Page 12 of The Next Lie

Her throat works, a hard swallow that looks painful. For one second, I think she might throw something at me—a lamp, a curse, the entire weight of the last fifteen years. Instead, she turns her back. It’s a surrender that feels heavier than a fight.

I step behind her and find the zipper at the top of her spine. My fingers brush the skin at the nape of her neck, and she goes rigid. I stop immediately. Ever stops too, though he is several feet away. That's how closely we are both watching her, tracking every micro-tremor of her skin.

“Just me,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.

“I know that.”

The words are clipped, angry. Good. Anger means she’s still fighting. I lower the zipper inch by inch. The dress loosens around her ribs. Her shoulders dip forward as if she can finally breathe, then stiffen again when the fabric gapes down her back, exposing the fine-boned line of her spine.

Ever goes to the vanity and pulls out a clean washcloth. He finds a bottle of makeup remover I forgot I owned—left behind by some ghost of a woman from a different life. He wets the cloth and comes back.

“Sit,” he tells her.

Reva looks at him, then at the closed toilet lid he’s pointing to. She sits. No argument. The lack of defiance makes my pulse kick in a way that has nothing to do with desire. It’s the sound of a perimeter failing.

I crouch in front of her while Ever kneels to one side. Her dress has fallen loose around her chest, and I keep my eyes strictly on her face because this is not that kind of undressing. Wanting still knows how to breathe in the room, but tonight it’s keeping its hands to itself.

Ever lifts the cloth toward her cheek. “I’m going to take this off.”

She blinks at him. “The makeup,” he adds softly.

“I know what you meant.”

There’s a little bite in her voice now. Ever’s mouth barely moves, almost a smile. He dabs the cloth beneath one eye, careful around the ruined line of mascara. Black streaks come away against white cotton, looking like ink on a page. Reva watches his hand as if she cannot understand how something so ordinary could still be happening while her world is in flames.

Water rushes into the tub behind us, filling the room with a rising bank of steam. The bathroom light is too bright, too honest, so I lean over and flick on the smaller wall sconce instead. Softer. Warmer. Better for hiding the things we aren't ready to face.

Suddenly, I'm desperate to fill the room with something other than this damnable tension.

“We’ll figure this out,” I say.

Her gaze cuts to mine, sharp as a glass shard. I should have known better. I do know better. But the words come anyway because I’m weak when women cry and worse when they refuse to.

“We will,” I continue, because stopping now would make it a lie. “Nash is with Deacon, giving him the third degree. He’ll get answers.”

“Everything will be okay,” Ever says quietly.

Reva goes very still. Ever realizes the mistake half a second after I do. She lifts her face away from the cloth, her eyes wide and wet and dangerous.

“Will it?” she asks.

Neither of us answers. We can’t. Her mouth twists into something that isn't quite a laugh and isn't quite a sob. “That’s what I thought.”

“Reva—”

“No.” She stands so suddenly Ever rocks back on his heels. The loosened dress slips an inch, and she catches it against her chest with a white-knuckled grip. “No more of that. No more of the soothing. The managing. The careful voices like I’m a bomb somebody left under the bed.”

I stand slowly, keeping my hands visible. “You can be a bomb tonight, Yank.”

“I’m not asking for your fucking permission.”

There she is again. Bleeding, half-broken, but her spine is coming back one vertebra at a time. God help me, I want to kiss the anger right out of her mouth, but I don’t move. That would be another kind of theft, another way of not listening.

She looks from me to Ever, her chest heaving. “What exactly did it look like?”

I hold her gaze, refusing to blink. “What?”

“Noir,” she says, her voice rising. “Delia. Deacon. Nash sending me out like I’m too fragile to hear words. What did it look like to everyone else?”