If I Lie
4.5/5
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About this ebook
Cheater. Traitor. Slut.
Quinn’s done the unthinkable: she kissed a guy who is not Carey, her boyfriend. And she got caught. Shunned by everyone she knows, Quinn loses her friends, her reputation, and her identity. Because Carey’s not just any guy—he’s a Marine who’s serving overseas, and beloved by everyone in their small, military town.
But Quinn didn’t cheat. She could clear her name, but that would mean revealing secrets she’s vowed to keep—secrets that aren’t hers to share. So she stays silent, and she waits for Carey to come home.
Then Carey goes MIA, and Quinn must decide how far she’ll go to protect her boyfriend…and her promise.
Corrine Jackson
Corrine Jackson is a San Francisco transplant, having lived on both coasts from Southern California to New York City. For the last seven years, she has sharpened her marketing talents at Alcone Marketing, where she has won several industry awards. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, and is in her third year of Spalding University’s MFA program. A recipient of a West Chester Poetry Conference scholarship, she is also the former Editor-in-Chief of two literary magazines, including Statement (CSU, Los Angeles) and Dash (CSU, Fullerton).
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Reviews for If I Lie
76 ratings12 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5this is a book everyone should read it's so good
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/54.5 starsI am not normally a huge fan of contemporary YA books preferring the more paranormal stories but hot damn this book was good! I initially went to see Corrine speak at a local event and bought a copy wanting to read it at some point. Added to to my overflowing to be read shelf. Come two days later I went to her launch party and she read three passages from the book and I knew I had to read it asap. Picked it up the very next day and read it in one sitting. At her launch party she gave out goodie bags that had packets of tissue in them and believe me when I say you will need them! Keep an eye out because I was so impressed by the reading she did I picked up a second copy and will be doing a giveaway soon.Straight to the point: Since I gush for awhile my overall thoughts are-Go pick this book up now! And have a box of tissues on hand while reading!It’s so hard to know even where to start gushing but first off the characters are amazing. Each one is so multifaceted and so real that it’s almost like reading about someone you know in real life. No one is perfect, not even the hero Carey. They each have their flaws and do things that make them ashamed of themselves and that will make you shake your head at them in disappointment while still relating to them because you wonder if you would be any different in their shoes. My heart absolutely broke reading what Quinn has to go through and made me want to go bitch slap her classmates, dad, mom and really just about everyone except George.Who is George you ask? After being caught kissing another boy Quinn’s father, a former Marine officer, forces her to volunteer at a VA hospital working with veterans. Quinn bonds with one patient in particular, George. He’s not your typical sweet old man. He’s crotchety at times, he cheats unabashedly at cards but he has a huge heart and he doesn’t believe a word of the hurtful gossip about Quinn...See my full review at Debbie's World of Books.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Would you keep a secret for your boyfriend if he was gay and didn't want anyone to know even if it meant losing out on the love of your life and your reputation in a small military town? Jackson combines hard moral choices with well-researched military knowledge and jazzy storytelling to tell what one girl, Sophie, chose to do. Slow start to the story but a good finish.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5i think 1,5 stars would be correct. i wonder why would anyone think this is a good book? she is a child, a teenager and she is abused by EVERYONE, including the teachers. it is not a realistic story. it showed me a sick societaty, an abusive parent, stupid, stupid teenagers and a "martyr for nothing" girl. hate it
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rating: 4.5/5
Favorite quote:
Sometimes a moment defines you, defines how people see you the rest of your life. You can accept it or fight it. If you’re lucky, you’ll recognize the moment when it happens.
The heartbreaking moving story of Sophie Topper Quinn; a fresh voice, honest and gritty, and deeply emotional. Think several-punches-in-the-gut emotional.
Despite everything she went through for the sake of protecting her boyfriend Carey: the insults, the bullying, losing all her friends, being ignored by her father and secluded from the rest of the town... Sophie stayed strong 'till the very end, she kept her promise to not reveal Carey's secret, and stood her ground when I could have easily crumbled down and faded into nothingness from all that verbal bullying. I lost count of the times I stopped reading because of the big lump in my throat and my urging need to hug Sophie.
