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Back One White Lie Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. COVER
  2. About the Author
  3. DEDICATION
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. FIFTY
  54. FIFTY-ONE
  55. FIFTY-TWO
  56. FIFTY-THREE
  57. FIFTY-FOUR
  58. Acknowledgments
  59. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Olivia Williams. Born April 16, 1991. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Five foot seven. Of course, everyone always called me Liv, or even Livvie – or occasionally just L. Olivia had served me well, until she hadn’t. Until all had changed. I lifted up the license, setting it carefully aside.

McKnight had done his research – he was right about that – and he’d uncovered one piece of my story, but what I could hardly believe – it surprised me so much, it made my hands shake just thinking about it – was that he’d stopped there.

He hadn’t pushed further. He hadn’t uncovered the whole truth.

My heart surged as I reached for the last piece of plastic, the original.

Lucy King was blown, Olivia Williams had a court date, but this one – she was still free.

From Washington State: Stephanie Ostlund, the name I was born with.

I opened my wallet, and for the first time in years, I slipped Stephanie back in.

Penguin walking logo

FIFTY-FOUR

The evergreens must have stood fifty feet tall, guarding the sides of Snoqualmie Pass like Tolkien’s Ents. Dusty whined mercilessly. Five days – and nearly three thousand miles – of driving had done little to get him used to the car. I tapped my phone to life, a new one I’d picked up at an Apple Store in Minneapolis, after retrieving the cash from my bank account. Glossy black and not cracked for the first time in what felt like ages. Fuck you, too, Davis.

Google Maps told me I was less than an hour away from Seattle, but I knew that already. Once you reached the pass, once you smelled pine trees sweet like Christmas, followed the winding bend of road, you were nearly there.

A pickup tailgated me. I got into the right lane, merging carefully. Reminding myself that even if I did get stopped, the plates wouldn’t be linked to me. I’d made a quick pit stop before leaving town to switch my plates with the ones on the car Vera had procured during her trip to the city, the one that still sat, undiscovered by the police, a mile from the cabin – turns out, it had come into play after all.

The pickup sped past, and I changed lanes again.

It’s not like I’d ever stopped wanting to be Stephanie, not like one day I woke up and said, Let me change who I am, like trying on a new outfit. Snap.

And trust me, it wasn’t the slut-shaming that did it, either, that damn video taken and blasted across all the social networks. Even though it had circulated like wildfire all over campus, I could handle that. As well as the taunts. And the wolf whistles. And the announcements, from seemingly every guy at school – that their laps were cold and could I please warm them up if I had a minute? The awful sounds as they pretended to suck. Those things I could handle.