What A Lie Looks Like | ✓

1.19: hayes

"I didn't do anything stupid, did I?" I ask Sephine, gladly accepting the glass of water she's offering.

She twists her hair as if she has to think carefully, "Define stupid?"

I can't tell if she's just teasing me or being serious, but that could be because I'm hungover. "Did I do something that I wouldn't normally do?"

"I'm not sure what you normally do anymore," She sits down on the bed with her phone. So this is still about me kissing her the other day.

"Seph." I run my hands through my hair, and resist the urge to pull my hair out while I try to forget that this is the first time I've seen her since the other day. Sober anyway. Sephine flat out ignores me and continues with her game of Candy Crush. "Montgomery," I try, but she doesn't even flinch. "Are you really going to ignore me?" I scold trying to get some kind of reaction out of her.

"Put a shirt on, and then maybe I'll talk to you. I'm starting to miss the happy drunk from last night now that your annoying cocky self is back." There's a hint of a smile on her face that lets me know she's not in a bad mood.

I smirk and sit down next to her on the bed. "Does it bother you?"

My teasing has the opposite effect that I hoped it would have, and she falls silent again. So I give up and pull one of Ollie's shirts on that's a little on the small side, but it gets Sephine to put the phone down, and at least consider speaking to me. Except when I look at her again, it's as if her mood has taken a complete one-eighty.

"Are you okay?" I tuck a caramel lock of hair behind her ear, and I wish I could explain to myself why I did it. Sephine pulls away, and her hands twiddle with her phone as she avoids looking at me. "Why do you keep pushing me away?" I ask and almost want to stuff the words back into my mouth when I see the look of hurt in her eyes.

"Because it's easier. How much longer are we going to keep doing this?"

I open my mouth, but I don't know how to answer her. I didn't ever expect it to get this far, hell I'm not even sure what I expected to happen with all of this.

"Tessa isn't going to stop. Provoking her until she makes everything public isn't in anyone's best interest." She's staring at the phone in her hands, and I'm not sure what just happened.

"Like I said before, her bark is way worse than her bite."

Except Sephine isn't having it. "You don't understand," Her tone is bitter, and I couldn't tell you who I was talking to at the moment.

"So help me understand then."

Her head falls to her hands, and she breathes heavily, "I can't because I don't think you would be able to look at me if I told you."

I rest my hand on her shoulder, waiting for her to pull away, but this time she doesn't, "You're too pretty to never look at again." It sounds corny coming out of my mouth, and I resist the urge to cringe. Of all the things I could have said, I picked that.

It's enough to get her to raise her head to look at me with confusion, "Are you still drunk?"

"Pretty sure I wouldn't be hungover if I were still drunk." I muse trying to lighten the situation. "What makes you think that I wouldn't be able to look at you even though it's a completely false guess."

"Because I have a hard time looking at myself, and it's eight months."

This is Sephine without all of her walls up, and she just appears so unsure of everything, but then her phone vibrates again. She reads it immediately, but I don't expect her to hurl it across the room. "Jesus, what the hell are you doing?" I jumped half out of my skin when she threw the phone, and it lays in our line of view in a shattered mess.

"You should go," She mutters, turning away from me.

I laugh at the idea of leaving Sephine alone by herself right now. "Not a chance."

"I'm fine, don't feel obligated to stay."

"Bullshit," I spit out, but she looks like she has nothing left in her. "Me sticking around isn't out of obligation. Sure, its fun as hell getting a rise out of Tessa, but did you think of the possibility that I might enjoy spending time with you?"

At this point, I'm afraid. I don't know what's going on and I don't know how to help. "You only think its fun because you're not the one getting threats from her. You're not the one with things to lose. She can fuck up a lot of people's lives with what she knows, and it can't get out."

Her hands are shaking so much that she has to clasp them together to try and keep them from shaking now that she no longer has the phone to grip.

I search for the right words to say, yet I can't find them.

"I'll be back soon," I promise pressing a chaste kiss to the top of Sephine's head. Now why I did that, I had no idea. There's just the urge to try and keep her from hurting because it's killing me to see her like this. "Don't do anything stupid."

It's a quiet response, but it lets me know that she heard me, "Define stupid?"

I pull out my phone to text Cam to get to Seph's right now, and I swipe the keys from her desk before hurrying out of the house because I know that if I look at her sitting there, I won't be able to leave.

What could Sephine have possibly been through that is still affecting her like this? I could call Ollie and ask, but I doubt he would tell me. Tessa making threats has gone too far.

I ignore Cam's response and just hope that he gets there, realizing it's an emergency. I'm half surprised that I didn't get pulled over with how fast I made it to Tessa's. But lucky for me, the security guard recognizes me from over a year ago and lets me in.

I know my way around like it's the back of my hand, so it doesn't take me long to get to her room. She looks surprised to see me there, but it's quickly shoved behind the mask she now wears all the time.

"Are you threatening Sephine?" I ask, trying to contain my temper.

"I wouldn't call them threats, just suggestions." She shrugs, playing with a pendant around her neck.

"You need to leave her alone." I don't know what I thought I could accomplish by coming here, but it's a better option than looking at Sephine and not doing anything to help. "Messing with her head isn't some game you can play."

Tessa stands up from the chair she was reading in and walks towards me, "You actually care for her."

"What are you talking about?" I won't reveal anything on my face.

"I'm not an idiot, Hayes; I just didn't expect you to be one. I figured that at least you would be smarter than to date the person you knew got under my skin? I guess I didn't expect the possibility of you actually liking Sephine."

"Maybe you should have." Maybe I should have too.

She frowns, "Maybe you should be with her right now instead of me."

I pinch the bridge of my nose to take a second to think before speaking, "I'm doing this for her. What do you want?"

Tessa rests a hand on my arm, "I want you."

Her hazel eyes are staring up at me, but I don't feel anything.

"That's not going to happen. I don't date cheaters." I spit the words out at her, and she flinches.

"Then what are you doing with Sephine? I suppose you just came over here blindly, not knowing that it was her fault that everything even happened." Tessa knows she has me right where she wants me, but I also know that I have to trust Sephine over Tessa.

"Tess, just leave her alone. You know I have the connections to make your life a living hell if I wanted to."

She takes a step back and just stares at me, "Think about who you're becoming. Is she really worth it?"

"I think you should ask yourself the same fucking thing."