I lift my hands slow, palms out. "Baby. Talk to me. What happened?"
Her lips part but nothing comes out at first. Then, hoarse, barely above a whisper, "He was there. At work."
My stomach drops like a stone through ice. "Who."
"Brian, my ex." She swallows hard, throat working. "Came in and said a whole bunch of shit. I kept telling him to leave, but he wouldn’t. He just kept saying stuff."
Rage boils up so fast my vision tunnels. That piece of shit. I should've ended him when she first told me the stories of what he’d done to her. "Why didn't you call me?" I ask, trying to keep my voice level but failing.
"I did." She laughs, bitter and short. "I texted you as soon as he left. But I didn’t want you to think I was being needy so I waited for you to get back to me. But you never did."
"Jesus Christ." I drag a hand over my face. "My phone was on silent. Church ran long. We were…"
"Dealing with the Russians," she finishes for me. Flat. No heat, just fact. "Yeah. I figured." She turns away, walks back into the dark room. I follow, shutting the door behind me. She drops onto the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, face in her hands.
I crouch in front of her, close but not touching yet. "Did he touch you?"
She shakes her head once. "No. Just... talked. Said he misses me. Said I look good. Said maybe we could try again now that he’s been through therapy and anger management.” She spits the words like they’re poison. "I told him to fuck off. He laughed. Said I'd come crawling back when my biker boyfriend gets bored."
I clench my fists until my knuckles crack loud enough to echo in the quiet room. “He’s wrong.”
She lifts her head and locks eyes with me. “He said other stuff about you too.”
My heart slams against my ribs and then just stops. This is the moment she finally sees the monster underneath and walks out for good. I already let her down when she needed me most. Now she knows the worst thing I’ve ever done? We’re finished.
“He said you murdered someone. That you went to jail.”
I flinch hard and shake my head once. I can’t do this. I turn and head straight for her bedroom door.
“That’s it?” she yells, voice cracking behind me. “You’re just going to walk out? You won’t even tell me he’s a lying sack of shit who made the whole thing up?”
I let out a laugh with zero humor in it. “I’m not going to lie to you, Savannah. I might be a killer, but I’m not a liar. He didn’t make it up.”
I keep walking down the hallway toward the front door. I need air. I need to get the hell out before the memories swallow me whole, me and Nolan, high as kites on pills and weed, tearing down Main Street like we were invincible.
“You don’t get to just walk away from me!” Her voice breaks as she follows. “Tell me what happened!”
I spin around so fast my boots squeak against the hardwood. Anger surges up my throat like acid. “No. You don’t need that poison rotting in your head. And we’re done anyway, so what’s the fucking point?”
“We’re done?” She closes the distance between us, eyes blazing. “What the hell, Lucky? I’m not done with you. Stop running and just tell me what happened.”
I rake a hand through my hair, chest heaving. She’s not backing down. Fine. If she wants the truth this bad, she can have every ugly piece of it.
“I was sixteen. Nolan was my best friend. We were both little shits, completely fucked up on pills and weed. It was the middle of the night. I pulled up next to this hotrod at a red light and revved my shitty engine like an idiot. We taunted the driver until he agreed to race us. Green light hit, and we took off. I don’t even know exactly what went wrong. One second we’re laughing our asses off, the next the wheel’s gone, the car’s spinning, metal’s screaming everywhere. I walked away beat to hell. Nolan didn’t. He was dead on impact.”
Savannah’s hand flies to her mouth. Her breath catches hard, eyes wide and glassy.
“They charged me with DUI manslaughter. The judge gave me a deal because I was a kid, two years in juvie, then straight into the military for at least eight years. I took it. I figured I’d find a way to get myself killed over there. I wanted to die. I deserved it. But I didn’t die. Turns out I was good at war. For the first time in my life, I was actually good at something, and what I did mattered.”
The silence stretches between us, thick and heavy. I brace myself for her to step back, to look at me like I’m garbage. Instead she launches herself forward and slams into my chest. Her arms lock around my neck so tight I can barely draw a full breath.
I freeze for a second, stunned.
She buries her face in my shoulder. “It wasn’t on purpose,” she whispers, voice trembling. “It was an accident. You were just a stupid, fucked-up kid.”
Her words hit me like a fist I never saw coming. My arms hang stiff at my sides for another heartbeat, then something inside me finally gives. I wrap around her hard, crushing her against me. I drop my face into her hair and just hold on like she’s the only solid thing left in the world.
She keeps murmuring against my neck. “You’re not that kid anymore. You’re not.”
