Read Online Duplicity by Kristina M Sanchez - Free Book Online

lived
day to day, surviving as best she could. The last time she’d had dreams, they’d
been the impossible kind that only children believed could come true. She had
vague memories of wanting to be president.
    People told children they could be anything, but it wasn’t true.
    “What’s the point of thinking of all that?” she asked, looking at
some nondescript spot over his shoulder. “When it gets to the point I can’t do
this anymore, I’ll be what? A twenty-something girl whose
only job was as an exotic dancer?” She shrugged. “I don’t want to think
about it.”
    Her easy dismissal seemed to trouble him. He sat back, gathering
her to him, and pulling her into a sitting position with him. “If you had to
think about it,” he prompted.
    Annoyance shot through her, and she shook her head, reaching for
her shirt. “Man, who knows? Maybe you’ll put in a good word for me at your
fancy school, and I can get a job cleaning the floors, emptying the garbage.
There’s nobility to that. Mal would be pleased.”
    “And solving impossible math equations out on the board when no
one’s looking?” He picked up on the movie she was referencing with ease.
    Untangling herself from him, she looked around for her pants. “I
have to go.”
    “ Lilith .  . .”
    “Look, don’t worry about me, okay?” Her tone was sharp, brusque.
    He watched her move around the room. He’d drawn his legs up to his
chest and wrapped his arms around them, his expression so sad, Lilith couldn’t stand to look at him.
    “Why don’t we go to lunch?”
    “No.”
    “If you don’t want to go out, I could make—”
     “Just stop.” She stood still for a second, her hands
clenched at her side as she looked at him. “Don’t feel sorry for me. This was
all my choice, and it was the right choice.”
    “Lilith, I didn’t—”
    “I have to go.” Before he could protest again, she was out the
door.
     
    ~0~
     
    As much as Lilith tried, she couldn’t get the voices in her head
to shut up. She tried to read but couldn’t concentrate. She turned on her
favorite movies, but the dialogue may as well have been Charlie Brown’s parents
for all she heard.
    Her thoughts were twisted, tangled. Every argument Mal made about
why she shouldn’t do what she did, how she could do better if she tried, played
in a loop.
    By now she knew Trey’s relentless questioning was innocent. He was
a curious boy, and she supposed, to him, she led a curious life. He hadn’t
meant to be condescending or mean, but his words had a definite effect on her.
    When had she started living like this—day to day, merely
surviving?
    She saw no future in front of her. She had no dreams. She couldn’t
say whether she wanted a boyfriend, children, or what kind of job she would
have if she had the choice. If someone asked her what she wanted most, she
would say to see Dana and Mal graduate. She wanted to go to Mal’s wedding, even if he did end up with Erin. She wanted to see Dana happy and at
peace. But for herself , life was a blank canvas,
gathering dust in the corner of a room, long forgotten.
    As the afternoon waned, turning to evening, Lilith had been pulled
into a dark place.
    There was so much in her life she’d rather forget. Amongst a
litany of memories she didn’t want, perhaps the worst was the scene she’d come
home to a little less than three years ago.
    She supposed none of the three of them—Mal, Dana, and Lilith—had
been doing okay by the time adulthood hit them, but of the three, Dana had been
the worst off. Some days, Lilith thought it was her friend’s brush with madness
that had saved her. If she hadn’t had to be so in control of herself for Dana’s
sake, what would have become of her?
    As it was, when they’d been eighteen, Dana and Mal had come into a
small inheritance left by their aunt to be granted to them both when they came
of age. There had been no talking Dana out of getting her own apartment and so
there had been no talking