Page 72 of Until He Confesses

She replied immediately, concerned about my mom, and I felt a little guilty that it wasn't what I wanted to talk about. When I eventually told her, she called me. I quickly picked up the call to make sure the sound wouldn't carry to the bedroom.

"Thin walls," I lowered my tone. "Don't call me, a voice note will work."

"I'm at work," she replied. "I only have five minutes, so start talking."

Sighing, I explained all that he had said, and by the end of it, she went quiet, and then she started laughing.

"What's funny?" I rolled my eyes.

"Nothing," she said. "Absolutely nothing. I'm just excited because the next few weeks are going to be very exciting for me."

"I'm hanging up," I said, but she stopped me.

"Come on, I'm kidding. To be honest, I am quite worried because I didn't know if you are cut out for a relationship like this. But then, at the same time, this is Lucas, and he's a decent-," she corrected herself, "He's a decent enough person, so I didn't know if there's anything to be worried about."

"So..."

"So, I'm conflicted," she said. "If it was with a random stranger, I'd never support this. You wouldn't even consider it. You're only doing this because of how good it is with him and because, I think, because of his offenses in the past, your heart is barricaded against falling in love with him."

These were my exact thoughts, and it made me so relieved that she could quickly decipher them as well.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Okay, so I don't see much of a downside. I can't help but-" She stopped.

"You can't help but what?" I asked.

"Ignore," she said, but I pursued it.

"Speak," I said with gritted teeth.

“I don't think he'll truly force you to be a sex slave or something if you do lose interest for any reason. Maybe he's just doing it to get a reaction out of you. I can't help but think he's trolling you in some way, just like he did with the million dollars.”

I frowned. “He's not that cunning.”

She laughed in response. "No, he's not. But he is that intelligent, and I've seen it happen in the past."

"What? You have?"

"Yeah," she replied. "You just don't realize it because he cloaks everything about you in this cloak of love that you can't see past. I mean, his intentions are almost always good, so it was fun to watch."

"Give me a freaking example," I stood up and faced the mirror.

"Alright," she said. "Remember when you didn't want to go to prom?"

I gave it a thought and recalled it quite clearly.

"Yeah?"

"Well, he didn't push you, did he, even though the rest of us did? In fact, he agreed with you that it was a total and complete waste of time and that it was okay if you didn't go. But then, when suddenly a classmate’s sister wanted to go, he agreed to be her date. And when you were upset by this, he told you that prom is silly, and accompanying someone so she has a good memory of the experience is not a bad thing. Recall how fast you bought your dress after that?"

I looked at myself in the mirror and could almost see a clown painting on my face.

“What?” I asked, and she laughed.

“Yeah, I could see what he didn't from a mile away, but you couldn’t. He knew that the real reason you didn't want to go was because you had gained a little weight, not true, by the way, and weren't feeling as confident. He didn't want you to miss out on this though, so he made up that whole story.”

“Wait, the story was made up?”