Looking Glass Lies Read online

  PRAISE FOR LOOKING GLASS LIES

  “With her signature style—straightforward, poignant, powerful—Denman’s Looking Glass Lies reflects painful truths . . . and healing hope.”

  —CANDACE CALVERT, bestselling author of Maybe It’s You

  “Who knew fiction could soothe my soul the way this book does? Through her beautiful story of brokenness, Varina Denman poignantly unveils shame, fear, unforgiveness, and feelings of worthlessness—the telltale symptoms of a shattered self-esteem. And it’s her well-crafted characters that bring healing to some deep places of wounding in my own life. Only an anointed writer can do that. If you are a woman, this is a must read that will leave you encouraged and challenged in equal measure.”

  —CAREY SCOTT, author of Untangled: Let God Loosen the Knots of Insecurity in Your Life and Uncommon: Pursuing a Life of Passion and Purpose

  “Varina Denman has done an outstanding job of telling a captivating story that addresses one of the ‘hidden sins’ in our churches and culture today. Looking Glass Lies honestly portrays the reality that pornography addiction not only destroys marriages, but that trust, self-worth, and dreams are often among the collateral damage left in its wake. This hard-to-put-down book offers the possibility of finding hope, healing, and joy in the midst of pain.”

  —VICKI TIEDE, speaker and author of When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography: Healing Your Wounded Heart

  “Looking Glass Lies is the essence of a good book. Varina Denman creates an abundant depth of character, and I closed the pages feeling like I had a newfound set of friends and was better having known them.”

  —JAMI AMERINE, Sacred Ground Sticky Floors blog

  “Varina Denman has crafted a poignant account of a wounded soul on a journey to self-acceptance after enduring the fallout of a destructive relationship. Along with a memorable cast of characters and a sweet romance, Looking Glass Lies delivers a hope-filled message of healing and a wonderful reminder that identity should only be found in the One who created us.”

  —CONNILYN COSSETTE, CBA Best Selling Author of Counted with the Stars and Shadow of the Storm

  “A brave and heartrending portrait of a woman searching to find her worth in a culture built on lies. Honest, relatable, and deeply moving.”

  —NICOLE DEESE, author of The Promise of Rayne and the Love in Lenox series.

  ALSO BY VARINA DENMAN

  The Mended Hearts Series

  Jaded (Book 1)

  Justified (Book 2)

  Jilted (Book 3)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Varina Denman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Waterfall Press, Grand Haven, MI

  www.brilliancepublishing.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Waterfall Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

  ISBN-13: 9781503942707

  ISBN-10: 1503942708

  Cover design by PEPE nymi

  CONTENTS

  Start Reading

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Epilogue

  SHANTY’S BE YOU CHALLENGE

  NOTE TO THE READER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOOK CLUB GUIDE

  AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

  When a woman peers at her reflection, she blindly believes the glass when it whispers, and is convinced that others must feel the same about her skin, her face, her body, her soul.

  But sometimes . . . the mirror lies.

  For those who hear the lies

  Chapter One

  I woke up in the middle of the night in our cavernous walk-in closet. Again. For a moment, I enjoyed the wispy memory of a not-yet-forgotten dream, but then I realized the plush carpet had become solid rock while I slept, its gritty fibers pressing against me as though I were wedged into a sandstone crevice instead of willingly tucked against the back wall beneath my hanging clothes.

  Good grief. You have to stop this, Cecily. I told myself the same thing every blasted time, but so far I hadn’t been able to do it. Even now, I didn’t move so much as a pinkie finger, didn’t open my eyes against the harsh fluorescent light, didn’t crawl past Brett’s shoe rack where I could see myself in the floor-length mirror. Not a chance. Because that would have broken the spell and sent me back to the real world, and—no, thanks—I preferred the fairy tale where high school sweethearts lived happily ever after.

  My husband slept soundly in our pillow-top king, just on the other side of the closet door. The phrase sleeping like a baby crossed my mind, and I snickered softly because Brett’s snoring was anything but childlike, and his seemingly undefiled slumber had been brought on by over-the-counter sleeping pills rather than the serenity of innocence.

  Besides, Brett wasn’t the one who was childish. He never scrutinized his reflection in the mirror late at night. He never beat his fists against his thighs until he had bruises, hoping a tantrum would somehow change things. He never bawled uncontrollably, wishing he could mold his body into what it ought to be—like Play-Doh—kneading and pressing until the flesh became aesthetically balanced.

  He never once cried himself to sleep in the closet.

  I uncurled my stiff legs, wiggling my toes and stretching while the shirts hanging above me caressed my skin like an old friend. The back of my hand bumped against solid wood: the leg of the chair where Brett sat every morning, tying his shoes like Mr. Rogers. Smiling.

