I’d really blown it here. Lied to Daniela, broke my promise to Cat, ticked off Drew, got Charlie to start circulating things behind my back, screwed around with Abby and then blew her off, messed up Linda’s relationship, and the person who’d opened her heart up to me fully, Jade, I’d made her keep us a stupid secret that was probably going to ruin her other friendships all over again. Honestly, it was kind of impressive how much I screwed everything up. Like, talk about a clean sweep. Did they give out medals for this?
I dropped onto the bed, staring up at the little window up at the top of the wall, and I wished I could cry—wished that this awful, hollow feeling in my gut would go away and let me feel everything I was supposed to, but instead, I was a rock, a broken piece of metal, cold and feeling nothing.
It was uncomfortably self-aware of me, that I knew I was doing it to punish myself because I’d been a bad person, and yet even knowing that, I still went ahead with it—this addictive satisfaction knowing I was getting what I deserved—as I took my phone and looked at Sawyer’s message. I knew I couldn’t go back. I knew what happened to women who did.
But maybe I deserved it. Maybe it would have been right for me, after everything I’d done. Sawyer would break the stupid part of my spirit that had told me to go take advantage of everyone else and ruin things for them.
I hesitated for a long time with my finger over the screen, teetering between life and death, and then—I knew I had to move quickly and decisively and do it before I could stop myself—I opened the phone, and I didn’t stop moving until the phone was ringing, a sick feeling in my stomach.
My chest swooped with nerves when it clicked and picked up, a familiar old voice on the other side I thought I’d never hear again.
“Alyssa?”
I pushed out a shaky breath. “Hi, Mom,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. Can I stay at your place for a couple days? I need to keep myself from making a really bad decision.”
She sounded guarded. Wary of her own daughter. I’d given her reason to be. “You haven’t said a word to any of us in years.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Somebody else I’d wronged. Mom could get in line. “Sawyer… my ex-boyfriend… he didn’t like me having family. Or friends. I’m not welcome anymore where I am right now, but if I go back there, I’d…”
I couldn’t finish the thought. Everything I could was a dramatic exaggeration and yet, at the same time, an understatement. At length, though, Mom’s voice came softly through the phone.
“I can have the house ready for you by tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. To be saved by somebody else. Hopefully for the last time. “Thanks, Mom,” I said quietly, closing my eyes and breathing out slowly.
Chapter 29
Jade
“What are you talking about?” I paced the floor like a woman gone mad, a hand to my forehead. I felt dizzy, spinning, sick to my stomach, and the sight of Alyssa on my couch—sitting ramrod straight, knees pressed together with her hands folded on top, like a schoolgirl in trouble, with that bitterly sad look in her eyes, I wanted to shake some sense into her at the same time I wanted to hold her and kiss her and never let her feel this way again.
“I promise I’ll be safe,” she said, and she dropped her gaze to the floor. “And I mean… we knew this was going to end, right? You and me.”
“Not likethis.”
“It’s been really special,” she said softly, her voice cracking at the edges. “Thank you for making my time here really mean something. I’m sorry it’s been—”
“It’s not about me,” I said, stopping pacing in front of her. “It’s just—you know everyone wants you here even if things with Daniela—”
“I don’t know about that,” she groaned, slumping forward. “Apparently Drew and Charlie have been making the rounds about me. And after seeing how things went with Cat—someonewho’s been around for a long time and contributed to the center and everything—I’m sure it’ll be easy for them to demonize an outsider who just showed up out of nowhere and started messing with things.”
“Alyssa—”
“I guess you were right, to begin with,” she said, looking up at the window behind her, the rain still driving hard against the glass. That look in her eyes, hollow and vacant, like the tone in her voice, it broke my heart just listening to it—like there was nothing left of the girl who showed up so luminous that the whole town couldn’t help falling for her. “You said before that a place like this is cozy and feels like home only if you’re in the inner circle. And that one step out of line…”
God, this was my fucking fault. If I’d just gone and left town like I’d been planning on, instead of getting distracted by a pretty girl, Drew and his friends would have been satisfied to see at least me driven out of town. Alyssa would be welcome with open arms wherever she went. Instead, I’d taken someone as beautiful and bright-eyed as Alyssa Taylor and made her as disillusioned and broken as I was.
“Charlie was doing what about you?” I said, voice low, and she shrugged.
“Don’t really know exactly. Drew just made an offhand comment about it… basically just likedon’t think you’re too welcome here.Said that she’d been complaining to everyone who would listen about how nosy I was, how I couldn’t mind my business.”
“To think for a second, I’d started to feel bad for how I’d talked about her.” I dropped into the chair opposite her, my head spinning. “Alyssa, I don’t even know what to… I’m sorry. God knows you didn’t deserve for anything to end up like this.”
She laughed thinly, looking through me and out to infinity. “I kind of do. I mean, I was… truth be told, originally, I wastrying to find a way to convince you to stay here in Vermont.” She looked down. “So you could be with Daniela.”
“Yeah, I mean, Cat already told me.”
She looked sharply up at me. “She did?”