The writing kept flowing, so heart-wrenching and beautiful, I was genuinely surprised when I read that this is Ms. Jackson debut novel. Well kudos! I'm eager to read more from you. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brought me to tears!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is one of those books that sticks with you and leaves you thinking. What is honor? How much pain do you put up with for the sake of love and friendship? And how can the people who love us most hurt us so badly?
Read this. It's beautiful, frustrating, and amazing! - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Really depressing book, very hard to read. The writing was good, though I honestly think they could have come up with a way to tell the world they'd broken up to avoid the pain and suffering. I liked the sections with George; they were particularly well done.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A solid read with queer undertones. An interesting examination of what we will do to protect a person, a legacy, a memory. Could be a dark horse Printz nominee.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Like pretty much everyone else, I really loved this book. I don't know if I'll do an official review or not, so let me just mention a few things.1) This book made me cry several times, and made me teary-eyed several more.2) I loved George, and Quinn's relationship with him.3) I really wanted to strangle Carey for everything he put Quinn through.Even though I was late to the party for this one, I'm so glad I ultimately gave it a read!
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I went into If I Lie knowing it'd be emotional and a tough read. However, I couldn't anticipate my own connections and heart going into this book.Quinn was a fantastic protagonist. She wasn't perfect. She could be snarky and she could antagonize and she has a hard time forgiving. But she was a good person. Loyal and dedicated and fiercely protective of those she loved. She's been hurt and betrayed so many times in her life, she's not sure what to do or who she really is. I really related to Quinn for these reasons and I think a lot of other people can too.The story Corrine Jackson put together was incredible and stressful and complicated but also simple and elegant and powerful. If I Lie says a lot about society and our judgements and the cultures we develop in communities. And it was just...such a different story from the norm in YA. It was something unique, something I hadn't read before. And I fell absolutely, head over heels in love with it.This book, as I mentioned, is incredibly emotional. I read it straight through, sitting in my bed in this dorm, and had to fight not to cry since my roommate was a few feet away. Veterans and military service have been a big part of my family's life and I have a few friends who joined the military after graduation. We all know someone who's been there. It makes it so easy to connect to this story and understand all the pain and frustration and heartache, not just from Quinn, but from her whole community. It's easy to get why they're angry and upset. And then things happen I can't talk about that make you MORE EMOTIONAL and guys just so many feels I can't even what was that that happened to my heart?As you can see, I read this recently and I'm still trying to cope with all of the feelings If I Lie gave me. It was incredible and will definitely stick with me. Corrine Jackson is, without a doubt, an author to keep an eye on.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5While Quinn's hero Marine boyfriend Carey is on his first deployment in Afghanistan, a photo of her cheating on him hits Facebook. The entire town brands her as a traitorous, cheating slut, just like her mother, who left Quinn and her father (also a Marine) for her uncle when Quinn was 9. Of course, things aren't that simple -- Quinn wasn't cheating; Carey broke up with her because he was gay, but begged Quinn to pretend otherwise to protect him. This book is about the cost of that protection, because it opens with the announcement that Carey is MIA, and Quinn's miserable life descends into utter hell. For its gay content, this book was submitted for consideration for the Stonewall Book Award. I started off skimming, but I was drawn in, and stayed with the book to the end, long after I decided it wasn't an award contender: Carey's experience isn't central, although the parts of it that we see are honest and genuine. This story of secrets and bitterness, of yearning and betrayal and the difficult path to sincere forgiveness, will be something I recommend widely.
Book preview
If I Lie - Corrine Jackson
Chapter One
Carey Breen is MIA.
His tongue weighs each word to cause the most pain.
My father’s news drops like a bomb, blasting the air from my lungs, and everything in me shrieks, Not Carey.
