She flicked on the light and winced. A tequila headache was pulsing at her temples, and at the sight of the bed, what little energy she had left drained out of her. She dragged herself to the bathroom, stripping out of her clothes along the way, and put on a comfy T-shirt before brushing her teeth. One more night, and she’d be back to her normal life.
The thought didn’t soothe her as much as it should. Goddamned time capsule. A few days ago, she would’ve told anyone who asked that she was content. She lived in a great city. Had a decent apartment. A job that supported her. Even though she worked a lot of hours, she was good at what she did and made more money than she ever would’ve from photography. She had a few friends and a couple of guys she saw casually when she had the interest or time. If she got lonely for family, her dad and older brothers weren’t too far away.
From the outside looking in, everything was in place. Nice and neat and stable. Her former therapist would’ve been proud. Her mother would’ve called her a success. But after tonight and hearing all the declarations in the letters, her life suddenly seemed enormously mundane.
Teen Liv would be disappointed in her. All those big dreams she’d whispered to Finn had been neatly filed away and dismissed, the stories ending before they began. No photos. No travel. No passionate affairs. She’d survived when so many others at Long Acre hadn’t gotten that luxury, and this was what she was doing with her life. Doing a job she sort of liked, living in an apartment she’d never decorated, and just…marking time.
The thoughts were like a growing itch, a restlessness moving through her. She couldn’t get the notion out of her head that they were winning. Those pathetic cowards who’d taken so many lives were succeeding at messing with her life—still. She sighed and stared at herself in the reflection above the sink. The circles under her eyes told her she was tired, but the fine lines at the corners told her more. Time was passing. Not in minutes. But years. Twelve years since she’d walked away from the school. And what did she have to show for it? She’d moved away from things. She was a pro at that. But what was she moving toward?
She was still living like a college student—just with less booze and fewer one-night stands. Living in a state of perpetual waiting. But waiting for what?
Her mother had died at forty-three. What if Liv only had thirteen years left? Would she look back and be happy with what she’d done in life? Proud? Satisfied?
The thought made her stomach churn.
She grabbed her phone from where she’d left it on the bathroom counter, ignoring the crushing number of unread work emails, and lifted it, putting it in camera mode. She stared back at her image, making sure to catch the light just right, the shadows slanting across her face, wanting to capture herself exactly as she was in the moment, and clicked.
She lowered the phone, and the picture filled the screen. It was the same woman she saw in the mirror, but the camera always captured that other thing. The thing mirrors or the naked eye never seemed to catch. Cameras could tell a thousand lies, or they could tell the bald-faced truth. It was what she loved about them most. And staring back at her was the truth.
She was lost.
She didn’t know who she was anymore. Liv Arias—that terrified, passionate girl from Long Acre. Or Olivia Moreno—the put-together web designer who, as far as anyone in Austin knew, had a typical past where nothing of note had happened.
The latter was the role she’d played for almost eight years now. The person both her parents would be proud of.
The former was the person who’d gotten drunk and kissed Finn Dorsey. The former was the one who’d run out with a panic attack today. The former could lead her back down the road to a ten-car pileup of problems.
Maybe Olivia Moreno was boring. But at least she was stable.
If her mother were still around, she’d tell her to be Olivia 2.0. Before her mom had gotten sick, they’d clashed regularly over Liv’s rebellious nature. Why did she have to fight everything? Why couldn’t she be more like her two older brothers who were practical to the core? Why did she have to make everything so hard on herself and everyone around her?
Both her parents had grown up with less than nothing, and they’d seen her attitude as a consequence of being spoiled. Not that they’d been well off. Far from it. But they could pay the rent on their house and had a car and food on the table, which was more than either of her parents had growing up. So Liv wanting to do impractical things like taking off a year before college to travel or becoming a photographer had seemed ludicrous to them.
Her mom had told her in those last quiet weeks that all she wished for Olivia was to find contentment in the simple things. A good job, a safe place to live, and the love of a good man. That’s all you need. That’s my wish for you. Please don’t break your papá’s heart. I’ll break it enough when I leave.
Liv sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh and rubbed her hands over her face. Instead of listening, she’d gone off the deep
end after her mother passed. She had broken her dad’s heart. She could still remember his face when she’d had to call him from county lockup to bail her out after she’d gotten picked up from a party and caught with pills. He’d paid the money—money he probably hadn’t had to spare—and then had looked at her with her smeared makeup, purple hair, and party clothes and told her with sad eyes, “You’re not the daughter your mamá raised.”
He’d left her there without a ride, and they’d stopped speaking for almost a year. If nothing else, it’d been a wake-up call. She’d agreed to get back into therapy as part of her probation, and that had helped her get her shit together. The next Christmas, she’d gone home and mended fences with her dad. Now he smiled when she came to visit. Now he looked proud when she told him how well she was doing at work.
She imagined what he’d say if she told him what she’d been feeling tonight, the things that were tempting her. Her dad would be terrified of her trying to recapture that girl she once was.
She should be terrified.
She groaned and rolled her shoulders, trying to chase the tension out of them. She needed to get out of this place. It was seeping into her skin and making her think crazy thoughts. The tequila wasn’t helping either.
She couldn’t trust herself right now.
She needed to sleep and sober up. She’d deal with the rest in the morning.
She climbed into bed, turned off the light, and gave into exhaustion, hoping for the oblivion of dreamless sleep.
* * *
Finn flipped the folded rectangle of paper in his hand, the loose-leaf brittle beneath his fingertips, as if it’d been dipped in water and dried in the sun. He’d found it on the deck on his way back into the restaurant and had brought it up to his room. Liv’s name was in scrawly letters on the outside.
He shouldn’t open it. He knew that much. He could guess what it was. But he found himself unfolding the page carefully in the lamplight of his room anyway, the investigator in him too curious to resist. The words on the page were faded but still easy enough to read.