The woman's eyes narrow. “Do you?”
“Yes. You're upset. You're angry. You're feeling betrayed. All of those things.”
“Yes,” she repeats, like some sort of demented parrot. “I am.”
“And you're desperate. Desperate to fix it. Desperate to make everything okay. But it's not going to happen. It's not going to work. You can't change what happened. I know how you feel,” I tell her.
“You don't know how I feel,” she says.
“But I do,” I tell her. “I do. I've lost friends. I've lost family. I've lost my mother. And how I saw her, once I realized that my whole life—my whole family—and what I thought it was…was all a lie. And I know you are hurt,” I say. “I know you are. And I know how it feels to lose someone. I know how it feels to be lied to by those you love. But if you want to get past it, you have to let go of the lies. You have to stop lying to yourself. I didn't…at first. At that time, I was angry. I was hurt. I was desperate for anything to make it better. And I tried to take shortcuts. I tried to force it. To make it happen.”
“But?” Paisley says.
“But I learned a lesson. I learned that it doesn't work like that. Nothing just falls into place. You have to make it happen. You have to go deep inside yourself. Find the sides of who you are—the sides that you’ve buried to protect yourself and let them free. Let the lies go. Let yourself go. And then you'll be able to move on.”
She lowers the gun, sets it on the table. “I think you're right,” she says. “I think I am being a little selfish.”
“A little,” I agree.
And it’s right then that I realize something…
Paisley Banneker is a liar.
A liar who has convinced herself her lies are actually true.
She has to believe them. The lies about her family. About her ex-husband. About the life she led. She has to think that.
Otherwise, she has nothing.
Chris has left her.
And she will not leave her son. But Paisley—or rather, Carol Jackson—has no choice. She must leave.
To make it right, to make it all better, she has to leave. And she has to distance herself from the lie she's been holding onto.
She nods. Going to the window, she looks out at the view. The sky opens up, revealing the early evening moon, still surrounded by streaks of dark reds and purples.
Hannah’s wedding will be starting any minute from the looks of that sky.
I can barely see it. My eyes are on the gun, as are Andrew's.
Andrew starts to move again.
Everything feels like it's in slow motion.
Paisley’s near the window. Andrew at my side, his step careful as he inches towards the pool table, eyes fixed on the surface…before he lunges for the gun.
“No!” Paisley cries, and for the first time, there is real panic in her voice.
Andrew's body, long, muscular and lean, shoots out from where we stand, flying to the other side of the pool table, towards the pistol, but he is too late.
Paisley is looking at the gun, wildly flailing her hand at it, and just as her fingers close around it, I scream so loudly I shock myself, my voice sounding out loud in the room like an overwrought siren.
“You bitch!” she hisses, her finger tightening on the trigger. “You stupid, meddling, reckless…”
She goes to raise the firearm in the air, but her movements are molasses-like.
Andrew is already on his feet. In the path of her pistol.
And then suddenly he's upon her as she pulls the trigger.
Chapter 28
ANDREW
My entire life flashes before my eyes.
The life of Andrew Fletcher. The life of Lincoln.
The decisions I’ve made this weekend…
And every one before it.
They all come crashing down.
The family I had. The family I left.
The family I could have had in my future.
I've always been a bit of a smartass. Joking around.
Though I'd known somewhere in the back of my mind, that even the jokes always had a serious edge to them. A serious undertone.
Now, I'm about to die, and there’s only one thing on my mind.
Family.
And Nancy.
The family I was about to have. The family we could have had.
No, not could have. Will have.
The family we always will have.
And the family I am about to lose. I reflect on how I may have done all this before, in a different world.
Another world.
A world where the family I was born into could mourn the deaths of my parents and grandparents. A world where we didn't always pretend to be fine. A world where we didn't always have to live a lie.
A world where I could have loved a woman named Nancy.
A world where all of this could happen again.
I hope it does. I want it to.
This time, I want it to go right.
I want to live a life where Nancy and I are together.
I snap back in the moment, knowing that the lives of my family—the ones I've hurt, the one I've protected, the ones I've left behind, and the ones I've yet to meet, are all slipping out of my grasp.
I look at Nancy, my face inches from hers.
Even in this moment, she's calm.
Calm, and beautiful.
Nancy.
I see her smiling face.
Nancy's smiling face. Nancy's serene smiling face.
I see her smiling face as a kid.
I see her smiling face in her wedding dress.
I see her smiling face in the future.
I see her smiling face as an old woman.
I brace for the pain of the bullet. Instead, I feel a twisting of my soul at all that I may miss out on. And then I feel nothing at all.
Turns out I'm not dead…
Actually far from it.
I look up and see Nancy kicking the gun out of Paisley's hand. The gun skitters across the floor. And she turns to me, cheeks burning the same color as her silky hair.
She turns all of her wrath on me in a moment’s notice. A beautiful, sexy wrath.
A wrath,
