Page 117 of Liars and Liaisons

That’s what I tell myself, anyway. A musician is nothing without his God complex.

It helps that she makes me feel likehergod, too. Even if she says she doesn’t believe in Him, still. She believes inme.

And I don’t really give a shit what she believes in otherwise. I’ll be her god any day.

For the rest of our eternity, if she wants.

As I lean over the desk to switch to the next slide, I feel the distinct pressure of a velvet box against my thigh. A bead of sweat breaks out along my brow, and I wipe it with a forearm, ignoring the anxiety mounting in my chest.

She’ll say yes.

There are no other options for the little raven-haired vixen.

Partway through the lesson, I glance down at my watch and notice the time. Since I refuse to be late to this, I dismiss the class early and gather my things, sending Ms. Singh on her way and pretending not to notice whensheslips in through the departing crowd.

My teeth grind together slowly as I shuffle some papers, then slide them into my satchel and sling the bag over my shoulder. I’m hoping to evade her presence altogether the way I do most afternoons, but this time she’s persistent.

White blonde hair fills my peripheral vision, and she clears her throat. It carries in the nearly-empty auditorium, and I’m momentarily taken back to the first time we ever stood in this room together. Back then, I’d stopped her from leaving, and altered the course of our reality forever.

I don’t stop to talk to her, and she doesn’t wait for me to. Instead, she falls in step as I walk past. She takes twice as many stairs as I do and is breathing heavy by the time we exit into the hall, but that doesn’t deter her.

Not even when I reach my office on the other side of the building, and attempt to shut the door on her. I see her slip in like the little ghost she is, and stand across from my desk with her arms over her chest, silently waiting for an opening.

“You look thin,” I say, sorting my papers into the filing cabinet behind my desk. “Is my mother not feeding you enough?”

Sydney’s exhale fills the room, rife with agitation. She’s likely used to this line of questioning by now; it’s typically as far as I allow our interactions to go.

“I am very grateful to Penelope for taking me in,” she says, like she’s reading from a pamphlet. “But I didn’t come here to discuss her.”

“No, why would anyone want to talk about the new face of the James family?”

She fell into the role rather seamlessly, too. As though she’d simply been waiting for my father’s end, in order for her life to finally begin.

I don’t begrudge her the fresh start. Or even that she felt the need to help Sydney after everything she’d been through herself. That was the story she told, after everything finally settled; that she’d seen a young girl in trouble, on the cusp of utter ruin at the hands of Ezekiel James, and wanted to do something to stop it.

The way no one had been able to for her.

I just wish they hadn’t kept it a secret fromme.

Sydney, especially. She was a sister to me, and she hadn’t felt she could ask me for assistance at such a crucial time in her life. I’ve never felt so completely useless.

She’s still standing in front of my desk when I turn around, rocking on her heels. I note the slight, translucent circles beneath her blue eyes, and the little sapphire pendant around her neck, but I don’t mention either one.

We never do.

Micah’s memory is a silent presence we’ve somehow learned to live with. Not a ghost, exactly, but the weight of consequence. Like a small, puffy white cloud that hovers everywhere you look.

“Go ahead.” I roll my chair out from under my desk and sink into it, bracing my elbows on the broad wooden surface.

Sydney’s brows arch. “Go ahead and what?”

“Say your piece. That’s what you come here so often for, right? To explain yourself and beg my forgiveness?”

“I don’t needyourforgiveness.” That cloud drifts closer, blotting out the sun. “But yes, I would like the chance to explain. Are you actually going to let me this time?”

“What new information are you planning to enlighten me with?”

She blinks. “I-I don’t have any—”

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