White Lies (A Twisted Fate Series) (Volume 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Why?”
    He patted my leg. “I don’t know. I often thought the same thing. We thought your nonna was cancer free, but the doctors were wrong. Before we realized the seriousness of her illness, it was too late. She passed within a week. Life is hard, and it’s accountable to no one.”
    How true those words were.
    I thought about the last night with Alex. Maybe if I focused on the positive, the negative would fade away. A thought belatedly occurred—Alex hadn’t used protection. The doctors had taken me off birth control because of the side effects I was having. Alex knew and hadn’t cared. Probably because we weren’t sleeping together until the night before last. What if? No, I refused to think about it right then. It was too much to process.
    My mood shifted. A month ago, he informed me his decision on kids had changed since being in the Middle East. He no longer wanted them. I was hurt he’d kept a game changer like that a secret until after we married. I touched my stomach, hoping we’d made a child our last night together—a piece of him to have. Wait… I was crazy. It had to be all the stress. How in the world would I ever raise a child on my own?
    Push the thought aside, Willow.
    Nonno’s voice brought me out of my wishful thinking. “What about the funeral arrangements?”
    I shook my head. “Alex wanted to be cremated. No funeral. No memorial. With him being an undercover cop, he said it could bring unwanted attention to me. I think he’d been on some sort of assignment this last month. His hours at home had been erratic. We never talked about it. Regardless, nothing can be done until the investigation is over.”
    If only I had been able to talk him out of being an undercover cop.
    “I’ll be with you through this every step of the way, Willow.”
    A sniffle escaped me. “Thanks, Nonno. I love you.”
    “I love you, too, baby girl.”

 
     
    T hree days ago, I’d come to my studio to escape, to paint, and I hadn’t left. I needed the solace. Everyone watched me closely—asking me every five minutes if I needed anything. It became suffocating after a day. It was hard to believe it had been four days since Alex had died.
    Out of the blue, different scenes fought their way to the surface, begging to be painted. At least it allowed the loss and pain to disappear for a bit—or maybe it was the missed opportunities we had as husband and wife that hurt more acutely. Life was precious.
    We only had one shot to make the most of it.
    Our shot was gone.
    At meal times, Nonno came into the studio to eat with me. He’d stay until he was satisfied with the amount of food I consumed. As soon as the door closed, I returned to painting. At night, I slept on the couch for a few hours, took a shower in the studio bathroom, and then resumed painting.
    I finished one painting after another. I was hardly able to keep up with the images as my brush furiously stroked the canvas.
    The studio was a mess, and paint splotches covered my clothes.
    Making the last brush stroke, I stood back and grabbed a Twizzler from the table. Canvases, dry and wet, littered every surface of the studio. I’d been busy over the last few days. I walked around eyeing each one. The beginning paintings were full of bright colors and love, showcasing the brightness of the light. Later paintings grew darker and more detached with always a symbolic light somewhere in the picture. Toward the end, the light faded and then became brighter. All the paintings led to the one I’d been working on the day I found out Alex had died.
    The series was our story. Alex’s and my journey. Our journey.
    I kept staring at the figures in each painting. The weariness grew on the figures as the burdens of life weighed them down. At times, the vines nearly encapsulated one or the other.
    The paintings were raw emotions exposed to the nerve—they were real life.
    A sense of completion filled me. The process helped catalogue and decipher what happened.
    Over