So that’s what I did: When it came time to re-enlist, I declined and moved back. Bought us a house, it wasn’t much and her dad let me know that all the time, but I’d bought it and that’s all that mattered. Once I had it furnished, I called her and she finally let me meet my son for the first time.
“Brody!” Olivia snapped, and I blinked away the memory of best day of my life. She held up her hand momentarily to show she was on the phone before continuing. “Daddy said he’d pay you back for the couches, since obviously with your pay you can’t afford what I need to be happy.”
My eyes narrowed. It was almost twelve thirty in the morning, and she was calling her dad to talk to him about the damn couches? I rubbed the sharp pain in my chest and pushed away from the table before standing up. “He can keep his money, I don’t want it. Good night, Olivia.”
“BABY, ARE YOU awake?”
I sat up in my bed less than an hour later and rubbed a hand over my face. “Uh, yeah. What’s up, Liv?”
“I’m so sorry!” She burst into tears and crumpled to the floor.
Aw hell. I hopped out of my bed and went over to her. Sliding down until I was sitting up against the wall, I pulled her onto my lap. “It’s okay, you just have to stop spending our money like that.”
“B-but the c-couch we had w-was three years old!”
“I know, and it was still a perfectly good couch,” I crooned softly. “Jus
t because your parents can refurnish their entire house every few years, doesn’t mean we can, all right?”
She nodded vigorously. “I just—I just needed something to do.”
I took a deep breath in and scrunched my face together as I prepared for what might happen next. I knew this could turn out bad again, but I had to try. “Maybe we should get a dog.”
“A dog? A damn dog? No! You can’t just give me a dog and make it all better, Brody!” She scrambled off my lap and sprinted down the hall, heading for her side of the house.
Yes, I said her side of the house. I normally don’t even see her because she prefers to spend her days at her parents’ house unless she’s in a mood like the one tonight. It usually lasts a week, as this one has, and we go through every emotion possible about fifteen times a day. I try to be patient with her because I know I’m the reason she’s like this, but after four and a half years of this constant happy-depressed-flirty-pissed-horny-sweet-flat-out-bitch roller coaster, I feel like I’m losing my damn mind. And what’s worse? As soon as we’re in public she’s normal Liv—not the Liv I fell in love with in high school, but the one who’s confident in herself and her parents’ money, and the one who will eat you alive if you cross her.
Her door slammed shut and I stood to stumble over to my bed, thankful again that I was able to buy a big enough house that we could have our own spaces. We’d been married for almost six years, and I could count on one hand the number of times we’d had sex in those years. We hadn’t even slept in the same bed since a month after I got back from the army.
As I tried to get comfortable enough to go back to sleep, I rubbed at the ache in my chest and prayed the nightmares stayed away.
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FORGIVING LIES
Chapter One
Rachel
“CANDICE, YOU NEED to focus. You have got to pass this final or they aren’t going to let you coach this summer.”
She snorted and her eyes went wide as she leaned even closer to the mirror and tried to re-create her snort. “Oh my God! Why didn’t you tell me how ugly I look when I do that!?”
I face-planted into the pillow and mumbled, “Oh dear Lord, this isn’t happening.” Lifting my head, I sent her a weak glare. “Snorts aren’t meant to be cute. Otherwise they wouldn’t be called something as awkward as ‘snort.’ ”
“But my—”
“Final, Candice. You need to study for your final.”
“I’m waiting on you,” she said in a singsong voice. “You’re supposed to be quizzing me.”
I loved Candice. I really did. Even though I currently wanted to wring her neck. She wasn’t just my best friend; she was like a sister to me and was the closest thing to family I had left. On the first day of kindergarten, a boy with glasses pushed me down on the playground. While he was still laughing at me, Candice grabbed his glasses and smashed them on the ground. That’s playground love. And since then we’ve never spent more than a handful of days apart.
By the time we started thinking about college, it was just assumed we would go away together. But then my parents died right before my senior year of high school started, and nothing seemed to matter anymore. They had gone on a weekend getaway with two partners from my dad’s law firm and their wives and were on their way home when the company jet’s engine failed and went down near Shaver Lake.