| |
KRISTIE
I didn’t stop by the office for my jacket. Tears blocked any chance I could think straight. What had happened? I’d lost everything I’d had simply because the truth came out. He’d had my drive the whole time. My stomach didn’t even try to unclench from the massive twisting the discovery had started.
Squeezing my fist tight, I pushed my knuckles into the soft part of my stomach under my belly button while I took long strides across the wet parking lot. My heels sank in soft mud when I stepped off the paths packed down by vehicles and machines. Refusing to let that slow me, I reached down and yanked them off, holding onto the backs of the black shoes and swinging my arms as I picked up speed.
Gravel bit into the bottoms of my feet, but I didn’t care. Even the chilly water and gritty mud didn’t give me pause as it squished between my toes and splashed over the tops of my feet.
I was numb to it. I had to be. There wasn’t much more I could handle in light of recent findings that I was blocking. At least for now. I had to block them for the next few minutes.
Matthew kept the keys to his truck in the ignition in case he needed to just leave for something. I focused on the truck and escaping the site.
Rain continued to pour down around me, as if the clouds had witnessed my betrayal. The only problem with that was, it had been ongoing, so the clouds had known he was lying to me. He’d lied to me. Everything had been a lie. I ignored the tightness in my chest and held my jaw clenched so I would at least be able to breathe.
I tossed my shoes to the floor of the truck when I opened the door. Climbing into the cab, I blinked the rain out of my eyes. As far as I was concerned, it was still raining in the truck. Those tears were raindrops. That’s all there was to it. I couldn’t lose any more of myself to what we’d promised each other. Talk about too good to be true.
My hands shook as I shifted and headed out of there. Where was I going? For now, I headed toward Matthew’s house, the home I’d thought would be mine.
Why hadn’t I known? We’d been so perfect for each other. Had he had it this whole time? Nothing else made sense. He said he hadn’t been to Libby – or actually, that he couldn’t remember if he’d been there, but come on. Who forgot where they’d been? He had to have found the drive up there after I’d lost it. How long had he known? He and I had been matched soon after I’d lost the drive.
I racked my brain for what had been on the memory stick.
Everything. Everything about me was on the storage device. Pictures, poetry, so much of who I was and of course my ClickandWed.com profile information. Every answer I’d put on the tests. Everything I could have put down. He probably answered the same thing to make sure we were matched.
We weren’t truly matched. He’d essentially stalked me. I was a nobody and he’d somehow found a way to minimize me even more.
Ugh, I felt so stupid. I had nowhere to go. Out of a newly formed habit, I found myself parking the truck at Matthew’s house. For all intents and purposes, it was my house, too. Was Montana a community property state? He had a huge company and a big house. Maybe I needed to go through the steps of a harrowing divorce to get a small piece of the justice I deserved.
Except... it wasn’t like I was innocent. How many times in the past had I lied? Did I want everyone I’d ever lied to to come after me with vengeance in their hearts?
Matthew couldn’t fake our connection. There was nothing in the drive that would tell him what I was looking for in a man. Even the match companies hadn’t asked that point blank. True, there’d been traits I’d looked for that were highlighted, but he couldn’t know that I was so lonely it could split me in two. He didn’t know that needing me was better than me needing him.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter. I had been lied to – huge. How did I trust him again after this? Climbing from the truck, I used the keys to get inside and I went to my room. Closing the door, I sat on the bed and stared at the spot I’d caught him sleeping.
Where would I go? Home? Tell everyone I hadn’t gotten the job? What would I tell Tara? She already knew I was a liar. She would know I’d failed at this, too.
My parents would wonder why I moped around and I would lie and say I’m fine.
The ugly side of who I really was bared itself to me. I was a horrible hypocrite. Matthew had lied? I wiped at my cheeks, my lower lip quivering. That’s all I’d done since I graduated high school.
I’d lied. I wasn’t innocent – far from it. Finally, I was being lied to on a large scale and it stung. I could feel the pain of it. Karma was awful. My parents were poor victims of mine. All they’d ever done was support me and I’d done nothing but lie to them. They deserved the truth.
Yes, I deserved the truth from Matthew, but what if he’d meant to tell me? I tried looking at it from his perspective. He wasn’t a bad guy. I knew that. I wasn’t blind. What would I have done, if I’d found a drive? I’d have opened it and tried to search out who it belonged to.
