Trust Me. I'm Lying - (SLOWLY EDITING)

The Edge We Both Lack: Chapter 28

"I kissed her until there was more happiness inside me than sadness."

—Benjamin Alire Sáenz, He Forgot To Say Goodbye.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Edge We Both Lack.

"Zoe!" I called her name before I had even realized it. I started moving towards Carson, who was still frozen, staring at the one person who could have made this day even worse, still dripping water from his face. He didn't react when I touched his arm, which was shaking; I felt the tremor under my fingertips.

Zoe came in about three seconds later. "Carson?"

You see, with her stature, those kind eyes and the air of a walking artist, she didn't look mean at first. It was by the sound of her voice that Carson finally moved away from the door, and Zoe Donovan took a single look at who was at the front door of her house.

I swear to God, her eyes quite literally turned into slits. Her nose flared. Her cheekbones turned a pink that was nearly invisible under her olive-toned skin. Even the tightness of her jaw resembled Carson's when he was angry. In two quick strides, she had pushed Carson back and was facing a woman who was at least a foot and a half taller than her with no such thing as fear in her eyes.

"I want you out of my property in the next two seconds or I swear to God I call the cops," Zoe threatened, her voice as cold as her eyes.

Carson's Mom didn't look surprised at this. She just had eyes for the boy in front of her, the boy whose heart she had been an accomplice in breaking. The boy who now stared at her as though all the pain had been taken from the world and now rested on his shoulders. Her hair was the same shade as Carson's, done in a bun that was falling apart. I could almost see the resemblance; though her eyes were a dark, chocolate brown. She was seriously tall and a little chubby. Same nose, mouth, hair as her son. Her makeup was smudged and undone. In other circumstances, she might have looked like the kind of Mom you see in bake sales.

It happened very fast. In the second that Zoe took a step towards Carson's mom, the girl who was still holding her hand took a tiny step backward. She glanced at the woman for a second and then she looked directly at Carson.

"Is this my brother, Mom?" the small girl asked in a timid whisper, her little voice quivering.

I noticed it at about the same time she said it. Because then I noticed her eyes. Eyes that were the same endless combination of color as her brothers.

Zoe stopped advancing like a tiger might do to a piece of meat towards Carson's Mom (I couldn't remember her name) and turned to stare blankly at the words the small, fragile-looking girl had said as if she couldn't make sense of them completely. Carson was utterly paralyzed, frozen in a way that seemed impossible to break. And I knew he was thinking the same as me because both of us were doing the math in our heads. If the girl looked around nine, perhaps ten. Nine months. And he turned eighteen today—

When I moved, I did it towards him. We all reach a point when we can't take anymore. I put myself in front of Carson, ignoring the way he didn't seem to notice me there, or any of us. Maybe the reason I jumped when he spoke was that I never expected him to say anything at all.

"What—" his voice sounded hoarse, or maybe it had to do with the nearly visible knot in his throat. He cleared it and tried again, pulling himself up a little straighter. "What the fuck are you doing here, Katherine?"

Katherine Samuels. Katherine and Adrian Samuels. They left somewhere around the time before Carson turned ten. Left a little boy alone. He had not heard of them ever since. He could not go to sleep at night because of them. I was thinking along the same lines as Carson.