“He’s the one you’re helping,” I say. His eyes fall closed and his head slumps. “He’s who you were helping before…paperwork.”
Will takes a few slow steps back, sitting in the chair I’d just lifted his jacket from. His eyes remain on the ground, and his hands clasp in front of him, his elbows on his knees. All he can do is nod slowly. He’s agreeing with me. My chest twists so tight I can’t breathe, so I bring my palms up to my cheeks, forcing myself to inhale deeply and hold it in my lungs.
“How could you not tell me?” I ask, my words coming out a little angrier. My lip quivers again, this time, it’s the threat of rage. “How could you be so selfish, Will? What are you doing here? With me? Why aren’t you with him—when he clearly needs his father? Oh my god, Will…”
I fall into the seat opposite of him, sick with grief. I grieve that glimpse of happiness that I just moments ago talked myself into having. I taste the bitterness of contempt. My body aches with torment, trying to connect the man I was starting to believe in with the one unraveling right here in front of me. I don’t know how to do any of it. I don’t know how to even look at him.
“How could you, Will? He’s your family?”
His head jerks up the moment I utter that word, and I stare at him hard. His eyes dim briefly, as if I cut him and he were bleeding. He closes them for a breath, his chest rising slowly, his brow dimpled with the pains of getting caught. When he opens to look at me again, though, his eyes are resolute. The pain is still there, but something about his expression has shifted—his face tilted a hair to the left, his mouth pulled up ever so slightly on one side, his breathing calm and slow.
Pity.
“He’s not my son, Maddy,” he says.
The words don’t make sense to me. They battle in my head.
“But her message,” I start.
He shakes his head slowly, and I begin to mimic him, shaking my own, until his no shifts into a nod of yes.
“He’s not…my…son,” he repeats.
My mouth waters with sickness. My lips wrinkle, and the tears begin to pool, burning my eyes. I don’t touch them. I drown in them. I wait to hear it. I make him say it. If he doesn’t, I may never believe it.
“No,” I utter.
His nod remains slow and unwavering.
“Say it,” I whisper, my throat sore from the pain dying to claw its way out. “Say it!” The second time comes out harsh and gritty.
“He’s my nephew,” he says, and I fall to my knees on the ground. Will is quick to hold me, but I fight against him, pushing him away.
“You’re lying!” I cry. “He’s not. He didn’t. You are lying!”
I push him so hard he falls back on his ass, sitting with his legs out in his fancy suit, his father’s watch and cufflinks on his hands. I know right then he’s right. I know that Will has been operating on duty, and I know that I’ve been mourning a lie.
“He’s Evan’s, Maddy, and I’m so goddamned sorry,” he says, just as I lean forward and throw up every bit of wine I’ve had to drink.
“Come on,” he says, his hands swiftly sliding under my legs and around my back. He carries me around the back of the house, into the darkness, to the small hose bib that my mother uses to fill her pail and water the roses. He turns it on and cups his hands, splashing water on my puked-on arms and legs, trying to rinse away my vomit from my dress.
I weep without sound, nothing but a never-ending rush of tears cascading down my hot cheeks. I’m certain they will leave behind burns, scars that will never ever let me forget how wrong my fucking heart was to choose Evan Hollister.
“You lied to me, Will,” I breathe out.
His mouth is a hard line while he washes his hands and lifts my legs one at a time, rinsing them under the water.
“How could you lie?” I ask.
He turns the water off, then looks me square in the eyes.
“How could I not?” he says.
We both stare into one another raw and broken, our breathing labored, our eyes red, our skin blotched and marked with lost hopes and regret and all of the goddamned what ifs that don’t matter worth shit.
Will looks to the side when we hear the sound of the door opening, and his eyes flash back to me. Without pause, he lifts me in his arms again, carrying me around the side of the house and to the street. He unlocks his car and sets me down in the passenger seat, then rushes to the other side, stopping to talk to someone I can’t see.
“She had too much to drink. I’m going to get her out of here, so it doesn’t embarrass her,” he says.
I hear Holly’s voice respond.
“I’ll cover for you,” she says.