He’d tried doing the right thing at the start. I could give him that. But what about after? He’d applied for ClickandWed.com. He hadn’t given me my drive back. He’d used it to get close to me. Where had the wrong choice come in? No matter which way I looked at it, he hadn’t given me the drive or told me the truth. I wasn’t even sure what I would have done since my choices were colored by the fact that he’d lied to me and I’d caught him – in front of people.
I needed to call someone, but I had no one. Shame coursed through me. I’d cried and whined about being alone for so long, but I was the one who’d put the wall up between myself and others. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone so I’d lied, I’d tried to make myself seem better and more important than I was.
This wasn’t something to dump on Tara. Not after she already found out about the lies I’d told her. I needed to talk to my mom and dad.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and slowly called my parents’ home number. The coward in me hoped they wouldn’t answer, but the part of me that had been hurt by Matthew’s lies didn’t want to hide anymore from the truth. If he could hurt me after not knowing him long, how had I damaged the trust between myself and my parents?
My dad picked up the phone. “Hey, Kristie, how’s your trip going? Do you like your job?”
I cleared my throat and plucked at the edge of the soft comforter underneath me. “Hi, Dad. Um, yeah, about that. I should be doing this to your face but I can’t wait. If I don’t do it now, I’ll lose my courage.” I laughed sadly, glad he couldn’t see my tears.
“What’s going on, princess? You sound upset.” Dad’s calm voice gave me just enough oomph to get out what I needed to.
My confession blurted from me as if it had been waiting to jump ship. “I lied to you and Mom. I didn’t graduate from college. I faked my degree and told you guys I was sick during the commencement ceremony so you wouldn’t come. I’m not even on a trip, right now. I got...” I couldn’t tell him that part. Not yet. They wouldn’t love me after. How could they? I didn’t love myself.
After I’d expunged all of the lies I’d told up until the point I’d left for Missoula and confessed the truths, including the embarrassing facts about Chad, my dad’s soft chuckle surprised me and I jerked backward on the mattress.
“Kristie, we know. We know about everything. You’ve never been a good liar and we’re in a small town. Plus, Tara worries about you and she tells us stuff to make sure we know when you might need help.” Dad paused, then continued. “We knew you hadn’t graduated. No one misses their graduation because of a cold. Thank you for being honest. We appreciate that. The effort to come clean is harder than just telling the truth in the beginning. That’s something you’ve had to learn. It was hard waiting for you to learn it, but...” His voice was emotional. I’d hurt him and Mom and that staggered me.
“But, Dad, how can you ever forgive me? I’ve lied so much.” The load of lies crushed down around me again. He had known, but they probably hadn’t trusted me for a long time. That hurt horribly, too.
“Not really. When it mattered, you were honest. You have to get back in the habit of telling the truth. Plus, you forgive those you love. That’s just the way it is.”
“I got married on a matchmaking site and I’m at his house right now in Missoula.” All of my lies and half-truths had been spilled from me, lightening the load on my chest and my heart. He knew everything. I said it again to hear it out loud. “I got married.” More shame pushed even more tears out of my eyes. Would I ever be able to smile again?
Dad sighed, his tone regretful. “That’s what Tara said. You mom is very upset.” Of course, Tara had shared that huge bit of news with my parents. The fact that she’d kept my parents in the loop of my life when I’d failed to made her more of a friend than someone I couldn’t trust. She was there for me, in the long run.
Mom might be upset, but she didn’t have much to worry about. “Yeah, well, it might be my first divorce.” I sighed, my shoulders slumping forward. I lifted my feet to rest on the bed run and leaned on my thighs.
“You know what, Kristie? It’s time for some fatherly advice. Your problem is you don’t stick around for anything. You think everything needs to be easy or pretty or sound perfect from the get-go. You have nowhere to go when you’re at the top already. There’s no growth in that. Nothing worth having is easy. Tara said you were matched by a computer program. Mom and I spoke with the owner, a Colin Davies, and we asked her all kinds of questions about the matching process. She wouldn’t give us details on how the program worked exactly, but she said there was no way the program could be fixed – as in there was no way you could rig it to give you someone you wanted. If you weren’t compatible with that person, there was no way you would be matched. None.”
Dad didn’t know that Matthew had the answers to my profile questions. I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I understand.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Look, make a decision and stick with it. If you decide to leave, then do it. If you decide to stick it out, then do it. But don’t waffle and change your mind next week when things get hard again. I love you, kitten, but as you’re discovering things about yourself, now isn’t the time to shirk from the truth. Own everything.”
