Just One Lie by Kyra Davis

Author:Kyra Davis [Davis, Kyra]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Contemporary
Goodreads: 23492689
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2015-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

DURING THE SHORT drive to Brad’s house neither one of us says a word. I rest my head against the window, staring blankly at the street, practically catatonic.

He parks less than half a block away from his building, gets out, goes to my door, and leans over to unlatch my seat belt. “Do you want me to carry you?” he asks.

I consider not answering but eventually shake my head no.

“Good, you can walk then.” He pulls me out of the car, maybe a little rougher than I had expected. I keep my gaze straight ahead, my eyes unfocused as he pulls me through the entrance gate, through the courtyard, to his front door.

When he lets us in there’s Maria sitting on the couch, reading Details magazine.

“Everything go okay tonight?” he asks her.

She nods, gives her report of good behavior as Brad thanks her, gives her a few bucks, and escorts her to the door. I don’t say a word and I keep my eyes on the wall. If Maria greeted me I didn’t notice it. I sit down on the upholstered chair by the coffee table as Brad goes to peek in on June. When he comes back he stands opposite me, leaning against the wall. I know I need to look at him eventually, although I’m not sure I see the point of it. I know what I’m going to see. Unease, fear, pity, disgust—these are the universal reactions to my behavior. When I was sixteen and my father took me to the loony bin, the nurse who admitted me directed all her attention to my father, making him feel comfortable, letting him know she was going to do everything she could to make the process of getting rid of me as easy and stress free as possible. She was very sympathetic . . . to him. But she never looked at me.

You’d think the whole thing would have made me feel invisible. But oddly enough, that kind of extreme and purposeful avoidance doesn’t make you feel invisible at all. It makes you feel like you are the most conspicuous person in the world. You’re the sideshow freak. You’re the dead body on the side of the road after a car crash, the one that decent people won’t look at and low-class rubberneckers will gape at.

When you’re normal, people whisper about you when you leave the room. When you’re a freak, people whisper about you when you’re five feet away.

“Mercy.”

I hear myself sigh in response to my name, but it’s odd because I don’t actually feel myself breathe.

“Mercy,” he says again, a little sterner this time. Slowly, reluctantly, I direct my eyes to him, and the jolt of surprise breaks through my anesthetized state. There’s no fear there, or pity, or disgust . . . Maybe a little confusion, a little concern, a lot of frustration. “What the hell?” he snaps.

The question feels both general and specific. “What do you want to know?”

“Were you trying to kill yourself?”

“No. I just .

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