Page 28 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
I didn’t want to do either, so instead, I unlocked the phone, pulled up my email account, and sent the email I had drafted earlier before logging out and deleting the history. We had five minutes left until the bell rung, and I didn’t know where this left us.
It wasn’t like I thought we’d figure things out in five minutes, but not trying didn’t feel like an option. I’d meant it when I likened us to kindred souls, chasing away loneliness in each other. I didn’t want to lose that.
I only had a few weeks to go before I was old enough to leave Devils Ridge on my own. Damian shouldn’t have mattered, but he did.
“Princess?”
Oh. I’d been staring. I slid the phone to him.
He stood and pocketed the phone. “See you tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. Tonight.” He slid the chair back under the table. “This doesn’t count as our library date.”
Date, he’d called it.
Shut up, stupid pitter-pattering heart.
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Present
Two things can be said of humans: we will all die, and we are all big, fat fucking liars. By age four, nine out of ten of us have grasped the concept of lying. By the time we become adults, six in ten of us can’t go ten minutes without lying. Those sixty percent? They lie an average of three times per ten-minute conversation.
I know what you’re thinking.
I don’t lie.
… At least not that much.
That’s what the liars in the UMass study thought, too. Point is, everybody lies. A lot.
Even me.
Especially me.
I lie to myself every day.
Each time I’m close to the truth, I slip backward into deception, where it’s safe. Where my heart is safe from the one thing that could save it. But as I saw the indecision on Damian’s face, that hint of vulnerability he only managed to show around me, the truth pushed through for a glorious second, and I grasped onto it.
&n
bsp; Confession: there had been a time when I had loved Damiano De Luca. Seeing him again showed me how little I had healed.
Maybe that explained why I still wanted to save him. Why I wanted to ease his pain and make him feel better. Learning he had a sister had hurt him, and I wanted to take that pain and obliterate it. That should have been a warning for me to run away.
Instead, I straightened my back and lightened my tone. “Come on.” I pressed both palms onto his chest and pushed, easing the tension between us with space.
He took a step back, the moon’s reflection glinting off his eyes. “Come where?”
Good question.
The alley’s brick wall dug into my back, but I didn’t dare step forward into his body. “I have no idea.”
Interest shone in his eyes, but he looked me over. His eyes cataloged my body language before he settled for running a hand over his face. “I should get back to my hotel. It’s getting late. Do you have a car to take you back to wherever you’re staying?”
