Half truth

“I grew up in Mexico City. Still in a mansion, yes, but entirely different life no matter how you put it.” I chewed on the tip of my thumb. “We moved here when I started high school though and my parents bought this house when I was a junior, so yeah, I sort of grew up here.”

“Out of my league,” he whispered.

“You’re not fooling anyone, Fitzgerald. Your parents have money too.”

“There’s money, and then there’s money,” he emphasized, looking at the house.

“Money that you’ll be making very soon,” I reminded him. “Then you can buy your own mansion like this.”

“I would never.” He scoffed. “Give me a little cottage by a lake and my girl and I’ll be happy as can be.”

The image made me smile. I could completely picture Logan living that kind of unassuming life even after he starts making crazy money playing pro and with the athletic clothing contracts he’s bound to get. I could picture myself living like that with him. We finally arrived at the front of the house, we didn’t even wait for the driver to open the door. Logan grabbed our bags and we bolted out of the car, rushing to the front door. I hadn’t even bothered to bring my key. I was about to knock when the door opened. Mirna stood there, smiling when she saw me. I gave her a quick hug and introduced her to Logan. Mirna had been with my family since I was a kid and was more like an aunt than a housemaid.

“Leave the bags here.” I turned to Logan as we were passing the grand staircase.

He looked like he didn’t even know where to look. I always forgot how fancy the house was until a new person walked in and made me stop and see it for what it was—there were paintings and sculptures and marble and gold. My mother’s love of Versailles shone through this house. Logan dropped the bags carefully, as if scared he’d scratch something. I grabbed his hand and walked quickly toward the back of the house and through the doors, and then through the corridor that led to the guest house.

“Remember that cottage I said I dreamed of?” Logan said as we approached the guest house.

I laughed. It was the perfect cottage, or guest house, with three bedrooms, three baths, and a full kitchen. Basically, it was someone’s dream family home and my parents had it sitting in their yard. This was why I had a hard time with their charity sometimes. They donated a lot of money and time but it was hard to be a champion for the poor and come home to this. At least that’s what I always thought. Mom didn’t see it that way. Dad always reminded me that Princess Diana had been the people’s princess and visited poor people yet lived in luxury.

I paused in front of the door and took a deep breath, then another, trying to calm down before I walked in there. Logan let go of my hand and set it on my shoulder, squeezing. I turned the knob and pushed the door open. Mom was sitting at the dining room table, her computer opened up and her headset on. She’d been working predominantly from home and everywhere else in the world for a year now, using a program to have video meetings with her patients when she was out of town, and sometimes even making house calls when she was in.

“She’s on a call with a patient,” I whispered, turning to Logan.

We waved at her. She pointed toward the room Lincoln was in. She looked like she’d aged ten years these last few weeks. My heart pounded harder as we walked up to the room. The door was slightly ajar, and as I pushed it open, it revealed Lincoln on a bed, looking pale, but not nearly as frail as I envisioned. He actually looked like he’d put on some weight, his cheeks filling out. His mouth moved into a smile when he saw me, but fell quickly when he saw Logan behind me.

“Not him.” He shook his head.

My heart stopped beating. “He just wants to make sure you’re okay, Linc.”

“Not him.”

Logan sighed heavily, touching my arm. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

I wanted to stop him. To tell him not to be ridiculous, that he was welcome wherever I was, but my brother wasn’t in a clear state of mind and I needed to respect his wishes. As I neared the bed, the nurse also took it upon herself to leave us alone. Tears pricked my eyes as I reached for him. I placed my hand on his smooth face. My handsome brother, my best friend that I almost lost for good. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized how much I truly missed him. How truly empty and sad living in a world without him would be. Sure, I’d made myself stay busy, but his absence was always there, waiting to greet me at the end of a long day.

“You shaved,” I whispered. His own eyes filled with tears as he brought his hand up and closed it around mine, and that was what put me over the edge. I started to cry, really cry, all the tears I’d been holding back all of these days finally exposed. I pressed my forehead to his shoulder and cried as he held my head and cried along with me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“You died, Lincoln.” I pulled back, wiping my tears. “They used Narcan and still could barely bring you back and then the only thing you do is Morse code me The Lab? What the fuck?”

“Is that why you brought him?”

“No.” I wiped my face again. “He’s my boyfriend.”

A multitude of expressions passed over his face—confusion, pain, more confusion, before he settled on laughter.

“What’s so fu

“Fitz doesn’t do girlfriends.”

“I’ve heard.” I sighed. “But as it turns out, Fitz has a girlfriend and it’s me.”

“You trust him?”

“Why wouldn’t I? He’s never given me a reason not to.”

“The person who did this to me . . . the person who injected me with that shit was wearing a black cloak. It could be any one of them.”

“It wasn’t Logan.”

“How do you know?”

“You really think Logan would try to kill you?” I scrutinized him. “You think Marcus or Nolan or Nora would?”

I hadn’t formally met the other two members yet, but I couldn’t imagine they’d have anything to do with it either. Why would they? They had nothing to gain and everything to lose if they did some extreme thing like kill another member.

“I don’t know, Mae. I don’t know what to think and all I do is think.” His voice wasn’t his own and it had little to do with the hoarseness and more to do with the way he was slurring his words, as if his tongue was tripping over itself as he spoke.

“I know about dad and the girls,” I said, lowering my voice so mom wouldn’t hear. “And Lana.”

Lincoln flinched at the sound of her name.

“You tried to convince her to stop seeing him,” I said, “and the rest of the members wanted her out, they didn’t want her to be around or write about anything she saw.”

Lincoln kept his eyes on me, a faraway look in them as I spoke, as if he was physically here, but mentally elsewhere.

“She’s dead,” he said after a while. “Lana. She’s dead.”

“What?” I placed my hand on my heart, willing it to stop beating so hard. “What do you mean?”

“She jumped the fall. There are so many rocks down there, beneath those waterfalls. She just jumped.” He blinked away tears. “She just jumped and I just let her.”

“You’re not making any sense, Lincoln. When did this happen?”

“The night of the accident. We were arguing about dad. I was on the verge of just reporting all of them to the police, fuck the consequences, and then the accident happened and then she jumped.” He paused for a long time, taking deep breaths. “I don’t even remember how we got into the accident. I must have lost control.”