Page 338 of The Lies We Play
“Yes, you do.” I take his hand again before he can hide it from me. “You deserve time. You deserve answers. You deserve a life that isn’t managed by the people who hurt you.”
“Hal,” Creed says, voice low. “Yes, you do.”
Halston looks between us.
His eyes are red.
His face is wrecked in a way he would have hated anyone else witnessing.
Good.
Let us witness.
Let us be the place where he doesn’t have to survive alone.
He says, “Liv.”
“Yes?”
“I remember the bar.”
Everything in me stops.
“You remember—”
“The book. The jersey. The way you looked at me like I was a problem you were trying to decide if you wanted to solve.”
I laugh.
It comes out half sob and half a sound I haven’t made in ten years. It's something young and broken open; something that belongs to the girl at that bar and the woman standing here, both of us hearing him come back piece by piece.
Halston’s mouth does something I haven’t seen since the morning we signed the certificate.
He almost smiles.
“I remember you telling me about Creed,” he says. His eyes move to Creed. “And how much I’d love him when I met him.”
Creed’s hand drops from Halston’s neck.
Not because he wants to let go.
Because the sentence hits him so hard, he needs both feet on the floor to stay upright.
Halston breathes in once, and his face changes again.
Serious.
Frightened, maybe.
But certain.
“I remember everything.”
The apartment seems to shrink around the sentence.
My hand covers my mouth.
Creed doesn’t move.
