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“Callie?”
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
My chest is tight. To the point my heart feels like it’s going to erupt if any more pressure is applied. My whole body hurts. I can’t get any part of it to work. Not even my fingers will move.
“Callie, are you okay?”
Agony clutches my body, twisting it slowly as it penetrates deeper and deeper. Right into my very soul it goes, crushing it little by little.
“Callie, you’re scaring me. Please say something.”
Lies.
Betrayal.
Revenge.
“Seriously, please look at me!”
Joanne’s voice is frantic; her hand is on my shoulder, gripping tightly, shaking me.
My mind spins.
My breathing is labored. My lungs refuse to work.
“Honey, I’m so scared. Please say something. What happened in there? Talk to me. Say anything, anything at all.”
I turn my head slowly until I’m facing her. I can feel the burning tears pressing behind my eyelids as I relive the memory of seeing those photos over and over until it burns a place in my mind, forever scarring me.
“It’s all a lie.”
My voice comes out scratchy and broken. It doesn’t betray me—it tells the truth, the entire truth. Every single thing I’m feeling in this moment is presented in my voice. Jo’s face twists into a look of confusion, and she reaches for my hand which I quickly pull away. That confusion is replaced with hurt.
How do I know she’s not in on this too?
How do I know anything anymore?
Is there a single person in this world that I can trust?
“Callie,” she says, her voice pained.
“Did you know?” I ask her. “Did you know?”
“Know what? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please tell me what happened inside that house.”
“Did you know, Jo?’ I say again, my voice taking on a tone of anger. “Are you part of it?”
“Part of what? What’s going on?”
I turn to stare out the car windshield again. My hands are trembling; I didn’t even notice until now. I feel like my whole world is coming down around me. Like no matter what I do from this point forward, I’ll be forever tarnished by Celia Yates and her family.
Her family.
The people I trusted most in this world.
All of them using me.
All of them seeking revenge.
“Tanner and Andrea are Celia’s siblings.”
I don’t recognize my own voice when I say the words.
It sounds ... dead. Empty. Broken.
“What?” Jo whispers, and I know the moment she says it and the tone her voice takes that she’s not in on this. There is an edge to her words that holds the same level of shock I felt when I saw those photos. “Callie, please tell me what happened in there.”
“I saw photos,” I say, rubbing my hands together to try and stop them from shaking. “Tanner and Andrea, with Celia. Family photos.”
“This can’t be happening.” Jo gasps, shaking her head. “There must be some mistake. There’s no way they knew ... No way they ...”
“They could have purposefully put themselves into my life to seek revenge?” I finish her sentence for her in a bitter tone.
“Callie ...”
“It gets better,” I mutter. “Ethan is part of it.”
Dead silence.
“No,” Jo rasps. “No, no way.”
“Yes,” I say, my heart twisting the most over that revelation.
Ethan Corel. The one person in this world outside of Joanne that I would have sworn on my life that I could trust. My one friend. My hero.
All along he’s been feeding me lies.
All along he’s had me right where he wanted me.
They all have.
Every single one of them.
All along they’ve been playing out the perfect revenge story.
I thought hitting Celia Yates with my car was going to haunt me forever, that nothing in this world could ever hurt more than that.
I was wrong.
The world is far more cruel than to give you just one horrible thing in your life.
Celia Yates has found a way to come into my life and destroy it once again.
Only this time, I’m not sure if I can get past it.
This time she’s hit me right where it hurts.
My heart.
~*~*~*~
“HERE,” JO SAYS, HANDING me a cup of tea.
I take it, feeling the warmth penetrate my skin and bring heat to my cold hands right away. I exhale and lean down, breathing in the sweet scent and closing my eyes. My heart is still pounding—it feels like it’ll never stop. It all feels like it’ll never end. I can claw my way out, but someone is always going to throw a new layer of dirt over my grave, making sure I’m forever stuck in hell.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Jo asks, sitting down across from me, her own face pale, her voice shaky.
“What is there to say? It’s all pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
“Not to me,” she says. “Ethan protected you, Callie. He made sure you were always safe inside. I can’t see him doing that if he wanted to harm you.”
I look up at her. Jo has an innocent way of thinking. It could be because she’s spent no time seeing what I’ve seen, or it could be that she wants to see the best in people. Either way, sometimes it clouds what’s right in front of her. The truth. The cold, hard truth.
