We’d been through the same song and dance a hundred times. I should have been prepared. Unfortunately, my anger blinded me, and I didn’t see it coming.
Her elbow landed in the socket of my eye, knocking me to the ground.
Pain sharpened into a blinding light, and I heard my mom drop to her knees beside me.
“I’m sorry, Lily. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, baby.” The naive part of me wanted to believe it was an accident, but the jaded part knew it wasn’t.
I stood, gritting my teeth. A blinding headache had started to form where she hit me. Standing in front of her, I looked down at her as the walls around my heart started to form. I realized something then that I never had before. The moment you stop caring is the moment you are free. And I’d stopped caring.
“I’m done, Mom,” I said, turning my back on her as she lay on the floor.
Her cries followed me to my room. In the past, I would have picked her up—comforted her until the high wore off—but I’d given her all I had left to give.
There was a mirror above my dresser, and I stood looking into it. A bruise was already forming around my eyes, but I looked past it—to the emptiness staring back at me.
I had nothing left.
With wooden movements, I picked up the foundation I’d stolen from the dollar store. It didn’t match my skin tone, but it worked well enough.
My finger shook as I spread the makeup over the tender bruise, wincing when I had to press a little too hard to blend it out. When I looked back at myself, the bruise was barely visible, looking more like I’d had a sleepless night instead of an elbow in my eye.
It was the first mask I ever put on, but it wouldn’t be my last. I went out with Haley that night, leaving my mom passed out on the couch. Haley never asked about my eye, and it became a lesson for me—whenyou show people what they want to see—the things that are easy for them—they don’t bother peeking behind the mask.
Chapter 20
Lily
“What were you thinking?” I hiss so only Theo can hear me as he opens my door and I climb up in his truck. He waits to answer me until I’ve climbed up in my seat and settled in.
“Careful, hopeless,” he says, reaching across me and grabbing my seat belt before clicking it into place. Even with it in place, though, he doesn’t pull away. His face is lined up with mine, one corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk. “It might look like you didn’t want me to come.”
Before I can tell him that’s exactly what I had wanted, he winks and pulls back, sucking all of the air out the truck as he goes. He shuts the door, walking around the truck to his side, and in the meantime, I try to breathe—but the smell of sandalwood and smoke keeps filling my lungs.
When Theo’s door opens, he jumps in, making it look effortless while I pointedly try to ignore him and everything that happened before MJ shows up.
Only it turns out, ignoring Theo is like ignoring the fact that you’re being sucked up in a tornado. Impossible.
“So,” Theo says, putting his hand on the back of my headrest and backing out of the driveway, “Do you want to talk about that backthere?”
“Nope.” I don’t even want to think about it. He saw my mask crack, but now it’s firmly back in place—and it won’t happen again. “But we can talk about what you were thinking when you agreed to this.”
He glances over me as he throws the truck into drive and pulls onto the highway. One arm rests on the door, and the other hangs loosely over the steering wheel. He’s effortless, and I hate him for it.
“Sure, hopeless. We can talk about that,” he says with a shrug. “I figured it would be good practice.”
I eye him, wearily watching for the other shoe to drop. “For what, exactly? I don’t think it’s Hayes, MJ, or any of their friends we need to convince here.”
Theo shrugs again. “You’re right. It’s not. But you need a place where you feel comfortable taking down some of those walls you’ve built, and what better place to do that than with friends?”
“I don’t have walls,” I argue, sitting back in my seat and crossing my arms.
He slices me a look. “And I don’t have a psycho ex-wife.” He stops, smirking. “Oh wait, I do. Look, hopeless, you’ve built a fortress around yourself, and I’m not saying you didn’t have a reason to—most people usually do—but I am saying it’s going to prevent you from getting what you want. You want the Birdies to see you as more of a person and less of an ice queen? Then let them see beneath the ice.”
“Yeah?” I ask, sarcasm lacing my voice because he makes it seem simple, but it’s far from it. I’ve spent my whole life constructing those walls, ensuring no one could get past them. They weren’t made to fall. “And what happens when they don’t like what they find underneath?”
Theo turns his head until he’s looking at me, honesty staring back in his mischievous dark eyes. “They will, Lily.”
A shiver runs over my spine at the sound of my name on his lips, and for a second, I almost believe him, but then my phone rings—andwhen I see who it is, I’m reminded why I built those walls in the first place.
