Convincing You I'm Me

Chapter 35: Truth Through a Lie

I S L A

I guided Jason back to my apartment, a few blocks from his house. The car journey was spent in silence and it frustrated me. I wasn't used to being this quiet, this scared, this petrified of not speaking to him. I kept glancing at him, feeling my body swamp with heat. I hadn't gotten my head around the fact he was next to me, so close, just in reaching distance. There was literally just a gear stick that separated us and it made me cringe with unwelcome tears caught in my eyes.

Now, we're sitting at my kitchen table with the blinds drawn shut and the fire of the lit candle in between us flickers graciously. I try and imagine what I've seen on TV or films, I know roughly how to make it convincing, but what if I'm not a good enough liar?

What if he suspects? What if he thinks I'm a fraud?

I know that can't be possible, because I have every memory now. I know everything and anything, and he still won't believe the truth. 

"So, how does this work?" he mumbles.

Good question. I have no idea.

"I'll call out her name and try and bring her here." I say. "Are you ready?"

He leans back, taking a big breath. "No."

I smile and I close my eyes to add dramatic effect. "Lily," I call. "Can you hear me?" I keep my eyes closed, twitching my mouth. "Jason is here, he wants to talk to you. If you can hear me, speak, please."

I open my eyes slowly--meeting Jason's impatient, longing gaze. "She's here," I say softly.

"She is?" he whispers, staring around the kitchen. "Where?"

I stare to my left, pretending to watch her move. "She's pacing."

"Lily," he says to the thin air.  "I'm sorry that I dismissed your chances to speak to me. I'm so sorry."

A tear rolls down my face. "She says it's fine. She understands why you did it."

"She can hear me?"

I nod, staring into his eyes. "And see you."

He looks away, back to the air. "I miss you so much."

"She misses you too. She's so proud of you. With how you raised the kids, with your patience with them. You turned them into beautiful people, kind people. You couldn't have done better."

"It was hard," he chokes out. "On my own. I couldn't even look at Jamie, I couldn't bring myself to hold him. It took me a while. I don't know how I've coped, I don't know how to accept that I've spent two decades without you."

He's breaking my heart. He scrolls his eyes around the room, like he's trying to catch an impossible glimpse of her, like he believes focusing hard enough will make her visible to him. Even if it's just for a second, he searches for that. But his Lily isn't here. She isn't pacing, she isn't watching him, she isn't a ghost. Lily is right here. Sat in front of him. 

"You were brave," I whisper. "You had to do what you had to do. You faced what life threw you at you, it knocked you down but you got back up. Just like when that car hit you, just like when you sacrificed yourself for me. You are the bravest person I've ever known. You are. . . extraordinary."

"I'm a mess!" he exclaims, he begins to choke on small cries, and it pains me to see him so close to breaking point, so close to being the opposite of the strong, serious man that I know. "Do you remember when I proposed to you?"

"Yes," I say. "It was one of the happiest days of my life."

"I should have married you. Why didn't we ever marry?"

"Because we didn't need to put on a show to anyone," I say. "We were a not-wife, not-husband couple. And that's who we liked being."

He widens his eyes for a moment, glaring at me. And I narrow mine. I think he was trying to trick me, this whole thing was a trick for him to be convinced. And I don't think he was, until now. His demeanor changes, he doesn't seem sad anymore, he seems shocked. Shell-shocked. The life drains from his pale, crackled face as he once again glances around the room with his heart caught in his throat.

"Ask her what my favorite food is," he says.

"You don't have one. You have many. Your favorite breakfast is bacon sandwiches, she announced her pregnancy to the twins by luring you in to eat one. Your favorite snack is red grapes, never green, they're too soar. Your favorite meal is steak, predictably, with fries and onion rings. She'd cook it for you on special occasions, as a treat, which annoyed you. You don't drink alcohol too much but your favorite beverage is whiskey, you would have a few shots when she went to bed, thinking she wouldn't notice, but she did because that was the only time you brushed your teeth at night and-"

"Stop!" he yells, pushing his chair back. "Stop!"

I smirk, getting to my feet angrily and leaning my arms onto the table. "Why did you really ask me to do this, Jason? Because you didn't believe a word of it!"

He bites on a fingernail, eyeing me over it. "Are you tricking me? I have to know the truth."

"She's here."

"No," he shakes his head. "Lily doesn't pace. She jumps. She waves. She smiles. She laughs. She shakes. She doesn't pace."

Shit. I got one detail wrong. 

"She's a spirit, Jason. Some things that she did, came from her active brain. Little things have changed. But it doesn't mean I'm lying."

It does, actually. But I couldn't tell him the truth, I just couldn't. I did try, I had it on the tip of my tongue. I want to tell him that my time is almost up, that in eleven days everything will blow apart, I want to explain how much I love him and in theory, it might take me eleven days to cover it. 

"During her labor with the twins, she dug her fingernails into you so tight that you were scared she'd scar you. She yelled at you, cursed you, blamed you. You sat by her side in that hospital room and you took everything she said to you. And do you remember what she said to you after it was over?"

He stares at me, waiting for me to answer my own question. 

"She said that she was sorry that you weren't the only love of her life anymore. And you smiled, you wiped her head and what you said next, she has never forgotten!"

I take a deep breath to calm my pants, his eyes look into the silence of the abyss as he remembers what he said.

And he goes back to that haunting place again.