“I didn’t hurt Dylan,” I tell him, a desperate edge to my voice. Desperate for him to believe me.
“I believe you.”
I didn’t realize how much tension I was holding onto until it all comes bleeding out of me, an unbearable weight lifting off my chest so I can finally breathe.
Pulling back, I meet Jackson’s gaze. “I’m sorry.”
His brow furrows. “For what?”
I place my hand on the side of his neck and brush my thumb across his cheek, the corners of my mouth pulled down by the burden of my own guilt. “I thought you were a trap set by your father.”
The way his entire face falls guts me to my very core. “I would never do that.”
“I know. I’m sorry I thought you would.”
I thought I had let go of those suspicions, but it turns out paranoia can latch onto you as relentlessly as gossip.
Keaton and I have had our issues, pretty fucking big ones. Neither of us trusted each other when it came to Dylan’s disappearance. When Jackson came out as bisexual while he was in my class, the timing of it was too much of a coincidence for my brain to completely ignore.
But now, with him in front of me after more truths than either of us were prepared for have come out, I hate myself for suspecting him at all.
His eyes search mine. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but I think I’d be willing to show him just about anything he wants to see. To bare my heart to him even if I bleed out. I’ve only known Jackson for a semester. We’ve only kissed a handful of times. But there’s something about his soul that calls to mine, that makes me believe we’re both exactly where we’re meant to be.
Since he’s clearly searching for something, I decide to offer him a little piece. Something I’ve kept locked away for a long time, just one of my deepest secrets.
“Sometimes I’m afraid that I hurt Dylan unintentionally. That Ididcause him pain and that I’m the one who drove him away.”
The admission cracks something open in me, and I hate how it makes me sound. Helpless, human. Scared. But Jackson doesn’t flinch. He just stares at me like he can see the guilt I’ve spent all this time trying to bury.
“I’ve struggled with that for years, and I never want to feel like that with someone else ever again.”
He gives me a small smile, but there’s a certain degree of sadness in his eyes. “You still love him?”
“No,” I tell him without hesitation, and I know it’s the truth. “I did. Very much. But that was a long time ago.”
“Would you tell me what happened?”
It’s a fair question. As much as I don’t want to relive it, I told Jackson I’d earn his trust.
“Dylan was hiding something. Like everyone else seems to, he was holding onto secrets that he refused to share with me. We fought about it the night before he disappeared. I got…angry. Not throw-him-over-a-bridge angry, but…”
Jackson lets out a soft laugh, which gives me hope that maybe he really has forgiven me for that.
“But I did say some things I didn’t mean, and he walked out. I thought he’d come back once he cooled off. But he never did.” I swallow hard, forcing the words past the ache in my throat. “I used to replay that night over in my head, wondering if something I said was what made him leave. If I really am the reason he’s gone.”
He takes a slow breath. “I think that just means that we both need to stop keeping secrets.”
My chest tightens. “What do you mean?”
He pulls back enough to look at me fully, and for one awful second, I think he’s about to tell me he’s changed his mind.
But then he says, “I didn’t follow you to the bridge that night. Someone emailed me to go there.”
I don’t move. I can’t. Like the blood in my veins has turned to ice water.
My voice croaks when I ask, “What?”
“I don’t know who it was, but they tried to make me think they were Dylan at first. They knew things. But I think it was all a trick to get me there that night.”