My dresser bites into my backbone. I deflate, clamping my fingers around the Nikon to hide how they tremble. I want to throw up, but my father blocks escape to the bathroom, his shoulders spanning the doorway. Late February morning sun slips through the window blinds and swaths his perma-sunburned face in blades of light and dark. Shadow camouflage.
My stomach twists and sweat slides down my sides. He doesn’t care what this news does to me. How it destroys me. His chin’s up. Wintergreen eyes narrowed under sparse blond eyebrows. Hairline retreating from the neat rows of lines crossing his forehead. I’m barely holding it together, and he doesn’t bother to hide his disappointment at my reaction to his words.
His lips thin. Quinn, did you hear me?
Yes, sir. Carey is MIA. Sir.
Since the scandal six months ago—that scandal we don’t speak of—my father says Carey’s name with reverence. They are two Marines, two men who’ve fought for a freedom I no longer feel. Comrades betrayed by the women they left behind.
Sand and grit have rubbed between the pleasantries in Carey’s e-mails since I stopped answering him weeks ago. We’re leaving Camp Leatherneck soon—pleasedon’ttell—we’ll be patrolling roads, clearing IEDs, something big’s coming—imissyou—you may not hear from me for a while—Godidon’twanttodie—you must be busy with school and all—talktomeQuinn—I hope to hear from you soon.
Carey could be a hostage. He could be dead, his brown body abandoned and decaying in a foreign country. The town has watched the CNN reports on Operation Moshtarak for the last week, tracking Carey’s battalion, the 1/6, as waves of Chinooks dropped troops into Marjah. Rockets, machine-gun fire, mortars, and IEDs met them. I’ve held my breath for days, trying to pick Carey out in the news footage. What if . . .
Not Carey.
His parents must be destroyed. They know by now, if my father knows. How did they react? The Marines would have sent at least one soldier to the Breens’ house, and I imagine how Mr. Breen looked hearing the news. Evaluating. Slow and methodical, his eyes focused on the ceiling to hide his thoughts. When composed, he would catch his wife’s worried gaze, and Mrs. Breen would KNOW. As if she waited—expected—the worst to happen. Her body would fold, welcoming sadness, drowning in it, and Mr. Breen would support her, catching her before she hit the ground. If she blamed me before, it will now be a thousand times worse. I can’t even grieve for Carey—not where people can see me.
Carey has sewed my mouth shut.
Pleasedon’ttell.
Nice girls don’t cheat on their hero boyfriends. Damn you, Carey.
Quinn?
My father sounds impatient.
My rage blows away, leaving hopelessness in its place. I heard you, sir.
You’re not to leave the house unless it’s to go to school or to work. People are going to be in a lot of pain when they find out. I don’t want your presence making them feel worse. You’ve done enough, you hear me?
I nod. He’s right. Nobody will want to see me. Today, I will not go to Grave Woods. I set the Nikon on the dresser behind me, among the neat pile of lenses and memory cards. My hands feel useless without my camera. Void.
My father assumes I’ll obey. His uniform has starched his backbone so straight he walks tall even in faded jeans and a worn Marine THE FEW. THE PROUD. sweatshirt. Lieutenant Colonel Cole Quinn’s orders—like the Ten Commandments—are disobeyed at your own peril.
His eyes narrow to two dashes and sweep my room. They land on the bed with its sheets and blanket tucked military-style, as he taught me. The dresser with its clean top. The desk with the books lined up by size and subject. Nothing out of place. No thing to criticize except me. I cannot remember the last time his eyes stayed on mine. After I was branded the town slut,
he looks through me.
Maybe if we both wish hard enough, I will become invisible, with watery veins and glass bones. My translucent heart will beat on, but my father will not notice.
He sees only my mother in the spaces around me.
* * *
He leaves my bedroom door wide open. Moments later, my father’s study door shuts with a snick. In his sanctuary, the bookshelves lining one wall tell the history of war from A (American Revolution) to Z (the Zulu Civil War). There are biographies of generals, World War II memoirs, and academic tomes about US military strategy during Vietnam. My father studies war as a hobby like other men hunt Bambi or rebuild classic engines.
