Madeline
It took Wes three days to come find me. Three days of me pretending I wasn’t waiting for him to show up. Three days of feeling Jesse’s hand squeeze mine whenever the subject skirted too close.
“It’s not my story to tell,” he’d said quietly as we lay together on the couch last night. “If Wes wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”
If Wesdidn’twant me to know, I would understand. Whatever it is, it’s clear he hoped to leave it in the past. But not knowing what my parents have on him, what scandal they have in their arsenal, has planted a seed of dread in my stomach.
I push through Cove’s glass doors at five-thirty, exhausted and half-ready to crawl into bed for the weekend. Wes stands beside the bench near the parking lot, hands in the pockets of his jacket, back straight, face unreadable in that quiet, almost haunted way of his. The fading October light makes him look even more serious than usual.
“Madeline,” he says. Goosebumps prickle my skin.
“Hey,” I breath, unsure if I should smile, step forward, apologize, or all three at once.
He nods toward the sidewalk, toward the street. “Could we talk? Maybe grab a coffee?”
My stomach tightens. “Of course,” I say. We walk side by side down the block in silence. It isn’t awkward—Wes isn’t the kind of person who needs to fill the quiet—but I can feel something coiled inside of him, something heavy.
He holds the door of Brew House open for me. We both order Americanos and carry our mugs to a small table by the window.
The sun is dipping behind the mountains, turning the street gold. Wes doesn’t look out the window. He looks at his hands, which are wrapped around his cup, knuckles pale.
I wait, not wanting to push him, wanting to give him the same patience Wes seems to give everyone else.
“I’m sure Jesse told you not to ask,” he says finally, eyes fixed on the table. “And I appreciate that. He always…protects things. He protects his people.”
My throat tightens. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
He huffs out a breath that isn’t quite a laugh. “Yeah, I kind of do.”
He leans back, jaw working, like he’s chewing on words that taste terrible in his throat. “You’ve probably been wondering what they have on me.” He doesn’t say their names, doesn’t have to. “What they’re threatening to use.”
Wes finally looks out the window, but I can tell he isn’t seeing the view. He’s somewhere else entirely.
“It happened in high school,” he says quietly. “Senior year. A break and enter. I was arrested. It was an old man’s house, someone everyone in town knew. My friends thought it would be…I don’t know…stupid, reckless fun. They went in through a basement window while he was sleeping. Took some money and old jewelry. Screwed around. But Madeline, I wasn’t there.”
He pauses, closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I swear to God, I didn’t even know what had happened,” he continues. “I saw a few of them running down his driveway and they asked me for a ride. I gave them one, just like I had a hundred other times. They were my friends. I didn’t know what they’d done until the next day, when the cops came knocking on doors.” He exhales sharply. “Their parents had money and already had lawyers in motion. My dad, well, you know what my dad was like back then, I’m assuming.”
I nod.
“The Winters boys had a reputation thanks to my dad being the town drunk. After my mom died, people in this town thought they knew exactly what kind of kid I’d turn into, and they figured this proved them right.”
My chest aches.
“They had everything but fingerprints,” Wes continues. “There was security footage of my car on the old man’s street and a timeline that made sense if I’d been the one inside the house. At first, I figured I’d be okay, that eventually someone would tell the cops I hadn’t been there, that somehow the truth would come out.”
A muscle twitches in his jaw as he stares into his still-full cup. “They were terrified,” he says. “They begged me not to say anything, and they were my closest friends. They’d done something stupid, but they weren’t bad guys. One had a scholarship to UCLA. The other had a full ride for hockey. I didn’t have anything. No plans, no future. My life already felt over, and people around here were acting like I was guilty anyways. So, I made a choice.”
My chest twists. “Wes…”
“The cops said if I admitted it, I could probably plead out. So, I told them it was me.”
He shrugs one shoulder like it’s old news, but his voice, the quiet thread of pain in it, betrays him.
“I ended up doing community service and probation. And the other two, my best friends?” His mouth curves in a humorless smile. “They never talked to me again.”
My eyes burn. “And that’s why you left.”
