No, no, no. Don't go there, I say to myself. You've only known him for a brief amount of time.

Clearly, he is someone who enjoys his privacy and despite that, he is giving you a chance.

You, a reporter, a journalist who showed him that you're not really the most trustworthy person in the world.

Something catches my eye. There's a console table against the wall behind me. His wallet lies between his keys and his sunglasses.

I glance at it and fight the temptation to open it.

What would I even find?

There's absolutely no reason to break his trust, for what exactly? What could I find in a wallet?

Then again, he doesn't have to know about this, right?

“You will,” I say to myself. “You’ll know the truth. You’ll know that you snooped and that you have no right to do that.”

These thoughts and about a thousand others swirl around my mind until I feel dizzy and sick to my stomach.

In the end, however, I take a deep breath and glance back to make sure that he’s still working on the porch.

When I see the back of his head, I grab and open the wallet.

It has a soft, full leather exterior and feels cool to the touch. It opens flatly and has four compartments on each side for credit cards. I pull them all out and scan the name.

I don't expect them to have the letters D. B. Carter, but the fact that none of the cards are issued to Liam Parish throws me off.

All of the cards are issued to the same person, but the name doesn't make any sense.

No, this must be someone else's wallet or some sort of other mistake. Then I find his driver's license. It's issued by the state of California.

It's his face, but the name says Peter Mueller Schmidt.

I stare at the name, memorizing the exact spelling and quickly compare it to the names on the credit cards.

They are a perfect match.

I look at the picture on the driver’s license and it’s clearly a picture of Liam.

How could that be?

My heart begins to race and then suddenly I remember that I shouldn’t be doing this in the first place. I glance back and see that Liam is not on the porch anymore.

My hands turn to ice.

I don't know what to do.

I take a few deep breaths and try to quickly stuff the credit cards back into the wallet in the order in which I found them with the driver’s license going into the back flap.

The sliding door opens and Liam walks in.

I place the wallet back on the console table and take a step away, pretending that I have been looking out the front door this whole time.

21

Emma

When Liam comes into the room, my heart jumps into my throat. I don't know what to do. I take a few deep breaths to try to calm myself down and to think more clearly, but it doesn't work. I feel like I'm starting to have a panic attack.

I feel all the blood drain away from my face and my skin turns a pale color of greenish blue.

I see a glimpse of him in the mirror before he rushes over to me and grabs me by my hand.

“Are you okay?” He tries to hold me up.

“Yes, I'm fine.” I put one foot steadily in front of the other. “Sometimes, I just get dizzy.”

That part is true.

What's not true is that it only tends to happen when I'm under extreme stress.

I go over to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water. I gulp it all down and then finish half of the next one.

Finally feeling hydrated enough, I look at him. He tilts his head to one side and stares at me with an expression of concern.

A few moments ago, I would have been able to lose myself in those eyes.

A few moments ago, I thought that maybe he could be the one.

Now I realize that the men in my life are nothing but liars.

I have to protect myself against the barrage of lies that he would surely unload onto me if I were to bring this up.

No, I'm not going to do that.

Not yet.

Besides, it's not just the lies I'm afraid of. There’s something else.

I'm here alone in his house. I thought that he cared about me, but now… I don't even know who he is or what he's capable of.

“How are you doing?”

“I'm good. I don't know what happened. Sometimes I get a little dizzy when I stand up too fast.”

“You were already standing.” He points out.

He caught me in a lie, but I can't think of another one to make up for it.

Instead I let it dangle out there in the wind.

I ask him about his writing and he starts saying something about it, but my thoughts are elsewhere.

Wait a second, I say to myself. No, his name can't be Peter Mueller Schmidt. Alex knows who he is and he called him Liam.

I breathe a small sigh of relief, but more questions pop up.

Alex knows Liam from back in the day. He ran into him and that's why he invited him to our engagement party.

So, it's not like he's a brand-new person who is lying about his identity.

His name is Liam Parish, right?

Wrong.

Another realization and another thought makes my blood turn to ice.

Alex mentioned that his name was Liam, but he never actually said his last name.

So, could his last name be Mueller Schmidt?

What would be the point of all of these lies then?

“Hey… Anyone there?” Liam asks.

I snap out of my trance and realize that he has been saying something this whole time.

“I'm fine,” I say, which is an answer that is neither here nor there.

“I'm going to be done with my writing for today, but I have some other work to do,” he says after a moment. “Unless you want to do something together.”

“No, I don't think so,” I say, shaking my head.

“Okay, then I'm just going to go to my office,” Liam says and walks away.

I want to reach out to him, I want to run after him, and I want to ask him a million questions, but I don't think that would be smart.

I have seen enough crime shows to know that you should not confront people who might be lying about their identities head-on.

Especially if you are alone in their house.

Especially if you are far away in the desert.

What are you thinking? I ask myself as I sit down behind my computer at the dining room table and try to calm my nerves by pretending to work.

Do you really think that he's going to hurt you?

Is that the person that you just spent all this time with?

No, he's not capable of that.

I want to believe this. I want to convince myself of this, but I can't be too sure.

Despite how much I may like him, I have to do certain things to protect myself.

I can’t talk to him about it here.

I don't know if I can talk to him about it at all.

Just definitely not here.

Sliding my laptop under my arm, I tiptoe to my bedroom and start to collect my things.

22

Liam

I know that she's curious about what I'm writing, but I can’t have someone looking over my shoulder. When she stops and leaves me alone on the porch, I finished my writing with total dedication.

I don't even take the five minute breaks in between but just go straight through. The words flow out of me quickly one by one filling in all the gaps that I never even knew my story had.