A mahogany desk faces the Wall of War, and there are no chairs in the room other than my father’s. I wonder if he has done this on purpose.
Holed up in his office, my father will not reappear until chow time at 1800 hours. Alone, I lie on my bed, pull the plain sky-blue bedspread over my head, and cry inside my tent.
The phone rings from the hallway—Dad took my phone out of my room six months ago—and I pull myself together to answer it. Barefoot, I pad across the wood floor and into the hallway to the small antique sewing table that my mother restored a million years ago. It has the phone she put there. It’s the old rotary kind, where you slip your finger into the holes and spin the dial for each number. Mess up and you have to start the process all over again.
Hello?
No answer.
The door to my father’s office cracks open—his way of letting me know that he is listening.
Hello?
A sigh that’s really more of a grunt comes in response. I know the voice, but he rarely speaks to me.
Hey, Nikki,
I lie. I lean against the wall and wind the spiral phone cord around my finger as if I’m settling in to talk to my old friend. My father’s footsteps recede as he falls back to his desk. I grip the phone tighter.
Talk to me, Blake,
I beg in a whisper. I know it’s you.
We hadn’t always liked each other, but we’d had Carey in common. Me, his girlfriend; and Blake Kelly, his best friend who was more like a brother. We’d always kept the peace because Carey demanded that kind of loyalty. Despite everything that happened, that shouldn’t have changed.
No answer.
You heard, didn’t you? Are you with his parents?
It made sense. The Breens have turned to Blake for comfort since Carey received his orders. I’m guessing he’s calling to tell me about Carey so I’m not blindsided at school Monday.
Do they blame me?
I don’t want to know, but the question scrapes out of me. Do you blame me?
Click.
It’s not my fault,
I whisper, but Blake’s gone.
* * *
There are some things nice girls don’t do in a town like Sweet-haven, North Carolina. Six years ago, before my mother walked out on us with my father’s brother, she told me, First chance you get, girl, run like hell. And for the love of all that’s holy, don’t end up a soldier’s wife.
A smudge of bitterness clung to the smoke from her Virginia Slims Menthol. Her Avon’s Light My Fire
red lips pursed around the filter one last time before she crushed the stained cigarette butt into the glass ashtray she hid whenever my father came home on leave. Short black curls spiraled in defiant abandon when she shook her head. "I wish I’d never seen An Officer and a Gentleman. Damn Richard Gere and his dress whites."
At eleven, I had no idea what my mother meant, but I understood one thing: My mother wouldn’t pretend to be a nice girl forever.
With her tanned skin and snow-white sundress, my mother reminded me of actresses in the old movies she liked to watch. I had told her so, and she had caressed my cheek, the warmth of her fingers lingering for hours after. I loved my mom best when my father was gone. When his battalion deployed their fighting would cease, and the temperature in our house increased by ten degrees.
The summer I turned eleven, though, she dumped me at my grandmother’s, dropped a kiss on my forehead, and told me to be a good girl.
She waved good-bye from the passenger seat of Uncle Eddy’s Buick. It wasn’t until my father returned a month later that I realized she wasn’t coming back. And I could only blame myself.
After all, I’d told him the one thing sure to tear our family apart. I’d told my father that Uncle Eddy had slept in my mother’s bed.
Located just west of Camp Lejeune, Sweethaven had a good number of sons (and some daughters) who’d enlisted straight out of high school. Many families could claim a Devil Dog in every generation, and all could agree: Cheating spouses were the scum of the earth.
My father returned from Iraq, and I trailed him unnoticed through our house. Tight-lipped and dry-eyed, he studied his uniforms, marching in solitary formation in the empty closet. My mother had committed one last sacrilegious act before escaping. His once pristine blue dress uniforms sported gaping holes from her best sewing shears.
