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“Uhm…” Her face went white. “Nothing, really. I just want you to know that, whatever else happens, you deserve to be happy.”
“That’s it? That’s the thing you had to word so carefully?”
“No… there’s more.” Her fingers twisted together. “It’s about my mistake. I want to tell you about it Liam. But I’ll be honest, I won’t be able to face you afterwards. I need to tell you right before I leave.”
“Carly, it can’t possibly be that bad.”
“Trust me, it is.”
Her entire countenance drooped. He had to lighten the moment. “Let me guess… you hate puppies?”
“No, Liam—”
“You sang the Star Spangled Banner for a big event on television and forgot the words?”
“No.” Her lips curved up for a fleeting moment.
“You went to church wearing only your underwear?”
“Many times, but only in my nightmares.” A smile won the battle on one corner of her mouth.
“You took an important test and forgot one of the fundamentals of engineering design?”
“Horrors! No!” She gave a cry of mock distress, her expression dramatic. “I’ve never done anything that bad in my life. I can’t believe you would even suggest it.”
“Thank goodness.” Liam swiped the back of his hand across his forehead in theatrical fashion. “That would’ve spelled the end of our friendship for sure. I’d never speak to you again.”
She went oddly quiet. What had he said wrong? She turned toward the door.
“Seriously, Carly.” He reached for her arm. When his fingers brushed her sleeve, she froze, then glanced over her shoulder. “There’s not much you could do that would make me judge you. As long as you tell me the truth.”
“Oh.” She twisted to face him and crossed her arms, like she was suddenly cold. “Not fond of prevarication, huh?”
“No, but I do love big words.”
He waggled his brows until a weak smile quivered on her mouth.
“You’re saying I can lie as long as I do it with four-syllable words?”
“To be honest, lying with big words is probably the worst,” Liam replied. “That’s what the doctors did after the accident. They kept saying I had a good chance of regaining the use of my legs.”
“Maybe instead of lying, they were being optimistic.”
“Call it what you want, but they weren’t being truthful.” The emotional weight of the memories swept back over him. “I’m pretty sure it was all because of Dad. He couldn’t face his son becoming a cripple. No one wanted the responsibility of breaking the bad news to him, so they all pretended it was a temporary condition. If my sister hadn’t gone into bulldog mode and forced the doctors to state the true odds of recovery, I might still be stuck in limbo, hoping my spinal cord would miraculously heal.”
“Could they have been trying to protect you?” Her shoulders scrunched. “Like they thought the truth would hurt you?”
Why was she defending them?
“I promise, everyone was protecting themselves, not me. Yes, the truth would hurt. But I still had the right to know it. I needed to deal with the anger and loss and move on, not waste my time with false hopes of something that could never be.”
“You’re right,” she whispered, like she was confessing a murder. “They led you on, didn’t they? I don’t blame you for hating everyone who lied to you.”
“I never said I hated them.” He titled his head and squinted at Carly, as if he could understand her better from a different angle.
“You said you couldn’t forgive a lie, though. At least, you implied it.”
“I can forgive anything, Carly. Even a lie. Some things are just harder to forgive… like the night I encouraged my best friend to drive drunk. Forgiving myself was the hardest.”
