Chapter 8 Your lie

She believed it now.

Not as a dream.

Not as a trick of memory.

But as truth.

This wasn't a second chance.

It was a rewrite.

Every step she took, every word she spoke, every silence she allowed herself - it all carried a new kind of gravity. She wasn't just shaping her future; she was undoing the past.

As she walked down the sun-washed street, the thought struck her suddenly - sharp and insistent. There was something she needed to ask Julian. Something she should have asked years ago.

Before she could stop herself, she turned back, her heels tapping against the pavement as she hurried toward the boutique.

He was still there.

Julian Vale - exactly where she'd left him, standing by the same display of satin dresses, his hand resting casually in his pocket. It was strange how time could move for everyone else and still hold someone in place.

For a heartbeat, Evelyn simply watched him, questions crowding her chest.

What was he really doing here?

How could a man once engaged to her stand there so composed, so detached?

What did he want this time?

The thoughts spun in her mind as she stepped closer, the air in the boutique heavy with perfume and pretense. This wasn't a memory she was trapped inside - it was her reality now. And in this version of it, she didn't have to play small.

She didn't have to pretend she didn't see him for what he was.

So she didn't lower her eyes. She didn't walk away. She stood her ground.

And when she reached him, calm and steady, she spoke before fear could stop her.

"If you could ask me what I was doing here," she said quietly, "then I have every right to ask you the same."

Julian's head tilted slightly, amusement flickering in his eyes. "What am I doing here?" he repeated, as if testing the question on his tongue.

Then he smiled - that effortless, disarming smile that had once made her forget who she was.

"Picking up something," he said. "For a friend."

She said nothing.

He didn't stop there. "A dress. She's getting married. I'm helping her pull off a surprise." He chuckled softly, brushing imaginary dust from his cuff. "Told her I didn't know a thing about it. She'll walk in, see it hanging in her closet, and finally believe I'm not completely hopeless."

It was meant to sound charming. Harmless. Thoughtful.

But Evelyn heard what wasn't said.

Surprise, my foot.

She didn't laugh. Didn't even blink. She just watched him, and with each passing second, pieces of the past slid back into place like shards of glass.

That dress - she remembered it.

It wasn't for a wedding.

It wasn't for some nameless friend.

It was for Serena.

And it wasn't the night of any celebration - it was the night Serena went out to dinner with him.

The same night Evelyn had been home, waiting for Julian to celebrate her offer from Parsons.

The night he'd texted her: Work ran over. Don't wait up.

Now she understood what kind of "work" it had been.

She stood there, her pulse steady but her mind burning, as the truth arranged itself neatly before her. They hadn't started after Parsons. Or after the engagement. They had started long before - back when Evelyn still believed she was the only one he saw.

She hadn't been blind because she was stupid. She had been blind because she was in love.

She remembered all the ways she had defended him - how she'd laughed when her mother said he was "too charming for his own good." How she'd brushed off her best friend's warning when Serena's name kept coming up in conversation.

"They've known each other since childhood," she used to say. "It's just friendship."

But now, standing under the golden boutique lights, surrounded by laughter that didn't reach her, Evelyn finally saw the truth.

She hadn't lost him.

She had given him away, piece by piece, each time she chose to believe a lie over her own intuition.

Julian was still talking, his voice soft and polished. "It's not much," he said. "Just a little gesture. She's been through a lot. I wanted to do something nice."

Evelyn didn't reply.

She watched him - the way his voice dipped slightly when he said "she," the faint twitch of his fingers against his watch strap. A tell. The same one he used to have when he lied.

He didn't say Serena's name. Maybe he didn't need to. Maybe, somewhere deep down, he knew she already knew.

And in that knowing, Evelyn felt something shift inside her.

You don't love her, she thought. You don't even love the idea of her. You just love the freedom she gives you - the chance to reinvent yourself as the man you want to be, if only for a while.

But she said nothing.

The world carried on - the assistant folding fabric behind the counter, a customer laughing softly by the window, a phone vibrating somewhere in a purse.

Life continued.

Only Evelyn stood still.

Not from shock. Not from heartbreak. But from the sheer weight of realization.

Julian Vale had never become a liar. He had always been one.

And she - foolish, hopeful, believing Evelyn - had spent years trying to love the truth out of him.

For the first time, she didn't feel small.

She didn't feel naïve.

She just felt awake.

This wasn't about revenge anymore. It wasn't even about pain.

She was rewriting the story because she finally understood that she deserved to be seen - not as the woman who was betrayed, but as the woman who saw it coming and chose to see it through.

The sun dipped lower through the boutique windows, spilling gold across the floor. The lights hummed on, reflecting softly in the glass.

He still smiled, utterly unaware, convinced he was the good man in the story he'd told himself.

But she knew better.