I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say.
Tell me it’s not true. Help me understand.
My mouth opens as she stares at me. Her dark blue eyes are wide, the pupils almost blown. There’s a plea in them. But I don’tsay anything, and the life there fades into dullness. The emotion wipes away. “Oh. I see.”
Cold fingers grip my heart at her numb expression.
Emilia looks at me as if I’m a stranger. As if she doesn’t know me at all.
“Wait.”Fuck, this has gone so wrong. “Em—,”
“Don’t.” She takes a step back. With the bar between us, I can’t reach her. Around us, people call for service, but Emilia ignores them.
And the emptiness in her face feels like a knife sliding between my ribs. “You promised you would believe me.”
“I do.” The words tear from my throat, strangled and desperate. “God, I do believe you.”
I’m not lying. I believe that Arron Matthews is a piece of shit that hurt her in ways I can’t possibly begin to understand. He scarred her fuckingface.
But you still questioned her.
Fuck.
I put my glass down. I’ve drunk too much, the room around me slightly blurred at the edges.
She leans forward and picks up my empty glass. She turns it over in her fingers. “No, you don’t. Because you wouldn’t look at me that way if you did.”
It was only a moment. Just a moment of doubt.
She half-turns away as I search desperately for the right words. “I just wanted to understand, Em. It was such a weird thing to say. That’s all.”
“Fine,” she says tonelessly. “I’ll explain myself. Lay it all out for you, and you can make a judgment on which of us is lying. How does that sound?”
“That’s not—,” I inhale. “Look. He said a few things that just…,”
“Made sense,” she interrupts. “Everything added up, right? Add two and two together, make four? He’s so reasonable. Such a nice guy.”
“He was a fucking asshole.” The alcohol makes me too slow to respond, to voice the thoughts fighting to get out. “Em—,”
“It’s fine. Don’t wait for me tonight,” she says tightly. “You clearly have a lot to think about. I need to get back to work.”
“What? No.” My voice hardens. “I’m walking you home. Your safety isn’t negotiable to me.”
I always walk you home.
She shakes her head, her hands spreading out. “You don’t get to choose which parts of me to trust, Jared. You either do, or you don’t. Look… maybe we both need some space. We’ve been spending a lot of time together. Maybe we need to focus on ourselves for a bit.”
Her eyes drop to the glass she’s still holding.
I bolt upright.What?
“I do trust you,” I snap. “All you have to do istellme, and I’ll believe you. It’s not hard, Em. I don’t need any space from you.”
Just tell me what happened.
Emilia studies me. Her words are slow. Precise. Pained.
“Arron’s father offered me that money as a bribe not to go to the cops. I took it, because I was scared of what he would do if I didn’t. I didn’t need it. Didn’t want it. But yes, I took the money.”