  For seven years it had been the same. On mornings when he found me asleep on the floor, he’d nudge me with his socked toe, wag his finger, and laugh. “Cecily, you silly girl. Get in
bed where you’ll be comfortable.” Then he’d pat me on the butt as he slipped his cell phone in his pocket.

  I hated that phone. Despised it. It was full of videos Brett didn’t want me to see, websites he claimed he hadn’t visited, pictures he made certain I never had access to. But his temptations didn’t end there. When he left the house, there were billboards and magazine covers and posters in shop windows. There were advertisements and mannequins and sultry radio voices, and there were women, everywhere, in low-cut blouses, short skirts, and thick makeup.

  I couldn’t compete with all that. Evidently.

  My hair itched my cheek, and I shoved it away from my face. Six months ago, Brett had showed me a picture of a style that he described as spunky and sexy—one side swinging alluringly over an eye, the other in a cute pixie—and he insisted the red tint would accentuate my green eyes more than my natural color had ever done.

  Yeah, right.

  I fingered a lock on the long side, pulling it past my chin and yanking it hard. Then I touched the tip of my finger to the short side. So very, very short. Brett had told me he would like it, but it hadn’t been enough.

  Of course it hadn’t.

  I realized his snoring had stopped, and my eyes popped open, then I held my breath, pushing the hanging clothes away from my ear to listen for bedsprings or squeaky floorboards, daring to hope that the closet door might open. That he might get on his knees, tell me he hadn’t meant it.

  His breathing faltered for three seconds, then the rhythmic snoring continued, and he went back to sleep. Like a baby.

  Pressing my palm against the ivory carpet, I dragged myself out of the corner, sat in front of the mirror, and squared my shoulders as though I no longer needed to hide from reality. As though I’d be all right without Brett. As though his divorce papers fit neatly into my fairy tale.

  “You can handle this,” I said to my reflection. In a few short hours, I could start a new day, build a new life, create a new me.

  I could go back home and start over. People in my hometown wouldn’t be surprised things hadn’t worked out between Brett and me—they had said as much when we’d started dating in high school. After a while I could settle into the complacent solace of small-town life, lick my wounds, and become invisible among the laid-back community that Brett had always deemed unsophisticated.

  “You go, girl.” I lifted my chin, but the girl in the mirror didn’t seem convincing.

  No matter. That’s what I would do tomorrow . . . or next week . . . or maybe next month. Okay, so it might take a while, but at least it was a plan. And it was a heck of a lot better than crying in a closet. Like a baby.

  Chapter Two

  Eleven months, two weeks, and four days later

  My life was a thousand-piece puzzle I couldn’t seem to fit together. Or maybe it wasn’t my life that was the problem; maybe it was my emotions or my circumstances or my sanity. Maybe I had multiple puzzles all dumped together on a tabletop, and I was trying to figure out what went where.

  That’s why I finally came home—the place where it all started—to try to figure out what to make of the chaos, or possibly to find a new puzzle with fewer pieces.

  Home seemed like a safe place to work on things.

  I used to compare my hometown to the quaint setting of Gilmore Girls, but ten years in Los Angeles had given me a more cynical and realistic perspective. My dad always said the university kept the town thriving, and so did the tourist trade. Families in minivans trekked across the country to gape at Palo Duro Canyon, hike its trails, and camp in its depths. But for me, Canyon, Texas, represented a million childhood memories, all of which melded together into a comforting poultice, and made me feel as though an enormous Band-Aid had been wrapped around me like a shawl.

  “Cecily, you job hunting today?” My dad stood in the kitchen of our family cabin in his park ranger uniform, holding a coffee pot a foot above the table and peering at me with a perplexed expression, as though he couldn’t believe I was truly sitting in his cabin, eating bacon and eggs.

  “Sure am.” I held my mug out toward him. “You know if anybody’s hiring?”

  Dad was only forty-nine, but since my departure after high school graduation, smile lines had appeared around his mouth. It was like his face kept grinning even when he told it to relax.

  He lowered the coffee pot to the table. “Seems like I saw a sign in the window at the pool hall, but I reckon that wouldn’t suit.” He chuckled. “Olivia might have a position down at the visitor’s center, though. I’ll ask her about it.”

  Minimum wage at the state park would barely cover my car payment, much less rent for my own place, but with no experience and no degree, I couldn’t be picky. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, and never had been. My dad and I had only seen each other a handful of times in the last ten years, but he still seemed as familiar to me as the day I left. I unscrewed the cap on a bottle of hazelnut coffee flavoring, poured a hefty dose in my cup, and then reached for a second bottle—French vanilla—and dumped in a little of it as well. My mom had taught me that.

