Excerpt from Vitality

“You’re hiding something from me,” Cole says, his fork stabbed into a piece of fish. “Your eyes are betraying your secret.”

Yes, I am hiding something from you. I’m hiding a lot of things from you. Like my name, my ability to heal people, my ability to take from people, where I’m actually from and why I’m actually here.

“I actually hate fish,” I wince, partly from the look on his face and partly from the lie.

“I knew it!” he exclaims, dropping his fork onto his plate. “So why’d you get it then?”

“Well you were raving about it and how it’s the best fish in Vancouver, I figured I needed to try it.”

“But alas, no luck eh? Still not a fish girl?”

“Definitely not,” I say, even though this is the best fish I have ever had.

“Well I thank you for being honest with me now, but you know, you could have just told me before. I wouldn’t have been offended or anything. In fact, the way I could tell you had a secret just made everything worse. I don’t like secrets.”

Great. This would go well down the road wouldn’t it?

“Who does?” I ask, shrugging my shoulders. “The truth is the best.”

How do the lies just spill off my tongue and out my mouth without worrying about the consequences? When did I become like this? Have I always been like this? I have had to lie to people all my life about who I really am. There are only two people who truly know who I am. So I guess I’ve just become a very good liar over time. This was bound to blow up in my face eventually.

“Some secrets can be good,” Cole says, drawing my attention back to him and his chocolate eyes peering into mine. “I mean, a little mystery is sexy.”

I won’t worry about this blowing up anytime soon. The only things blowing up around here are my nerves and my heart.

“Well, there are other foods I don’t like, but I won’t say what they are,” I say, a smirk twitching the side of my mouth.

Cole’s mouth erupts into a full grin and he leans back in his chair, studying me. I don’t look away.

“Well, we need to get a room. Your aura of mystery has got me all hot and bothered!”

I know he’s kidding and I laugh at his joke, but we still stare at each other and I know that there is more than just a joke there. The tension darting between us on the table is loud and erratic. There’s no calming it down. Anything we do from here on out will just set it off even more.

Am I ready to go down that road?