Tag’s eyes meet mine. Glassy. Torn. “I know.”
“I can’t believe you kept this from me.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he says. “That you’d move on, start living again.”
I shake my head, blindsided, reeling in the aftermath of another catastrophic blow.
My jaw tightens as I clench my teeth, gaze lifting.
Something softer punches through the steely haze.
“Is he…okay?” I croak.
Tag blinks at me, then looks away. “Subjective.”
“It’s a straightforward question.”
“I don’t know, Annalise.” He throws his arms up. “He looked like hell, okay? But he loves you. Misses you. So…I don’t know how to answer that.”
I square my shoulders and take a step forward. “Give me the address.”
Silence. He doesn’t move.
“Tag.”
A long pause. A longer sigh.
Then, reluctantly—
“Top dresser drawer.”
Chapter 55Annalise
I roll up to the gas station with an address in my pocket and a lump in my throat.
The building looks different: fresh paint, new signage, a gleaming red Coke machine out front where the old one used to buzz and leak. The cracked pavement’s been repaved, the flickering overhead lights replaced. It’s almost unrecognizable.
Except for the memory etched in my bones.
This is where Chase bled.
Where the world tilted and time split in two.
Where our story began.
Killing the engine, I sit for a minute, staring at the storefront like it might open its mouth and confess something. My reflection catches in the glass, and I hardly recognize the face staring back at me.
Someone weathered. Someone tired. Someone missing.
I hop out and walk inside, planning to stock up on road trip snacks as I make the fourteen-hour drive to Sevierville, Tennessee.
That’s where he’s living now.
A cabin in the woods. A life of isolation and self-loathing.
I pulled up the property on Google Maps, studying the street view as if it held answers. The road was narrow and crumbled, hemmed in by thick trees that swallow light. No neighbors. No traffic. Just a gravel drive that disappeared behind a slope of overgrown pine and shadow.
A place designed to be left alone. To fade.