True. Now wasn’t the time to back from progress. I nodded. “Thanks, Dad. You always know what to say.” I hung up with him and stared at the phone. My parents had done their due diligence and checked into the company. Something I had failed to do. No, I hadn’t failed to do it, I’d made the irresponsible decision not to do it.
Matthew and I had even opted out of doing the tasks and the challenges. I pulled up the app on my phone and clicked the “contact us” button.
A list of information showed up and I was startled to discover the headquarters of the ClickandWed.com site was in Sandpoint, Idaho. Not too far from Matthew’s place or from Libby.
I pressed call and the app on my phone dialed. What was I going to say? The man I was matched with was a liar? Oh, wait, I’m a liar. Great job on the match!
The other line picked up before I could hang up. “ClickandWed.com, this is Carlisle, how can I help you?” The man was pleasant and unassuming. What had I expected? There was no sound to a complicit voice that was recognizable.
I cleared my throat, plucking at the material of the pillow case. “Yes, hello, hi. I, well I was recently matched by your program and, well, I found out some things. I need to know how you guys matched this guy and I.” My clumsy attempts to connect embarrassed me further. I should just hang up. Hang up now!
Carlisle’s pleasant voice stopped me from following through. “I’d be happy to help. What’s your name?”
“Um, Kristie Gayle.” I chewed on my bottom lip. I’d gone too far. He knew I had failed at the marriage thing.
“Kristie! I’m so glad you called. Colin and I were very disappointed that you opted out of the challenge part of the program. You and Matthew had a terrific compatibility score of 99.5%. We were very interested in seeing how you would do on some of the more difficult challenges.” Carlisle’s excitement was overwhelming.
Frustrated, I blinked back my angry tears. Great, emotional again. That wasn’t going to get me taken seriously. I swallowed past the thickness in my throat. “Do you know why we were that compatible? He had my answers. I was matched to him because he answered the questions the exact same way I did. We aren’t a match. We shouldn’t even have been together. Your program failed.” I blinked back angry tears. It wasn’t the program’s fault, and yet, it was. Everything about the whole situation had to be someone else’s fault other than my own.
I wasn’t sure I could handle being the one responsible for everything wrong.
“Actually, I know that’s not how things work, but let me have Colin herself explain it, okay? She’s right here.” Carlisle put me on hold for a moment.
I could hang up now. I didn’t want anything explained. I just wanted to lay down and take a nap, deny what was happening.
A soft, calm woman’s voice came on the line. “Kristie Gayle? This is Colin Davies, how are you? Carlisle says you’re upset. I spoke with your parents a few days ago. They seemed to understand. How can I help you?”
The lack of condescension in her tone helped me calm down. “I am upset. I just found out my match had all the answers to my profile information. Everything. It’s a long story, but he had to have used my answers to get matched to me. There’s no other way we’re matched with 99.5% compatibility.”
“Well, first, let me assure you that if he did have all the answers and he used them, it would not have made you compatible in the least. We do not match people who are similar. The best attraction is those who are opposite in a lot of things, but not in the important ones. Some social people do well to be matched to someone who isn’t an extrovert. Some people who love the outdoors are suited to those who don’t because they’ll broaden each other’s experiences. A match needs to be someone who will help you be a better version of yourself. There’s no point in being matched to yourself. There’s no adventure in that.”
I paused. “You mean, if he’d used my exact answers, we wouldn’t have been matched?” How was that possible? He couldn’t have used my answers then? But that would mean...
“That’s exactly what I mean. There is no way to game the system, Kristie. Not too long ago we had best-friends take the test. I doubted they would be matched based on that information alone and I figured it would be my first failed match, but Carlisle informed me last week that they are already expecting their first child and they’re very happy together. I’m a firm believer that love can’t be contrived. Not true love. Not the kind that lasts forever. Now, I’m not saying you and Matthew are in love or even a perfect match. All I’m saying is that even if you told him everything that you put, even if you stood beside him while he took the test, there’s no way the two of you could hack the program to make a 99.5% score. Trust me. My programmer is paranoid and she’d make sure her algorithms couldn’t be hacked.” Colin ended on a conspiratorial chuckle that didn’t denature the truth in her words but confirmed that she knew what she was talking about.
Her assurances soothed my doubt. I still had a lot to think about, but with more information I felt like I was better equipped to decide. “Thank you, Colin. I appreciate it.”
“Sure, thing, Kristie, and if you ever get a chance, I’d love to hear how he had your answers before you even met.” Colin’s humor reached me through the line. “That’s got to be a story worth hearing.”
We hung up and I realized it was exactly a story worth hearing, one I was very interested in hearing.