A Sea of Lies Page 3

  She shrugs, and I notice her eyes aren’t empty anymore. They have that lively glimmer they used to have when I knew her a lifetime ago.

  “I don’t get the EMT thing. You’ve been to medical school, why didn’t you apply for a residency?”

  “I took some time off after I graduated,” I look away, not wanting to tell her too much. “Residencies are competitive, there weren't many open once I came back.”

  “Came back, where did you go?” I meet her curious gaze again but when I don’t answer her question she goes on.

  I should tell her. I need to tell her right now. But the words won’t come out. I open my mouth but they get lodged in my throat, stuck with the rising fear that I could ruin any chances of ever having her in my life again.

  Her pager beeps, saving me, and Mitch appears by the doors, waving me to come on.

  “I’ve gotta run,” she says quietly, the crease between her eyes deepening. “It was good seeing you, Sam.”

  She turns before I can respond and I want to kick the wall. I should have said something. I watch her jog off down the hall until Mitch comes over and slaps my shoulder.

  “Dude, let’s go.” I nod and follow after him, still watching after Bree.

  And I think of my promise to her husband.

  Chapter 4

  Sam

  Three Years Ago…

  She’s been the last one to class every day for a week. She rushes in looking flustered like she rolled out of bed just in time to speed here. I always hide my smile when she plops down next to me with a heavy sigh, seconds before the professor begins the lecture.

  She always has a full mug of vanilla coffee I can smell from where I sit and a bag of candy. Sour straws, peach rings, those little sour watermelons, pretty much any gummy coated in sugar.

  We don’t talk a lot, not directly. Sometimes she’s forgotten a pen or missed the reading assignment that Dr. Shepherd always announces at the start of class. I will silently pass her my only blue pen-she only writes in colored pens-or lean over and write the page numbers on the corner of her paper.

  Other times she isn’t here in time for the roll sheet that gets passed around, so I scribble in her initials on her behalf. When she slips into her seat, she’ll start to ask if she had missed the roll and I wave her off, telling her that I got it. Those are my favorite days because she’ll smile at me. She isn’t grinning at a cheesy joke the professor cracked, or at something on her phone. She’ll look me in the eyes and smile just for me. And it will make my entire week.

  As the teacher’s assistant, I really shouldn’t be showing any sort of favoritism; but dammit if I wouldn’t do anything to see that smile.

  The day midterms are handed back, I saw the red seventy-nine stamped on her paper. I saw it because I graded it. She peeks over my shoulder gives me a curious look.

  “Where’s your midterm?” She asks.

  “I got it at the beginning of class,” I lie quickly. What the hell? Why did I just lie to her? “I got an A.”

  Her eyes go wide and she turns to face me fully. “Tutor me, please?”

  She smiles again and I think, oh yeah, that’s why.

  “Okay,” I say without pausing, “tonight?”

  “Your place,” she nods.

  “Why not at your place?” I ask. I don’t really care if we study at my house. I just want to ask questions about her and anything pertaining to her. I just want to know more about Aubree Harrington.

  “Because it’s Friday,” she says plainly. “And my husband’s always with one of his sluts on Friday nights.” I try not to react, but my back stiffens. I’m not happy that she’s married, but that’s beside the point. She continues, still talking casually like her husband cheating on her every Friday night is no big deal. “But anyway, I hate being at home. So, your place.”

  I nod, without saying a word and we both fall silent when the professor begins the lecture.

  ***

  “I like your house,” she tells me, sidestepping me through the front door as soon as I have it unlocked and open. “I’ve always wanted to live on the beach.”

  “Well,” I chuckle, shaking my head and following her inside. “Come on in.”

  She grins over her shoulder as she moves through the entryway into the living room. Her bag slips off her shoulder and she lets it fall to the floor with a thud, ignoring it as she moves through each room.

  I lean my shoulder against the doorframe and watch her with mild amusement as she disappears into the kitchen. “I’d offer you a tour, but it looks like you’ve got it covered,” I call after her. I hear her rummaging and she appears a few seconds later with two cans of vanilla coke.

