The look on her face brooked no argument, so I held my tongue.
“I’mfine,” she said. “Yes, banged up, absolutely dead on my feet, but you and Ibothneeded that, Tyler, and I was in control the entire time. If I didn’t think I could handle it, I would have stopped us.”
I eyed her, unsure.
She grabbed my face and pulled me down to her level. “Did you hear me, yes or no?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t let me go, but her grip softened. “Areyouokay?”
I shook my head. “No. I thought you’d died, and it made me realize that I’ve spent my entire life focused on the wrong thing, believing that if I finally got revenge for what happened to me and my mom, it would fix me.” I put a hand on my chest. “Fix whatever is broken inside here.”
Her expression fell. “You’re not broken.”
It was my turn to pull out of her hold. “I am. And I know that words aren’t enough to make up for everything, but I am so fucking sorry, Stella. I want you to know, out of all the horrible shit I’ve done and had planned to do, treating you the way I did was the worst. My rock bottom.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. You’ve been different since I regained consciousness. Borderline tolerable.”
I shook my head. “Why are you here with me?”
“Um, you kidnapped me, pyscho? Did you hit your head, too?” She grinned. “Or did I sex you stupid?”
“You absolutely did, but I mean, why haven’t you called the cops and told them where we are?”
“Because I don’t think you should go to jail. I think you should go to therapy.”
“My best friend has been saying that for years,” I admitted.
“You should listen to him. You have a lot of anger, and before you get mad, I’m not saying it’s not justified, but, like, holy shit, what you learned today is beyond fucked up, and I think it will take a professional to help you unpack it all.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “You probably have a point.” In my head, I relived that whole ugly scene with my aunt. “What if Jenny was lying?”
“You’re the expert on body language. Do you think she was?”
I sighed. “No.”
“Richard might still have been an asshole. My dad has always said to listen to both sides of a story because the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. What if Richard was scared anddidpush your mother away when she told him she was pregnant? And then once she was gone, he came to his senses and tried to track her down, but by then it was too late, and the trust was broken?”
“We’ll never know,” I said. “Because my mother is dead, so I can never ask her why she lied to me.”
Stella wrapped her arms around my waist. “I’m so sorry. She must have thought she was doing the right thing.”
“And yet, what was it you and Jenny both said? That I turned out even worse than the people she was trying to protect me from?”
Stella squeezed me tighter. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You weren’t wrong. I’ve been a bastard since the day the county coroner handed me Mom’s ashes.”
She didn’t bother arguing with me. We both knew I was right.
“I’m still sorry,” she said.
“You really shouldn’t be, Stella,” I told her. “Because you were right. Iwasplanning to use those employees to bring Richard down. Among other people I spoke to whenever your back was turned. I was going to blackmail them just like I did you, have them dig up all the dirt they could find, or plant it if there was none. And then I was going toreallylean on them, force them to help me dismantle the company one brick at a time.”
