Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
Victoria
‘Ask me what my truth is and what my lie is,’ she says.
I’m so shocked I take my eyes off the road. ‘Now? Now you want to play the game? Are you crazy?’
‘It’s not a game,’ she says as I return my gaze to where I’m going and stop at an orange traffic light just as it turns red.
The streets are empty but I can see there’s a camera.
I’m exhausted, uncomfortable and cold, but I need to concentrate and I certainly don’t want to play the ridiculous game.
We never played it again after that night sixteen years ago because we only ever played it with Camilla.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask her. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Just please,’ she says and it sounds like she’s crying. I risk a quick glance at her and can see the shine of tears on her cheeks in the glow of passing streetlights. But I don’t say the words.
‘You think I’m weak,’ says Reese.
‘No, that’s not true,’ I protest. ‘I think you’re good and the world tries to destroy good people. I know that it does.’
‘I’m not weak, Victoria. I’ve been through too much and if I didn’t know how to bend and survive, I would have broken. You didn’t need to protect me from her. You didn’t need to protect me from anything. I get why you did it.’ Reese shakes her head. ‘But there are things you don’t know.’
I look around, seeking a place to stop.
I get the feeling that something is going on, something more than what I know.
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ I ask my best friend and she nods but she doesn’t tell me what it is. Instead, she waits for me to pull over, to stop the car so that I can concentrate on her.
‘Ask me,’ she says again.
‘Okay.’ I sigh because if this is how she wants to do it, then this is how we’ll do it.
‘One truth and one lie, Reese,’ I demand. ‘Go.’
Reese sighs. ‘I was heartbroken when Camilla admitted she had sex with Lawrence.’
‘And?’ I ask because that’s obviously the truth.
I saw what she was like in the weeks after she found out.
I was there when Lawrence came over again and again, begging her to go ahead with the wedding only to be sent away by her parents.
I know that his parents went to her parents to try and make it happen.
I made sure that Reese was steadfast. I hated Lawrence.
He was nasty and mean and he would have made Reese’s life hell.
I was glad it was over and even though I set out to destroy Camilla, I was kind of…
just a little, grateful to her for what she did.
And I was glad I made her tell Reese. That’s a lie I will take to my grave.
When I went up to Camilla’s room the night I followed her and Lawrence home from the bar and confronted her, I said, ‘You need to tell Reese.’
‘What she doesn’t know and all that,’ Camilla replied with a smirk. Maybe she would have told her anyway, maybe she would have kept it to use when she needed it, but I needed her to stop the wedding going ahead if it was possible.
‘You tell her or I will,’ I said.
‘Why would you do that?’ she asked. ‘Why would you hurt your friend like that?’
‘Because she doesn’t deserve to be married to that man,’ I told her. ‘She deserves so much better.’
I didn’t want it to come from me but it’s not exactly like Camilla was going to keep it a secret forever.
But we are not talking about my truths and my lies now. Reese is playing the game. I’m not.
‘And?’ I repeat because she’s looking down at her lap where she is wringing her hands. ‘Reese, please,’ I say. I’m so tired I could cry.
Reese bites down on her lip and then she covers her face with her hands.
‘Just say it.’
‘I asked her to do it,’ she says, loudly, clearly. ‘I asked her to sleep with Lawrence.’