  “Where the hell do you find this stuff?” she asks, handing me a can. “I can’t find them anywhere. And trust me, I look. These are my favorite.”

  “I have my connections,” I say, watching her take a long sip. She rolls her eyes and purses her lips.

  “Well, tell me your connections.” She pokes me in the chest, stepping closer. “Don’t mess with a girl and her caffeine.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” I say seriously. “From what I’ve seen so far, you have a caffeine addiction that rivals Lorelai Gilmore.”

  Her blue eyes narrow and her lips quirk up at the corner, “You know who Lorelai Gilmore is?”

  “I have two sisters,” I grin down at her. She smiles again it’s like daylight breaking into a black room. The warmth of her beaming surrounds me, it draws me in. I wonder why anyone could take such a beautiful smile for granted. I wonder how her husband wouldn’t want to make her smile like this every single day of his miserable life.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I say quietly. Her eyes are still locked with mine, a glow of warmth still lingering from her brilliant smile.

  “No,” she grins. “You can’t.”

  I pause, my brows furrowing, “why not?”

  “Because that was just two questions,” she grins. “And if there’s something you want to know, just say it.”

  I nod, contemplating this. I walk over to the couch and she follows. She doesn’t seem to want to study, and I want whatever she wants so I leave my books by the door. She sits and angles her body to face me, tucking a knee beneath her and leaning her elbow on the back of the couch. “So what do you want to know?” she prods.

  “I want to know why you want to be a nurse,” I tell her; watching carefully as her expression morphs while she thinks about this. Her lips purse and then she tilts her head to the side as her lips curve up at the corners.

  “That’s a good question, Sam.”

  “It wasn’t a question, Aubree,” I remind her. Her eyes drift back to mine and her eyebrows pull together.

  “No one calls me Aubree,” She laughs. “I go by Bree.”

  “Yes,” I nod. “But technically, we’ve never been formally introduced. And Aubree is what I see on the roll sheet in class.”

  “But you hear the professor call me Bree,” she laughs.

  “Okay,” I shrug, grinning. “Maybe I just want to be special. Now, you were telling me why you want to be a nurse.”

  She laughs, taking a sip of her coke. “Okay, nursing.” She sets her can down, making a face. “I hate this question. Everyone else always has a good answer like, ‘one time, when I was like, five, I broke my arm and the nurse was so awesome and ever since then I’ve wanted to be one too!’” She rolls her eyes at the made-up story and looks back at me. She holds my eye contact the entire time she talks. It’s intense. I like it.

  “Honestly? It was the fastest college program in a field I relatively enjoy. I’ve always liked biology, but I never wanted to be a nurse, really. I just love science and I needed the fast track into the workforce. I still don’t really know what I want to be when I grow up.”

  I lean my head back on the cushion and look at her. I take advantage of looking at her now that she’s staring at me head on. I take note of all of the little details on her face that I’d like to memorize for later
. For the inevitable loss of Aubree Harrington from my life as soon as this class ends.

  Everything about her is untamed. She has wild hair. It’s bright red, not the coppery orange color you always see, but vibrant crimson locks. It’s long and curly and I bet that she wrestles it every morning like my little sisters always used to do with their own long curls. She has a smattering of freckles across her face, but there’s one in particular that keeps drawing my attention. It’s perched right on the crest of her cupid’s bow, like a beauty mark that’s seasonal. Her eyes are the strangest mix of green and blue, falling somewhere in the middle in bright teal.

  “You want to know why I want to be a nurse?” I ask her. She quirks an eyebrow and I smile. “I broke my arm when I was five and the nurse was so nice to me.”

  “Shut up,” she laughs, shoving at my shoulder.

  “I have a confession,” I tell her.

  At this, she perks up. “Do tell,” She says, narrowing her eyes.

  “I’m actually not in nursing school, I’m in medical school.”

  She shakes her head with a dumbfounded expression, “Then why the heck are you in a nursing class?”

