When the last of them had disappeared down the street, I turned to go somewhere else—anywhere else—and ran headfirst into someone’s chest. He was already walking in the opposite direction down the sandy shore when I looked up. Even far away, even with his back to me, I knew him too well. His tall, slightly slouched shoulders. The sheen on his wavy chestnut hair.
“Theo?”
He paused, then kept walking.
“Theo, wait.”
I was propelled after him, latching onto his bicep. He turned around, and when he did, I nearly lost my breath. His stare was harsh, his jaw hard. Those green, green eyes were so pained. With the sunlight behind him, he looked like a fallen angel.
“You were just going to keep walking?” All the strength in my voice was gone. “Like you’d never seen me before?”
The words my family had said were fresh in my mind. Theo was down in the most deserted part of the beach, and there was no reason to be here. But above us, I could see the black satin elbows of my brother’s bomber jacket, my sister leaning over the edge, lips twisted in a bored pout.
Has he been watching me? Following me? Taking care of me?
He leaned forward, and I closed my eyes foolishly, breathing him in, as if he was going to kiss me.
There was too much water between us.
I couldn’t trust him, but I couldn’t hate him either.
A salty, breezy moment passed before I opened my eyes. He was feeling the sharp point of my tiara. So sharp it had cut many maids. His eyes were on me. Soft. Sad. So not the boy who’d broken me just a week ago.
“Are you happy?” he asked.
Theo knew better than anyone this was my dream come true. My hair was messy from trying to rip the fucking tiara off my head. I’d been all but forced into the shower yesterday. Ned was above us, hidden from view like the cockroach he was. Each second another piece of my heart sloughed off like papier-mâché.
I’m sleeping with the light on again.
“Yes,” I lied.
The one time I wanted him to catch me in a lie, he just nodded to himself.
“Your party, it was good?” he asked. “You got the presents?”
“I didn’t get a chance to open them,” I admitted.
He pulled his hand from the tiara until he was almost touching my cheek. I could feel the whisper of his fingers on my skin. I just needed to step forward and he would caress me like he had a hundred times before.
Why did you lie to me?
Why did you leave me?
Why won’t you come back?
“Truth or promise, Theo?” My words were barely a whisper.
His brow furrowed. I was sure he would say no, leave me dangling on the spiderweb of lies and half-truths we’d built.
“Truth,” he said.
“Did you lie to me when… at the ball?”
Theo clenched his jaw so hard the muscle twerked, watching me with a such a painfully intense stare my belly ached, and then his fingers brushed my forehead. I closed my eyes again as he pushed a strand of hair behind my ear with a tenderness so opposite the tension in his body.
“Yes,” he finally said.
I opened my eyes. “Why?”