”

Her voice doesn't change pitch.

It doesn't need to.

The whole screen seems to go softer. Her face, her eyes, the light behind her, the pillow pressed against her shoulder. She looks less sleepy now and more tender, which is worse because I know what it costs her not to be there.

“I guess that’s good,” she says. “I have been waiting for him to tell one of us. I am—in a way I can’t explain—glad it was you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” She sits up a little, the sheet slipping down to her waist. “You hold things differently than I do. I want to fix them. You just . . . stay.”

I breathe, taking the words in.

“Tell him I love him,” she says. “Tell him I am coming home in nine days. Tell him I am going to ask him a question when I get home, and he has to be ready for the question.”

I open my eyes fully.

“Liv.”

“Yes.”

“He wants to marry us.”

Her smile appears slowly.

It’s soft, like she has been standing beside this truth for months and I am the one who only just walked into the room.

“We decided to get married before he said we’re moving in ‘temporarily,’ Lafontaine.”

“It was temporary,” I insist.

She gives me a look that belongs in a courtroom. “It was never temporary.”

“Temporary,” I repeat, not sure why.