My father’s hand shook when he touched a brass button clinging to a jacket lapel by a single thread. I understood then the golden rule my mother had broken. You didn’t disrespect the uniform. Ever. Not in a family that could trace five generations of soldiers who had served their country. Not in a town that could claim its forefathers had thumbed their noses at the British during the American Revolution and had lost sons to each war since.
My mother’s name was not mentioned in our house after that day. And I—lovingly named Sophie Topper Quinn after my mother and my father’s half-brother, Captain Edward Topper—became Quinn at my father’s insistence. Quinn, the girl who would be better than her mother.
My father’s epic ability to freeze people out had begun with my mother. Not that she’d ever tried to come back or see us again, but he’d managed to erase her from everything except my memories. He stripped her belongings from our house, barring the few things I hid in the attic. Their wedding photos disappeared one day while I was at school, along with every other photo of her.
Later, I wondered if I really remembered her the way she looked, or if she had become a screwed-up Debra Winger/Elizabeth Taylor collage. Other times, I caught my father watching me with cold, dead eyes, and I prayed he was remembering her, that my resemblance to her made him think of her.
Because I didn’t want to believe my father hated me that much.
Especially when all of Sweethaven thought I’d become her too: the town slut cheating on her Marine.
Chapter Two
I can’t sit still, and I can’t stand to watch the news like I do every day. Men are dying and Carey’s missing, but the reporters go on and on about which country has won gold medals in the Winter Olympics.
After I finish crying, I do exactly what my father has forbidden me to do. I stuff my backpack with my camera equipment, slip on my hiking boots and winter coat, and throw my long black hair into a ponytail. I hit the front door at a run.
My father calls out, Quinn?
as I pass his study, and I pretend not to hear him. Quinn, where do you think you’re going?
He reaches the front yard as I’m backing my Jeep out of the driveway. In my rearview mirror, he looks even more pissed off when my tires skid in the melted snow before gripping the road. He has already ordered me to lock myself away. What else can he threaten me with? The brig?
I need to forget Carey. My house/prison disappears, but the desire to escape hangs in air with the frost puffing from my mouth. The heater takes forever to kick in, but when it does I am wrapped in a cocoon of warmth. I need to remember Carey.
Every thought I have wraps around Carey. Just like it has since I first fell for him.
* * *
Fifteen, mouth girded in a dental chastity belt, a black nest of hair even a rat wouldn’t sleep in, and gawky as hell—that’s how I looked the first time Carey Breen kissed me. Me, Sophie Topper Quinn. A goody-two-shoes NOBODY of epic proportions. Forehead stamped: LONER, LOSER, LEFT BEHIND.
I’d loved Carey forever. Even before his body lengthened into muscles that would fly him right out of Sweethaven and on to grander things. At fifteen, any backwoods idiot could see he was meant for more than this tiny town. A damned fool hero. That’s what some people called him when Carey stood up to that drunken bastard, Jim Winterburn, for beating the crap out of his little girl.
Everyone in the Sweethaven Café had seen Jim backhand Jamie, punishing her for her clumsiness when she tripped and fell into him. Jamie had grown faster than the other girls in my ninth-grade class, and she teetered around on her spindly limbs like she was walking around in her mom’s glittery, four-inch high heels. Every day was Roulette Day with Jim Winterburn. That day, the wheel stopped, the ball dropped into the Preteen Clumsiness slot, and Jamie’s cheek lit up from her father’s hand.
People say Carey was lucky to have walked away from that fight. Jamie’s dad had fifty pounds of muscle and a decade of pissed-off on a fifteen-year-old boy. Jim had fed on bitter hatred so long that the blood pulsing through his veins had hardened to petrified liquor. Hate for the government, hate for the war, hate for the town he’d returned home to, shy one arm and a chunk of his intestines.
Jim never really came home from Desert Storm,
I overheard my father once say to one of his Marine buddies. I’d bet Jamie and her red, white, and blue body would have begged to differ.
