Dirty Red (Love Me with Lies, #2)

by Tarryn Fisher

“You look like trouble,” he grinned. “When I was growing up, my mother used to tell me to never trust a redhead.” I frowned. “There are only two reasons she’d say something like that.” Caleb raised his eyebrows. “And they are?” “Your father either slept with one, or she is one.”

I am a good driver, so they can go screw themselves.

Scars should stay where fate put them, he’d said.

“You never quite stop loving someone when you’re in that deep.”

My eyes filled with tears. He was telling me that he couldn’t even try to love me because he loved someone else.

“They spark,” she says. I jerk back. What the hell did that mean? “When they’re together, it’s like putting a hurricane and a tornado in the same room—you can feel the tension. I didn’t believe in the cliché of soulmates until I saw them together.”

“Their story will never be over.

I was born red: my skin, my hair, and my hot, fussy attitude.

Courtney said that I was her red umbrella. When she was in turmoil, all she had to do was come stand near me and I’d keep the bad stuff off of her.

That was the absolute worst thing about love; no matter how hard you tried, you could never forget the person who had your heart.

Be still my manic heart.

“What else are you not telling me?” “Probably the same amount of stuff you’re not telling me.”

Thinking stirs up a dangerous maelstrom of emotion. My emotion almost drowned me once. I don’t want to go back there.

This is the love of your life. You have to fight for him.”

I’m a goddamn mess and there is nothing I can do about it.

but you’re treading a thin line between attractively bitchy and psycho.

My mother gave me love so thin it felt more like sugarcoated contempt.

If someone had cared enough to say: Leah, it’s all in your head…all I would have to do was refer them to the three people in my life who didn’t really want me there.

“I love mine!” My voice cracks. “—So, why does he love you?” She looks at me with true loathing. “He doesn’t,” she says simply. “He chose you.” It pains her to give me those words. I can see the emotion spilling from her skin.

One thing to know about me: I dig. If I can’t find it—I dig deeper, harder. I dig until I find it. The only thing I couldn’t dig into was my own mind. I didn’t want to see it.

“I’m not playing games with you, Leah. Don’t you get tired of always trying to win?”

“You don’t look half as crazy as I thought you’d look.”

A look. How long can a look be…truly? A look can be a second long, a freaking, harmless second, and it can tell long, complicated stories.

“It seems to me, you give loyalty to all of the wrong people,”

What do I feel? I hate that. I definitely don’t want to think about my feelings.

You have the type of eyes that have claws in them.”

“You are the single most offensive woman I have ever met, you know that?

Human eyes are the sign language of the brain. If you watch them carefully, you can see the truth played out, raw and unguarded.

“I didn’t choose her,” his voice breaks. “Love is illogical. You fall into it like a manhole. Then you’re just stuck. You die in love more than you live in love.”

“You need someone to be able to love you the way you deserve to be loved.

Honesty is sticky, and I hate it. It always has consequences that fuck up your life… God, I’d rather just wade around the truth and find a lie I can live with.

“I love you,” he says, “but, not in the right way.”

How could I be so in love with a man who was so willing to deceive me? I feel like a piece of trash, disposable and unwanted.

Some people never change. I guess I’m one of them.