I filed all of those questions away, focusing on the fact that I was there with her. Nothing else mattered.
“You hungry?” she asked, seeing that my attention was on the food.
“Not really. That’s…some variety there.” I winced internally, frustrated at myself for not being able to resist asking about it.
“Um, I was feeling indecisive.”
She wasn’t a great liar. That made two of us.
I shut the door behind me and we sat down. For several long moments, neither of us said a word.
“I’ve missed you,” I said into the silence, figuring I’d start off the conversation with some truth.
She nodded. “Yeah. Same to you.”
“Where have you been?” I asked. “I’ve been trying to get in touch.”
It wasn’t the real question on my mind, but it was a good place to start.
“Sorry for not responding,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I…didn’t know what to do. I guess I needed some time to think.”
“I understand,” I said. “Especially after what happened. But I have to admit, I thought things were okay between us after the last time we talked?”
“They were. Then…I met Andrew for a drink.”
I said nothing, letting her know without words that I wanted her to go on. A sick, tight feeling took ahold of my stomach. If she’d gotten back together with him, I needed to know.
“He wanted to try again,” she said.
“And what did you tell him?”
“I told him no.”
Relief washed over me.
“But that wasn’t all we talked about. He told me there was simply no way you and I would’ve come into one another’s lives through sheer coincidence.”
“Is that right?” I asked, my stomach hurting.
“Right. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized he had a point,” she continued. “I dated your brother, and then out of nowhere, you come into my life. And you’re not some random friend, not a coworker – you’re his brother. What are the freaking odds that this would happen?”
The only thing I could’ve said at that moment was a lie, and I was sick of them. I hated looking the woman I cared about in the eye and lying. I wanted it to be over. From the sounds of things, so did she.
Annie locked eyes with me, staring at me hard enough to feel like she might burn straight into my soul. “I’m going to ask you this clear-as-day, got it? And I want you to answer it with a simple yes or no. Are you ready?”
I knew what the question would be. I would have a choice – tell the truth and risk losing it all or lie.
“I’m ready.”
“Duncan.” There were equal parts anger and sadness in her voice, as if she already knew but didn’t want to believe it. “Did you know who I was before we met each other?”
“Yes.”
She said nothing. Annie took one slow breath, then another, her eyes closed as she fought for control or fought tears, I wasn’t sure.
Finally, she opened her eyes and spoke. “Why? Why did you lie to me?”
“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But you were my brother’s ex…”
“So you came up with some elaborate lie to work your way into my life.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Really?” she asked, a spark of anger in her voice. “Then tell me what it is like.”
I tried to think of a way to explain it, but at that moment, under that pressure, everything that came to mind sounded like an excuse.
“I can tell you right now that it’s the only part of us that’s a lie,” I assured her. “I care about you, more than I’ve ever cared about a woman before. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”
She shook her head, and I knew my words weren’t doing me a bit of good.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Because it’s all built on a lie. You lied your way into my life, and now I can’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth. And more than that, you lied to my face.”
“I did what I needed to do to make sure you stayed in my life,” I defended. “You mean too much to me to risk losing you.”
“But I didn’t mean enough for you to tell me the truth.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“It’s too late.” She sighed, running her hand through her hair and looking away for a moment before turning her eyes to me. “Duncan, you need to leave.”
Her words were like a cold blade into my gut.
“Can we talk about this again?” I asked, a pleading note in my tone. I was losing her. “This can’t be the last time I see you.”
“It just might be. But right now, all I want is for you to be gone.”
It was like the life had been drained out of me. There was nothing else to say. “Goodbye, Annie.”
“Bye.” The word was clipped and curt.
There wasn’t another word that would do me any good. I turned and left.
My mind was blank as I drove back home, a wet sleet blurring my windshield. When I was home, the second I stepped into my living room the stand I’d bought for her caught my eye.
She’d never see it.
We were done.
I’d made the mistake of a lifetime. And all I could do was try to pick up the pieces.
Annie
I stood there in a daze for the longest time. There was a good chance I might’ve spent the entire night like that, staring off into space, my expression blank as I tried to process what had happened. But Gia emerging from the bathroom where she’d been hiding snapped me back to my senses.
“Holy…shit,” she said. “That really just happened.”
“It really just happened.”
She hurried to my side and put her hand on my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Are you alright?”
“I don’t even know how to begin to answer that question.”
She nodded, and without saying a word, went to the fridge and pulled out the two glasses of wine she’d hid in there before Duncan came up. A big spread of Chinese food could be explained, but two glasses of wine would be a little harder.
And the irony hadn’t been lost on me that I’d lied to him about that. Well, it was keeping with the theme of the evening.
“Come here,” she said, putting the glass of wine in my hand and leading me to the couch. “You need to sit down – you look like your knees are about to buckle underneath you.”
She helped me get seated. The glass of white was cool in my hand, and the idea of a sip to take the edge off sounded nice. But I wanted to approach the issue with a clear head, so I set it down on the coffee table in front of me and sat back.
“Tell me what’s on your mind right now,” she said. “At this very instant.”
“I feel like I’ve been tricked,” I said, the words coming out clearly and simply. “Like this was all some kind of screwed-up game. I mean, doesn’t that make perfect sense? You meet an amazing guy, everything’s going perfectly, and you start thinking…” I trailed off.
“You start thinking what?”