Reviving Izabel Read Free

just as I resolve to head down the hall to the room I secretly rented separate from Dahlia and Eric, the door cracks open but is stopped by the chain.
    “Sarai?” Dahlia says from the other side. “You gonna’ let us in?”
    I sigh heavily and walk over to unlock the door.
    “What’s with the chain?” Eric asks, walking in behind Dahlia.
    “Habit.”
    I plop down on the end of the king-sized bed.
    They both drop their things on the floor. Dahlia sits at the table by the window and Eric lies across the bed behind me, crossing his ankles.
    “Thought you were going to take a nap?” Dahlia asks.
    She carefully drags her fingers through portions of her wet, tangled hair, grimacing every now and then with the effort.
    “Dahlia,” I say, looking at them both. “I haven’t been up here long. I thought you two were going to hang around the pool for a while?” I hope I hid the aggravation from my voice about how soon they decided to join me. I just can’t help it; I’m too stressed out, plus I’m worried about them being here with me at all. I don’t want them to get hurt or to be involved in any way with why I came here.
    “We can go if you want,” Eric says gently from behind.
    Instantly I regret my words because it’s obvious I didn’t hide the aggravation as well as I had hoped.
    I tilt my head back and sigh, reaching over and rubbing the top of his ankle.
    “I’m sorry,” I say and smile up at Dahlia. “You know, I…,” then suddenly a perfectly reasonable excuse for the way I’ve been acting materializes and the floodgates open on the lies. “…I’m just kind of nervous about being back in L.A.”
    Dahlia gets that oh-I-see look and shoves Eric’s feet to the side and sits down next to me in place of them. She drapes her arm around my shoulder and fits her hand around my upper arm.
    “I had a feeling that might be what was wrong.” I notice her glance back at Eric, giving me the impression that this is what they talked about while they sat down there at the pool together once I left.
    I bet it’s also why they decided to come up here with me so soon.
    “We wanted to check on you,” Eric says from behind, confirming my suspicion.
    I feel the bed move as he sits upright.
    I stand up before he has a chance to wrap his arms around me. It’s in this very moment that I realize I’ve been doing that a lot lately for the past month. How much longer I can keep leading him on, I don’t know. I know I should just tell him how I feel, that I’m not as into him as he is into me. But the truth is that I can’t tell him the truth. I would just have to make up yet another lie and I’m so deep in lies right now that I’m drowning in them.
    At the same time, I’ve let this go on between us for as long as I have because I really wanted to feel as deeply for him as he seems to feel for me. I wanted to get on with my life, to forget about Victor and be happy with the life he left me with.
    But I can’t. I just can’t….
    “He’s not going to know you’re even here,” Eric says about ‘Matt’. “And besides, if he did find out, I’d kick his ass if I saw him.”
    I smile weakly across at Eric.
    “I know you would,” I say, but I just feel even worse because the only two friends I have in the world have no idea who I am.
    I cross my arms and walk to the window, gazing out.
    “Sarai,” Dahlia speaks up, “I hate to say this to you, but if you’re that worried about Matt finding out you’re back in town, I don’t think it’s a good idea to visit your friends here.”
    “I know, you’re right,” I say. “I know they wouldn’t tell him, but it’s probably best I just stuck with the two of you while we’re here.”
    I turn around to face them.
    “Sounds like a plan,” Eric says, beaming.
    It’s definitely a plan, because now I don’t have to come up with another excuse to not introduce them to my old friends who don’t exist.
    Dahlia walks over to stand next to me.
    “We probably