  I shrug and look away, a little embarrassed that I didn’t just tell her before. “I’m not; I’m Dr. Shepherd’s TA.”

  “You’re the freaking teacher’s assistant?” I spare a glance at her she’s staring at me with her jaw dropped. I nod slowly, watching her carefully for her reaction.

  She just shakes her head and laughs, “Well then I guess I picked the perfect person to tutor me then.”

  I laugh, relieved. “I do have two sisters in nursing school though; maybe you’ll see them around.”

  “You’re close with them, aren’t you?” She asks, watching me.

  “I am,” I smile. “Elle and Maddie are twins, so they are as close as any two people can be, but I like to count myself as a close second. I’d do anything in the world for them.”

  “You’re the big brother.” This isn’t a question.

  “I am,” I nod.

  She lays her head down on the cushion next to mine, her smile fading into an expression I don’t understand. It’s her turn to stare at me. She studies me for a long time, her eyes only leaving mine briefly before they connect again.

  “Sam,” she says quietly, her expression unreadable.

  “Yes, Aubree?” I ask, just as quietly.

  “I’m married,” she whispers.

  “I know that,” I remind her. I remind myself, too.

  “I just didn’t want you to put the moves on me or anything,” she whispers. She tries to smirk but it comes across as a grimace.

  “Ouch,” I clutch my chest in mock hurt. Only it does hurt a little. I’m not like her husband. I want her to see that for some reason “Do I seem like the kind of guy that would put the moves on a married woman?”

  “No,” she looks down at her hands for a long moment, then back up to me. “I don’t think you’re that kind of guy. I just know I wouldn’t want to stop you if you were.”

  Chapter 5

  Bree

  Present Day

  My heart is hammering faster than it has in three years.

  Sam.

  Sam, Sam, Sam.

  I think his name over and over, letting it roll around in my mind so it can soak back into my consciousness. For so long I’ve kept him tucked behind a wall, waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

  For what, I’m not sure.

  It feels so good to think about him without any regret or guilt or pain intermingled with the desire. The yearning I feel in his presence, the desperation to be near him again. The draw in my chest is like a magnet to him. It’s been searching and searching for something to connect to since the moment I walked away from him two years ago, drawing out all of my energy trying to seek him out as I’ve tried so hard to keep it at bay. I was able to finally rest the moment he held me in his arms a year ago, but I wasn’t in a place where I could acknowledge that at the time.

  After Ryan died, it was nearly impossible for me to sort through the shattered pieces that were left of our life. I felt so much guilt and grief and this sense of being cheated out of some form of closure.

  I had long accepted the fact that Ryan wasn’t the love of my life. I knew he wasn’t when we got married. But I had, in fact, married him, and that meant something to me. Despite the circumstances surrounding our marriage, I still wanted to honor it and treat it with respect.

  I had planned to either work things out with Ryan once and for all or leave him altogether. I gave him an ultimatum, to stay and fix things or to leave. I screamed at him to stop punishing me. Stop glaring at me. Stop treating me like it was all my fault because I was already doing enough of that for the both of us. I knew it was my fault, I knew it.

  So he stopped punishing me and he started cheating on me, or I guess continued cheating on me. He closed himself off from me and punished me silently. He finally, after months of misery, left for a tour in Afghanistan that he wasn’t required to be on. He said he needed space and time away from me to think about what he wanted.

  But he never came back. There was no clean break, no closure of any kind from the pain we had been living through. It all came crashing down on me; all the grief, the resentment, the guilt, all for me to carry on my own.

  For a while, I couldn’t see my life past my grief. I couldn’t see anything past my grief. It was all painted in gray, no color breaking through the pain. I didn’t get out of bed for a month or eat without being forced by Carter.

  And then Sam came by one day, about two days after I woke up in his house after Ryan’s funeral.

  I was at the anger stage of grief. I was pissed. I was belligerent. I was angry with Ryan, I decided. Oh God, was I angry with him.

  I was angry for so much and for nothing at all. Because so much was his fault and so much was mine, but no matter the fault it was all left shattered and there was no way to fix it. No closure. No clean break.

