13

I could feel how shaken up Troy was. The air was that electric between us. The sound of my cry probably was echoing as loudly in his ears as it was in mine. Tears burned my cheeks. Gradually, the visions of terror receded and fell back into that dark place that was behind a door I had hoped was permanently sealed after all the therapy and the passage of time. The depth and intensity of my emotional wounds surprised me. I was ashamed and frightened again. All I wanted to do was curl up in a fetal position in some dark corner and disappear like Mother in the safety of her shadows.

“I’m . . . sorry,” Troy said, although he had no idea why he had to say it. A little indignation stirred his pride when I didn’t respond. “I thought we liked each other enough for a kiss.”

“I do like you. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault,” I said, and wiped away the lingering tears. “I’m not . . . right yet. I shouldn’t have gone out with you and given you reason to believe I was. Just take me back, Troy. I’m sorry. Really. Please.”

He started the car and carefully turned it around. I curled up against the door.

“We’re both not right yet,” he said after a long silence. “But we’ve got to try, or at least want to try.”

We were back on a road lit with streetlights and the windows of homes, but I didn’t feel any less tense. The resurgence of the danger and pain I had suffered swirled about me like rings of fog. His words only resurrected the hours and hours of therapy and that repetitive warning my therapist practically chanted: You’ve got to try.

Of course, I had to try; I wanted to try to behave normally, to welcome affection, to trust someone enough to risk being disappointed, but all of it was as hard as walking up a hill made of ice. Right now, I wasn’t in the mood to measure Troy’s or anyone else’s pain against mine.

“I’m not going to play ‘you tell me your bad story and I tell you mine,’?” I said. “I’m sorry.”

I was really beginning to hate that word sorry, but I didn’t know what would work better. I knew I sounded mean and angry, but right now, I couldn’t find any other appropriate response. I was angrier at myself than I was at him for what had just happened, but I didn’t think he’d understand the reasons, and I had no idea how to begin explaining.

The silence that followed felt like a widening dark crevice. I could see he was thinking long and hard. When he didn’t speak, I concluded that this was it; my short-lived budding romance was over. I began to prepare myself for the myriad questions that would be tossed over me like a fisherman’s net ba

ck at the dorm. Eventually, it would bring in the big catch, my recent history, and I would have to leave Littlefield, leave with the question of what was a good alternative now. Maybe I should join the army or the Peace Corps and go live in some third world country where no one would care who I was and what had happened to me.

“You don’t have to tell me yours,” Troy finally said through clenched teeth.

I didn’t blame him for saying it. He had every right to be upset with me. “I understand how you feel,” I said. I tried not to sound magnanimous. That would only make someone with his pride and ego angrier, but it was difficult not to sound like that.

“No, you don’t understand,” he said. He finally turned to look at me. “I lied to you that first night we met.”

“What? What are you talking about? What lie?”

“When you had come outside to speak with your father, and I told you I was just taking my usual walk. I wasn’t. I was actually hoping to see you, and when you came out, I lay back in the shadows listening, because I thought you might be talking to a boyfriend. I heard most of what you said.”

The chill that had come over me turned into a surge of heat before it finished climbing up my neck. I was speechless, trying to remember what details I had revealed during that phone call. At a minimum, he certainly knew I had a sister.

“I heard enough to be more interested, and then I did some research on the Internet and found your story.”

I didn’t know whether to be angry or frightened. Perhaps I would be both. His confession churned up reasons for both.

“Don’t worry about it,” he quickly said. “I wouldn’t tell anyone anything, especially at school.”

I stared ahead silently. What was his next comment going to be? Would it be blackmail?

“Frankly, despite what happened back there just now, after reading about you, I anticipated you would be worse. For one thing, I didn’t expect that you would go out with me so soon. Because of that, I assumed you had made more progress recuperating from it all.”

“You should have told me,” I said. “You shouldn’t have lied.”

“I was afraid to once I had done it. I didn’t want to drive you away so quickly. I was selfish, and I was wrong, but I wasn’t lying when I said we were birds of a feather. I wasn’t abducted or raped or anything like that,” he added quickly. “But you were right when you recognized that I had my secrets, too.”

“I don’t think I want to hear about them,” I said petulantly.

“No. I don’t blame you. Ironically, I’ve destroyed exactly what I was trying to win, your trust.”

“Yes, you have,” I said.

He sat back to drive and was quiet all the way back to Littlefield. When he pulled into my dorm parking lot, I told him not to bother getting out to open my door. He reached for my arm when I opened it.

“I meant everything else I said to you, Kaylee. You’re not different simply because of what happened to you. You’d be head and shoulders above the other girls no matter what. I really like you, and I was wrong to lie to you. I know you feel . . .”

Tags: V.C. Andrews The Mirror Sisters Suspense
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