Page 30 of The Lies We Play
Creed: roof custody co-chair
I stare at it.
Then I look at him. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Good night, Livia.”
“Good night, Creed.”
I open my door.
I step inside before I can change my mind.
After I close it, I stand with my back against the wood.
I hold onto his sweatshirt with both hands, gripping the fabric the same way I would have wanted to hold onto him.
On the other side of the door, his footsteps linger for one second.
Then they move away, and it makes me wonder where this will lead us.
Chapter Five
Halston
Now . . .
The first time I hear her laugh, I am in a boardroom full of people discussing charity as if it’s an acquisition strategy.
No one else hears it. She’s not even here.
That’s probably the problem.
One second, Margaret Ellery is talking about Florence, compliance, access protocols, and some other phrases designed to make theft sound administrative. The next, a woman’s laugh moves through the back of my mind—quick, dry, intimate enough to touch skin—and my hand forgets how to hold a pen.
It slips.
The silver clip taps the walnut table once. Margaret stops mid-sentence. My cousin, Everett, looks at me from across the table with my father’s pale eyes and my family’s talent for making concern feel like surveillance.
“Halston?” he asks. “Are you all right?”
There it is.
The opening move.
Not ‘Are you listening?’ Not ‘Do you disagree?’ Not ‘What do you remember?’
‘Are you all right?’
Such a neat little weapon when placed in the correct mouth.
“I’m fine.”
My voice comes out even. Of course it does. I have spent ten years learning how to sound intact in rooms where everyone is waiting for proof I'm not. If I crack, they will not call it grief. They will call it regression. They will send me somewhere quiet with excellent linens and discreet medical staff, and another man in a cashmere sweater with patched elbows asking me to name five things I can see.
Right now, I can see twelve vultures in tailored clothing.
I can see the water carafe that no one will touch.
