Page 71 of Untruly With You

I move my head in a tight, small shake. “Bill, have you seen Laine around today?”

He clears his throat and rubs at the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I—I thought you knew. She said it was your idea.”

A curse slips from my mouth. Then another. And another as I kick a bucket sitting nearby. When I speak again, my voice sounds more like my father’s than my own. “I need you to tell me where she went.”

Bill looks at his feet, his hat obscuring half his face. “She said you wanted her to leave. I didn’t want her to try hitching a ride from some stranger, and she said she was too embarrassed to ask anyone in the family for a ride, so I drove her to the gas station. She took the bus to Missoula.”

“And you didn’t think totellme that my girlfriend was leaving?” My tone comes out harsher than I would like.

“Explain,” Wells prods Bill, an icy edge to his narrowed gaze.

Bill coughs awkwardly. “Laine made it sound like you two…well, like you ended things.”

“That’s not…” My voice fades, and I feel a sharp tingling at my fingertips.

Wells looks at me, dropping his usual bravado as his mouth pops open. “Tell me that isn’t true.”

My sigh cuts through the cool air. “It’s complicated.”

Frankie’s shout sounds from the porch. “Any luck?” shecalls, her hands cupped in a makeshift megaphone around her mouth. My parents and Cassidy stand at Frankie’s sides.

A weight drops in my stomach. I walk over to the porch to face my family, wincing at their expressions, a mix of curiosity and concern. Wells is right behind me, and I can feel his eyes on the back of my head, silently demanding an explanation.

“So?” Frankie says, drumming her fingertips on the porch railing.

“I have something to tell you—all of you.”

My parents exchange glances, and Cassidy shoots a questioning look to Wells. I hear his jacket rustle with a shrug.

“We should sit,” I say, mostly to buy myself more time. I reenter the house with methodical steps, planting myself on the bench of the fireplace’s hearth. My family, timid and suspicious, takes their seats on the couches opposite me.

“Is Laine okay?” Mom asks, deep eyes even darker with a shadow of worry. She sweeps her eyes over my ragged face. “Areyouokay?”

My father’s expression isn’t much different. “What’s this about, son?”

“I haven’t been honest with you all,” I say.

Frankie scoffs, clinging to any shred of positivity left in her. “Dishonesty must be genetic,” she jokes.

I look down at my hands, at the lipstick tube still in my palm, taking in a slow exhale. “Laine and I weren’t actually dating,” I finally confess. “She was—is—my best friend. And when I told her about the wedding, about how embarrassed I was feeling about not having a date, she offered to act like we were dating.”

My mother's face contorts, and my father's brows furrow. Wells and Cassidy look at me with incredulous stares. Frankie simply blinks, as if she doesn’t speak my language.

Mom, as usual, is the first to break the silence. "Sutton Davis, you didwhat?"

I push my hair away from my face, avoiding their gazes. “Laine and I weren’t really dating. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you. It got out of hand.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Wells says, each word tight.

My family’s disappointment is palpable.

Hank, looking wearied from our terrible evening, shakes his head an inch to the side. “You shoulda been honest with us. Lying to us, bringing Laine here under that pretense…it’s now how we raised you.”

There's nothing I can say that can excuse what I've done. But as bad as it is to come clean, it would have been worse to continue the lies. I can’t stand having one more ounce of guilt in a vise around my throat.

Frankie is visibly shaken. “Couldn’t you have picked someone lessperfect?Like, someone with an annoying laugh or someone who talks during movies or who smacks her lips when they talk?” Her attempt at a laugh is feeble. “I thought…I thought I might get a sister. Another sister,” she adds, looking over at Cassidy. “I thought Laine was the one.”

My family nods in agreement.

---