His Lie Count Stayed Zero for Five Years — Till His Assistant Came Chapter 05

I had barely reached the airport when Elliot called again.

“Are you at the airport?”

“Yes.”

He sounded uncertain.

“Then why isn’t there any record of you boarding?”

I laughed softly.

“I don’t need to report my every move to you.”

Elliot went quiet, then sighed.

“Jen, are you angry with me?”

I paused before answering, my voice perfectly calm.

“Angry about what? About how you never took me to Aspen in all five years we were together? Or about my broken camera?”

He switched to a coaxing tone.

“Jen, this trip is for work. Next time, I’ll take you there on a proper vacation. We’ll see the snow and have a great time.”

I didn’t respond. Even now, Elliot was determined to keep up the lie.

He was about to say something else when I heard a flight attendant in the background.

“Sir, we’re preparing for takeoff. Please silence your phone.”

Elliot answered quietly, then added, “Could you bring the woman beside me a blanket? And could she have some ginger ale when the drink service starts? Thank you.”

Listening to him, I went numb.

Even while he was on the phone trying to soothe me, he remembered to take care of a sleeping Renee.

He remembered she needed a blanket. He remembered she liked ginger ale.

“Jen, we’ll talk when I’m back. Don’t sulk.”

“Call me when you land.”

He hung up.

I stared at the dark screen.

Elliot still thought I was having a tantrum. He thought that, like every other time, a few comforting words would be enough to make me stay right where he’d left me.

He thought he’d fly to Aspen while I went to Maui.

After a brief time apart, we’d be together again.

We’d argued before in those five years. But we’d never truly separated.

The Elliot I used to know could be stubborn. Sometimes he gave me the silent treatment.

But he didn’t lie. Even in the heat of our worst arguments, he never said something he knew wasn’t true.

This time, there had been no screaming match.

Just five days.

Seven lies.

That number hanging above his head had become a blade, cutting mercilessly through five years of love.

I understood that Elliot was human. Everyone had their own struggles and secrets.

I could accept that he might sometimes lie.

What I couldn’t accept was his lying to me for another woman.

Deception in a relationship was a betrayal. His attention had wandered to someone else, and that was disloyalty.

Elliot hadn’t physically crossed that line. He hadn’t had an affair or slept with Renee.

He’d simply weighed his options in the middle of the night.

A twenty-eighth birthday didn’t seem particularly important to him. Menstrual cramps, on the other hand, were a real problem.

So he’d chosen to go to Renee.

He’d figured our future home would have to be finished sooner or later, and someone would eventually live there.

Letting the young woman who had recently caught his attention stay there for a while seemed harmless to him.

And so he’d turned our home into a shelter for someone else.

He’d assumed that because I’d waited five years already, I’d be willing to wait another five.

Aspen wasn’t going anywhere.

And neither, he thought, was I.

So he sent me off alone to enjoy Maui’s beaches while he took Renee to see the snow.

But I was twenty-eight now.

I’d stood beside him from twenty-three to twenty-eight.

On the day we settled on that apartment, he’d held me close and promised to give me a home in that huge city.

Every time I scrolled past photos of snowfall back home, he’d pull up travel guides for Aspen and promise we’d go when everything was ready.

My thoughts returned to the present as I looked at Elliot’s last message before takeoff.

[Let me know you made it safely when you land.]

I didn’t reply.

I switched my phone to airplane mode.

The plane rose slowly into the sky, carrying me farther and farther from Los Angeles.

The number above Elliot’s head would remain at seven.

I wasn’t going to give him an eighth chance to lie to me.