“Aubrey,” Maxx was saying, but I barely heard him.
All I could do was watch the person who was responsible for the death of my sister turn to a girl who had followed him into the diner and put his arm around her, pulling her close.
He smiled down at her, and she reached up on her tiptoes to kiss his mouth. He smoothed the hair back from her forehead and smiled down at her in a way I had never seen him smile at Jayme.
“Aubrey!” Maxx said again, but I ignored him.
Before I realized what I was doing, I was on my feet and moving toward the front of the diner. Blake and his girlfriend were looking around, obviously trying to find a place to sit. Neither saw me approach. It wasn’t until I stopped in front of him that Blake bothered to look at me at all.
I saw his puzzled frown and knew he was trying to place me. I could see that I was familiar to him, but he couldn’t figure out how he knew me.
“Uh... hey?” he said, posing his statement more as a question. His girlfriend looked at me, then at Blake, seeming confused.
I swallowed, feeling suddenly nauseous.
I wanted to punch him in his smug face. I wanted to rip the hair from his head. I wanted to break every bone in his pathetic body and leave him to die in a dirty alley just as he had left my sister.
I thought of a million ways to kill the man who stood before me. A million horrific, painful ways to inflict on him the same torture he had unwittingly inflicted on my family by simply being the person he was.
A manipulative, cowardly drug dealer.
I still hadn’t moved. I blocked their way into the diner. I opened my mouth to scream. To yell. To hurl insults and threats into his face.
Blake cocked his head to the side, looking more and more confused.
He was alive.
My sister was dead.
And there was no changing that.
“I’m Aubrey Duncan,” I said, my voice soft and crushed. Blake frowned, uncertain, still not able to figure out who I was.
I felt Maxx come up behind me and put his hand on my arm. “Who is this?” he whispered in my ear, but I shook him off.
Blake’s girlfriend gripped his arm and looked up at him. “What’s going on, Blake?” she asked, seeming irritated.
Blake’s frown deepened. “Am I supposed to know you?”
“I’m Jayme’s sister,” I said, choking on the words as they passed my lips.
My statement hit Blake with the force of a punch to the jaw. He flinched, his face paling. He took a step backward, away from me.
I stared at him, wanting to say so much more. I wanted to tell him how I blamed his thoughtless actions for the destruction of my family. I wanted to remind him of his selfishness that had killed the person I had loved.
But seeing the look on Blake’s face, I didn’t need to.
“I’m sorry,” he let out in an agonized rush, his face crumpling.
We stood there, Blake and me, two people irrevocably connected by the girl we had both lost.
“Why did you leave her there?” I asked. Because that was what haunted me the most. The thought that this asshole had left my baby sister to die. Alone.
Blake’s girlfriend tugged on his arm, trying to get his attention, but he was focused on me. I knew we were making a scene. I could feel people looking at us, but I didn’t care. I was vaguely aware of Maxx’s warm hand on my skin, but I couldn’t look away from this pathetic man in front of me.
Blake moved forward a step, then stopped. He dropped his girlfriend’s hand, as though he didn’t remember she was still there. We were both stuck in a quagmire of heartache.
“I didn’t know!” he implored, his hands becoming fists at hissides.