  I looked around the room, experiencing a sense of déjà vu that took me back to my childhood. When Mom died, Daddy had removed her personal things from the bedroom, but the open area that served as our kitchen and living room hadn’t changed much over the years. It almost seemed as if Mom might walk in and sit between us like old times, passing dishes back and forth and chattering up a storm, laughing, and always, always telling me I was pretty.

  “So.” Daddy dipped his knife into the butter and scratched the stainless steel across a piece of toast. “You know you could have come home as soon as he divorced you, Cecily. Why wait a year?” He stabbed a slice of bacon.

  His mention of my divorce didn’t bother me, and neither did his aggression toward his breakfast meat. The question itself didn’t even faze me because it was valid.

  “Oh, you know . . . tying up loose ends.” I supposed a stint in a psychiatric hospital could be termed a loose end, but I didn’t mention it. Most likely, he wasn’t upset that I waited a year to come home after Brett served me divorce papers, but because there were divorce papers at all. If I knew my dad, he was thinking that if I had come home earlier, he might have been able to help me. He might have saved his little girl some pain. He might have talked Brett out of it.

  That was the real reason I’d waited.

  I smiled weakly, then shoved a bite of scrambled eggs into my mouth with a chunk of bacon.

  “Cess?” His chin jutted forward. “He didn’t . . . hurt you . . . did he?”

  “No, Daddy.”

  “Then . . .” The tines of his fork made two small circles above his coffee cup. “He was unfaithful?”

  So many questions. “Brett just said he didn’t love me anymore, and he wanted out.”

  The word love seemed to make my dad flinch. “And what Brett wants, Brett gets.”

  It went without saying that I was no longer what Brett wanted. I cut a bite of eggs with the side of my fork, picked at it, then mashed it flat. After a few more jabs, it resembled yellow sand. My self-esteem wouldn’t allow me to explain my jigsaw puzzle past, or my sinking fear that the lid of the puzzle box, with the picture on top, had been tossed in the garbage. There was no way to convey the depth of my loneliness over the past year, or how crazy I’d felt while I was in recovery, or the emptiness that still consumed me.

  He cleared his throat. “I bumped into Dr. Harper out at the state park yesterday, and I sort of suggested he call you.”

  “Dr. Harper? I don’t remember him. And . . . I’m not sick.”

  His shoulders fell half an inch. “He’s a counselor.” His eyes met mine, and suddenly he was a bumbling giant in a glass cage, unable to move to the right or left for fear of breaking whatever strange new relationship we were forging. “He could help you, Cess.” His gaze settled on my hair for a few seconds before he frowned thoughtfully at the wood floor.

>   My hair. I should have gotten it fixed before I came home. I should have tried to look like my old self. I should have pretended to be healthier than I was. My emotions were still a wreck, and my hair was proof.

  The wonky red style had grown into a two-tone mop of fluff, and apparently Daddy couldn’t make sense of it.

  “I appreciate you asking him to call me.” No, I didn’t. “But doesn’t it usually work the other way around?” That’s all I needed. One more counselor telling me to just let it go.

  He pulled his truck keys from his pocket. “That’s what Dr. Harper said, but he doesn’t mind making one call, seeing how it’s you.”

  I squinted. “I remember Dr. Cushing, down at the Monday clinic . . . and Dr. Mendez, the veterinarian, but who is Dr. Harper? Where did he come from?”

  “Aw, you know him, Cess, you went to school together.” Daddy glanced at the time on the microwave oven. “And actually the Monday clinic shut down.”

  “Harper? Wait a minute. Graham Harper?”

  He pushed his chair away from the table.

  “Are you serious?” I followed him to the front door and onto the porch. “Graham Harper can’t possibly be a therapist. Does he even have credentials? Daddy, they called him Graham Cracker.”

  He adjusted his cap as he stomped down the steps. “Of course he has credentials.”

  “Daddy . . .” I could hear the whine in my voice as I called across the yard. “Did you really give Graham Cracker my phone number?”

  As he opened the door of his truck, his neck disappeared between his shoulder blades as though he were being pelted with rocks. “No need to overreact. I’ll tell him to forget it.” He cranked the ignition and pulled away slowly, gravel popping beneath his tires like the last few kernels in a bag of Redenbacher’s, but as he looped around the circle drive, his smiling eyes met mine one last time.

  “Yes, Daddy,” I whispered. “Tell Graham Cracker to forget it.”

  Chapter Three

  A Dumas teenager was injured Thursday morning at Palo Duro Canyon State Park, said Randall County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sonny McNeill. The sixteen-year-old girl ventured too close to a sheer drop-off while hiking the CCC Trail with her family. She was airlifted to Northwest Texas Hospital, where she remains in critical condition.