Tell Me Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

sharp after twenty years. Dumb, dumb, dumb. What was it about high school pain that lasted a lifetime? And how was it that he could ring a doorbell and see Maddie Martindale glaring at him, twenty years older and several pounds heavier, and instantly feel that pain again and feel so damn dumb again and still want her again? It’s pride, he told himself. It was pride saying, Hey, I was inept because I was a kid; give me another shot, I’m better now, much better. Really. Except he was pretty sure that if a miracle happened and he got her again, he’d still blow it just because it was Maddie. And a miracle wasn’t going to happen, and he didn’t want it to. The past was the past, and it didn’t matter anywhere except in Frog Point where what had happened twenty years ago was still news today, and Brent Faraday was still Most Likely to Succeed, and Maddie Martindale was still That Nice Girl, and he was still That Sturgis Boy who was such a Burden to his aunt and uncle. The hell with it.
    C.L. straightened and took a final drag on his cigarette. He started to lean into the car to stub the butt out and then stopped himself. What were they going to bust him for if he threw it into the street? Littering?
    He flipped the butt into the street and then froze as it landed on a leaf, seeing in his mind the leaf burst into flame, catching other leaves, the fire licking across the road, attacking cars and houses, blackened matchstick frames cracking and falling into the street as gas tanks exploded and raged, and then, at the end of the street, as the smoke cleared, Henry in his sheriffs suit, looking disgusted again.
    The butt went out, and C.L. got back in his car, determined to get out of Frog Point before it made him certifiable instead of just temporarily crazed.

    “I’m never going to feel the same way about your bushes again,”
    Caddie said when she was drinking microwaved hot tea and lemon in Treva’s kitchen. It was a lovely, messy kitchen, full of copper pans and kids drawings on the refrigerator and bright boxes that said “New!” and “Extra Crisp!” Howie had redone everything so it was now brick and gleaming wood and brass, but it was Treva’s kitchen, too, so everything was all jumbled together, and Treva stood in the middle of it, bent over a bowl full of white cheese on her butcher-block island, her frizzy blonde hair making her look like part of the chaos, a dandelion blown there by accident.
    “I’m sure my bushes have new feelings for you, too.” Treva’s voice was tight as she picked up a spoonful of the white gunk from the bowl in front of her and a piece of manicotti from the plate beside her and tried to integrate them. Her hands were shaking, and she pushed too hard, and the pasta split and the cheese fell in a glop back into the bowl, spattering her skinny-ribbed red-striped tank top. “Hell.” She dabbed at the stain on her shirt with a dish towel. “Just hell.”
    “What are you doing with that manicotti?” Maddie said, stalling to avoid talking about the thing she’d come to talk about. “Cooking? This isn’t like you.”
    “I needed to.” Treva gave up on the towel and picked up another piece of pasta. “You know how sometimes you just have to cook?”
    “No,” Maddie said. “And neither do you. What’s wrong?”
    “What’s wrong?” Treva waved the pasta at her. “You’re getting divorced and you ask me what’s wrong?”
    “I think I’m getting divorced,” Maddie said. “I have to think this through.”
    “Don’t think it through,” Treva picked up the spoon and went back to work, her hands growing steadier as she talked. “Just divorce the son of a bitch. I’ve always hated him anyway.”
    Maddie jerked her chin up in surprise. “Hello? You were matron of honor at the wedding. You waited sixteen years to tell me this?”
    “You were in love. It didn’t seem like a good time.” Treva abandoned her pasta for a moment to take a chunk of pale cheese from the