  I was angry with the way he let things fall apart. He was supposed to be steady and strong, but he fell apart right along with me. He blamed me and let us disintegrate to dust.

  I hated myself and he hated me. I hated him and he hated me. So much hate, there was nothing but hate.

  So yeah, I was angry. With Ryan, with myself, with God and my family and Sam and everything. I was so angry.

  That day, I snapped. I went ballistic.

  Carter was over; he was one of the few in my life that wanted to make sure I was okay. My parents didn’t care. They said this would be good for me, that I could live my life now.

  Carter set a plate of food down in front of me and told me to eat. It was grilled cheese. I loved grilled cheese; it’s the only thing my brother and I knew how to cook. Ryan hated it. He was always so annoyed that I didn’t cook. When we got married, he told me I’d need to learn how to cook. I took one look at the stupid grilled cheese and threw the plate across the room.

  “Bree!” Carter yelled, ducking. I’d almost hit him with it. I’d kind of wanted to. I knew it wasn’t him I was mad at, but he was here serving me grilled cheese reminders of my dead asshole husband.

  “Get out,” I growled.

  He just stared at me, confused. Unmoving.

  “GET OUT!” I screamed, throwing my fork at him. Who the hell brings you a fork to eat grilled cheese?

  He left after that.

  I kind of wished I hadn’t made him leave. I still wanted to take out some anger. I kicked my chair out and paced the house. I stalked past the guest bedroom that had become Ryan’s in the year before he died. I turned on my heel and shoved the door open, looking around.

  Nothing had been touched since the day he left. Everything was so neat. He was so anal about cleanliness. He yelled at me about leaving clothes and shoes and make-up lying all over the place.

  I knocked a cup of pens over on the desk. It felt good so I walked over to the dresser and threw open a drawer. An endless supply of crisp white t-shirts and neat
ly folded polos all color coded and tucked into the drawer. I grabbed a fistful and ripped them out. A rainbow of colors went flying across the room. I wandered to the closet and yanked the doors open. His military uniforms hung neatly from hangers all the same color and spaced perfectly an inch apart.

  I screamed and ripped them all down in one big tug, the entire shelf collapsing. I slumped to the floor in a pile of clothes, screaming and punching the ground. And screaming felt so good that I screamed even louder. I wanted to shout it all out, everything that’s been building up. Let it flow out of me, so I could feel something other than anger and crippling, numbing pain. But it was hollow.

  “Why!” I wailed, rubbing my fists roughly into my eyes to stop the sting of tears. “What did I do to deserve this?”

  I wasn’t sure who I was talking to. Probably God. Yes, I decided; it was God I was talking to.

  “I can’t do this, I can’t take it anymore,” I cried. I punched the ground weakly. I sobbed pitiful, tired tears as I whispered. “Please, if you can hear me please save me. Please, make it stop.”

  And then Sam was there.

  I don’t know how I don’t know why. I thought I was hallucinating when he walked in and found me on the floor sobbing into the carpet.

  He walked over to me and fell to his knees. He smoothed a hand down my hair and I felt a second of comfort. But I shouldn’t be getting comfort from him, it wasn’t right, so I swatted his hand away. I heard him sigh-I was refusing to look at him- and then he picked me up.

  I squirmed and screamed at him to get out, but he didn’t hear anything I said. I didn’t actually want him to leave or to put me down. I just wanted to have a target again. So much of my arguing had been in my own head, I wanted someone else to blame.

  He carried me through the house. I hit him the whole way, flailed and screamed until my voice was nothing and I hit him until my fists were throbbing and then I hit him some more.

  He didn’t flinch, not once. He continued to carry me to the back door, and then outside into the cold, January air. I didn’t feel it. I just felt the red-hot rage. It burned through my veins like a drug. It consumed me until I couldn’t see myself or my pain or anything except for fault. And I stamped that fault squarely on Sam’s chest and I hit it until I couldn’t feel my hands anymore.