His Lie Count Stayed Zero for Five Years — Till His Assistant Came Chapter 08

I looked at the number above Elliot’s head.

Eight.

It hadn’t changed.

At least those two sentences were sincere.

He really did believe he’d done wrong. He really did think the things he’d done were awful.

But if things had reached the point where an apology was necessary, I thought it was already too late.

The Elliot I used to know couldn’t bear to lie to me. He couldn’t stand to see me hurt.

When I was unreasonable, he put up with it and blamed himself for not doing better.

When I was sad for no apparent reason, he tried everything he could think of to make me smile.

Back then, the balance in our bank account was zero.

We had no car, no house, and no savings.

But the number above his head was zero, too.

And he had a sincere heart.

That had been enough to make us happy sharing a single bowl of noodle soup.

I’d never demanded that Elliot give me a luxurious life.

Every birthday, I made the same wish: that he would never lie to me.

But from the year I turned twenty-eight onward, that wish would never come true again.

I looked at the man standing before me, his eyes red, and pushed every feeling down.

“Go home, Elliot.”

“A lie is like water spilled from a glass. Once it’s out, you can’t put it back.”

He seemed ready to say more, but the morning commuters were beginning to crowd the waterfront.

At nine in the morning, the Embarcadero was busy with people rushing to get on with their day.

No one was going to stand there and wait for eight lies to be explained away.

And no one was going to wait for me to forgive the biggest liar I’d ever known.

I turned away. I could feel Elliot’s gaze following me, so intensely it seemed to burn against my back.

But I never looked over my shoulder.

I kept walking until I was completely out of Elliot’s sight.

When I reached the office, the coworker at the next desk rolled her chair over and spoke to me above the morning chatter.

“What’s with the long face?”

She offered me half the breakfast she’d brought for herself.

I was too distracted to catch her question the first time, so she patiently repeated it more slowly.

Then she gave my shoulder a friendly pat.

“Whatever’s going on, don’t forget to eat breakfast.”

And she rolled back to her desk.

There was a piece of candy tucked inside the breakfast box. When I opened the wrapper, I found a little message printed on it.

[Hope every day brings you happiness.]

There was no number floating above a candy wrapper.

I decided to take the wish as sincere.

By the time I’d swallowed the candy, the heaviness of that morning had begun to fade.

Life in San Francisco moved quickly. After that day, a long time passed without my seeing Elliot again.

Before I knew it, two months had gone by.

During that time, a friend who worked next door to Hayes Group in Los Angeles called me once.

She’d been eating lunch at the café downstairs when she’d overheard employees from Elliot’s company gossiping.

After Renee was transferred to sales, word had somehow spread that she’d been removed from the executive assistant team because she’d interfered in Elliot’s relationship.

In a company with more than a hundred employees, the rumor traveled fast.

Within three days, hardly anyone there was willing to be nice to her.

Apparently, she’d gone to see Elliot, but came out looking thoroughly humiliated less than ten minutes later.

When her new colleagues saw that even Elliot was treating her coldly, they dumped all the dirty work on her.

A month later, Renee couldn’t take it anymore. She resigned.

She spent two weeks unemployed and couldn’t find a suitable position.

Hiring managers elsewhere in the industry had heard why she’d left Hayes Group, and her applications went nowhere.

Eventually, she went back to her hometown without telling or contacting anyone.

Renee’s downfall was plain for everyone to see.

But behind closed doors, nobody was pretending Elliot was innocent, either.

It had taken two people to create this mess. Renee could never have moved into our home without Elliot’s permission.

And that supposed business project? His executive assistant team alone had dozens of people.

Yet he’d chosen Renee.

And of all places, Aspen.

Everyone knew what had happened. No one had said it out loud.

After my friend finished telling me everything, I was quiet for a moment.

“I see,” I said.

She sounded surprised.

“Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

I smiled.

“Happy about what? That things ended badly for both of them?”

“I don’t love him anymore, and I don’t hate him either. Why waste another ounce of feeling on strangers?”

She laughed softly, and neither of us said anything more.

When we hung up, I went back to work.

My typing was just a little slower than usual.

It was true that their troubles no longer had any real impact on my life.

But I couldn’t say I no longer cared. Not yet.

I still needed time.