“Ethan was making sure I got out of prison safely so they could act out their little revenge plan. Ethan was making sure I trusted him. Ethan played his part perfectly.”
My heart, the pure raw pain that flashes through it when I say those words has me fighting back the tears again.
“I’m so sorry, honey.”
“I understand what they’re doing,” I whisper, “I just don’t understand what they were hoping to gain out of it. Were they hoping to send me over the edge until I killed myself? Were they hoping I’d confess everything to them and change my story about Celia stepping in front of my car, or were they pushing me toward something even more dangerous? Were they going to hurt me? I have so many questions, but there are no answers to any of them.”
“The only people that could tell you that are Tanner and Ethan.”
I look to her and say in a low tone, “Tanner and Ethan won’t be finding out that I know.”
Jo shakes her head in confusion. “Callie, you could be in danger. You need to go to the police, or at least tell them you know so they no longer have the upper hand. They quite literally created a whole world of lies and dropped you right into it to seek out their revenge. Nobody goes to that much effort if they’re not planning something bad. I’d like to believe the best, too, but I don’t know anything anymore. You might not be safe.”
“I’m not going to the police,” I say, sipping my tea. “I’m not going to tell them I know. You’re right, Jo, they did go to an extreme effort to put themselves into my life. Everything from my friends to my job was orchestrated by them. They’ve had the upper hand. Tanner has been made to look like the hero, always being there to help me when I’m in danger. Ethan has been made to look like my one loyal friend, always there when I’ve needed him. Andrea has been made to look like she’s giving me a chance, like she’s a fun-loving woman I can rely on. None of it is true. They had an end game. I want to know what that end game is.”
“Callie ...”
“I want to know what they had planned for me. I want to know everything that I’ve missed. I’m not going to just tell them I know, or go to the police who won’t believe a damned word I say because I have no actual proof they did anything to me. No, I’m going to play their little game. Only I’m going to play it harder, smarter, better.”
Jo shakes her head. “You can’t be serious. That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
Frustration bubbles in my chest. She doesn’t understand, nobody does. How could they? It almost seem so unbelievable that it’s hard to wrap your mind around. “This is my life they’re playing with, Jo. They’ve twisted me in a way nobody can understand. They’ve made sure I’ve suffered at their hand. I’m not going down without a fight. I will find out what they were planning for me. I will uncover their secrets. I will find out what happened to Celia Yates. I’ll crush each and every one of them.”
Jo stands, looking down at me. “You’re hurting. I know you are. What you found out tonight must be harder than anything I could possibly imagine. Because of that, I’m going to hope you’re just angry and reacting out of rage. Go get some sleep, and we’ll talk in the morning. I don’t know if I can let you put yourself at risk, Callie. I don’t know if I can watch you go through hell and back again. Because this time, there simply might be no way out. You may get stuck in there. I don’t know if I can live with that.”
I stand too, now. I reach out and take her shoulders. “I know you’re afraid for me, Jo, but I’m as clear as I’ve ever been. I’m going to twist their little game until they no longer know who’s playing. I’m going to make them realize that I’m strong, so much stronger than they could have ever anticipated.”
“You could be in danger ...”
“Yes, I could be, but if I go and tell them all I know what they’ve done, do you think that means they’ll just stop? They’ve gone to this much trouble already, do you honestly believe that they’ll give it up?”
Jo looks hesitant, because I know she knows I’m right.
“I don’t like this; I don’t like any of this. Sleep on this, Callie. I beg of you.”
I nod. “I will.”
I turn and walk off toward my bedroom.
“Callie?” Jo calls.
I glance back at her.
“I love you, for whatever it’s worth. That isn’t a lie.”
I force a smile, but it feels as though I’ve been punched in the stomach.
This morning I woke up thinking I had more love than I ever thought I deserved.
Tomorrow I’ll wake up realizing that all that love was a lie.
Everything in my world is a lie.
Everything except Jo.
“I love you, too,” I whisper back.
Then I disappear before she can see the tears that roll down my cheeks.
The broken tears.
The tears of betrayal.
My life will never be the same again.
From this moment forward, I trust no one.
Not a single soul in this world.
Trust is the biggest lie of all.