Jim struck Jamie, but it was like he flicked a match on embers that glowed inside Carey. He called Jim a yellow-bellied coward,
the worst insult you can toss at an ex-Marine, aside from calling him a traitor outright.
Twenty adults watched in shock as Jim tried to pound Carey into the diner’s cheap linoleum floor. My dad and the sheriff were among the first to jump in to put a stop to things. Blood had turned Carey’s brown hair black, and one of his eyes had already threatened to swell shut. He’d never raised a hand to defend himself, but a triumphant Carey laughed in Jim’s face as the police hauled him away.
Years later, Carey confessed he’d done it on purpose, letting Jim swing away. The Sweethaven townsfolk might not step into the middle of a domestic-violence situation, but they couldn’t ignore a public attack on him. That’s the kind of guy he was. He couldn’t stand seeing Jamie hurt, so he’d done what he had to. Nobody could take a hit like Carey.
Damned-fool hero Carey. SOMEBODY Carey.
So, a year later, when he caught me behind the gazebo at the town’s Fourth of July picnic and kissed me crazy, I thought it must have been on a bet, and punched him in the stomach. For crushing the sweet new feelings I had for him.
Of course, my scrawny fist didn’t have the impact I’d hoped. Carey just laughed and hugged me and whispered that he loved me and asked would I be his girl?
Would I be his girl? Stupid, lonely, ugly me be his girl?
He saw my disbelief like he saw everything else about me. To Carey, my guts had been sliced open and turned inside out so no secrets remained. His fingers trembled in mine, and he brushed his lips against my knotted fist. He knew my fear like it was his, as if the same monster lived and breathed in him.
I won’t ever let you down,
he promised, his voice cracking a little.
And I believed him.
* * *
I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t really have anywhere to go.
Eventually, I end up at Bob’s Creperie. Sitting at Bob’s sounds better than driving and thinking in circles. At least the restaurant has coffee and a heater that doesn’t quit.
Despite their name, crepes aren’t on the menu at Bob’s, but every kind of pancake is. Banana pancakes, whole-grain pancakes, maple-bacon pancakes, whatever-you-want pancakes for the regulars like me.
Longing to go unnoticed, I slide into a booth toward the back, away from judgmental eyes. Denise Scarpelli, who sometimes used to play poker with my mom, comes over, unhurried now that the Saturday morning rush is over. Obviously she hasn’t heard about Carey yet because she doesn’t spit in my water before handing me the glass. Instead, she takes my order for pecan praline pancakes and walks away.
Nothing matches in Bob’s. It’s decorated with tag-sale tables and chairs of every style and size. The place reminds me of better times, when Carey, Blake, and I used to come here on weekends before Carey went off to basic. Blake and I haven’t bothered to keep up the tradition since Carey left. Too much water under that bridge.
I can’t think about how life will change if Carey never comes home.
I’m scooting untouched pancakes around my plate when the front door swings open and a bunch of girls from our school’s cheer squad walk in. A few of them sport red, splotchy cheeks and look like they have been crying, including Angel and Nikki. They must know about Carey. Like me, they’ve come to Bob’s for pancakes and comfort. When Angel spies me, she tenses with anger, and I know my father was right. Seeing me makes things worse for everyone. Six months of hating me and this news will only feed their rage.
I throw money on the table to cover my check and rise to leave. I feel their eyes on me, and shame heats my face.
I bargain. If I can just make it to the door, I will never show my face here again. If I can leave without being humiliated today, I will take whatever my old friends dish out tomorrow. Just please, not today, when I feel bloody and raw. I’m almost past the squad’s table. Please . . .
A foot sneaks out and hooks my leg. I crash to the tiled floor, my knees and one elbow breaking my fall. Nobody laughs in the sudden silence. I gasp in pain.
Watch where you’re going, slut.
Nikki. Her eyes narrow. She hates me, but usually she’s just a follower. Jamie starts most of the crap. Jamie, who has loved Carey ever since that day he saved her from her father. Today, with the news of Carey’s disappearance still fresh,