“It’s okay,” Austin said quickly, almost cutting me off. “It was time she knew. I just wish I’d told her when it happened.” He exhaled. “It’s… it’s so hard to keep secrets. I should have never kept any from her.” I nodded, even though I didn’t speak.
It felt like we were both carefully stepping around the same thing—the elephant in the room, heavy and unmoving. I didn’t ask him why he had been arrested. I didn’t ask what was going to happen next. Maybe because I didn’t want to know. Austin took a breath, running his hand over his chin as he looked down at me.
“I owed Seren the truth,” he said quietly, “and I owe you the same truth.” My lips pulled into a frown.
“Is it bad?” I asked, my stomach already beginning to sink.
He sighed, shaking his head just slightly. “Do you remember the night I told you about Jax?” When I nodded, he continued.“I told you about something else that night too. Do you remember?”
“The drug deal?” I asked, remembering the sharp drop in my stomach when he’d told me. He nodded, letting the silence stretch between us. It pressed in on my chest, heavy and uncomfortable. Like I already knew his words might be poisonous, but I needed to hear them anyway.
“For the first two years, I only sold weed for Roger,” Austin said, holding my gaze. “I was an idiot back then. I actually respected him. I thought he walked on water.” His jaw tightened. “I saw his power. The respect people gave him. And I wanted that too.” I listened like he was confessing some hidden truth of the world, completely tethered to every word. “He asked if I wanted to get into something bigger. I was hesitant, but he sold me a dream,” Austin muttered. “Money. Power. Respect. He told me I could have it all.” He let out a quiet curse. “So I agreed.”
He exhaled slowly.
“He gave me the pills. Just a couple. Said it was to get my feet wet. I went to a party, and it was easy to find someone who wanted them.” His voice dropped. “This kid was hammered. I think he would’ve taken anything I handed him.”
I could see it clearly in my mind. I had seen it before, how desperate people could be to escape their own reality, even if only for a moment.
“Roger told me they were percs,” Austin said. “They weren’t.” His eyes drifted, unfocused. “I didn’t know. Not until tonight.” He shook his head. “I should have known,” he muttered. “I knew how slimy Roger was.”
“What happened?” I asked gently, afraid he was slipping too far into the memory.
“The kid took them,” Austin said. “And he overdosed.” His voice cracked. “But it wasn’t like any overdose I’d ever seen. It was fast. Too fast. I didn’t understand what was happening.” His eyes turned darker. “I tried to help. I tried so hard. I gave him CPR. But there was nothing I could do, Blair. He was already gone.” His hands curled at his sides. “I panicked. I called 911 on my burner phone. And then I left.” He looked away, like the memory was dancing in front of him and he couldn’t stand to look at it any longer. “I went to Roger. He didn’t even seem surprised.” A bitter laugh slipped out. “I didn’t understand it then. I do now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to keep him anchored.
“The police finally busted Roger,” Austin said quietly. “That’s why they brought me in. He tried to cut a deal. He gave them my name.” I drew in a slow breath, the weight of it all settling deep in my gut. It wasn’t Jax. But it was still death.
“So it’s bad,” I said simply, the shock of it settling heavily in my chest.
“They detained me for questioning,” Austin continued. “I sat in that room for hours. I was terrified.” He shook his head slightly. “At first, all I could think about was how I was going to get out of it. And then I realized something.” Austin paused, his lips rolled inwards like he was debating on what words to say.
“I realized that maybe I shouldn’t get out of it,” he said quietly. “Maybe it was time to pay for what I’d done. For all of it.” I stayed perfectly still as he spoke. I don’t think I could have moved even if I’d tried. I felt solid and immovable, like stone.
“I was going to confess,” he went on, his expression serious. “When the door finally opened, I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I already had my mouth open. I was ready to tell them everything. Every bad thing I’ve done.” Hisjaw tightened. “Because maybe I deserve to be punished.” My breath caught. “But the cops never came in,” he said. “It was my lawyer.”
“What?” I asked, completely thrown.
“That’s exactly how I felt,” Austin let out a short, dark chuckle. “Until he told me everything.” He paused before continuing. “It turns out,” he said slowly, “this was something Roger did whenever he brought on a new dealer. On their first drop, he’d lace the drugs with fentanyl. Insurance.” His lips pressed together. “That way, whoever sold them had just as much to lose as he did.”
My mouth fell open. Disgust churned thick and sickening in my chest. And beneath it, fear—sharp and personal. I thought of Holden. Of how easily it could have been him.
“I guess what Roger didn’t realize,” Austin continued, “was that if he testified to doing that, it would’ve upgraded his charges from possession and distribution to murder.” He exhaled. “His lawyer shut that down fast. Told him his best chance was to not mention me at all.” Austin sounded conflictedly relieved as he said it. I didn’t feel relief yet, only shock. Like I was dreaming, like none of this quite made sense.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said slowly. “It wasn’t.”
Austin let out a heavy breath. “I don’t know about that, Blair. I still sold them.”
“But you didn’t know,” I insisted.
“No,” he agreed quietly. “I didn’t know.”
“You’re not going to jail,” I said, my voice still threaded with disbelief. I had been bracing for the worst for so long that I wasn’t sure how to stand without it.
“I’m not going to jail,” Austin said. He held my gaze, then shifted his eyes slightly to the right. “Who is that?” Austin asked, his voice lifting out of the quiet tone he’d been holding. “I know that kid. I used to sell to him. Just weed, but… he was always looking for something harder.” He frowned. “There was something about him. It made me not want to sell to him. It would have been easier to ignore the feeling and sell to him anyway, but it was like I couldn’t shake it.”
I turned, following his gaze until my eyes landed on the photograph he was staring at. Confusion pulled my face tight as I picked up the old, slightly faded picture. I held it carefully, my eyes tracing a version of myself that didn’t quite feel like me anymore. A younger me. A brighter me. If any version of myself had ever been yellow, it was this one—before the storms, before the clouds. I was standing in front of my house. It looked better then. The paint wasn’t peeling. The yard wasn’t neglected. My blonde hair was shorter, my skin warmer, glowing in a way it didn’t now. But my eyes only lingered on myself for a second.
