“I should have called,” I say, looking up at him. “You could have met me outside or somewhere private.” In response, his hand gently rubs my arm, comforting me when I’ve maybe never needed it more despite knowing he’s the last person I should accept comfort from.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
I open my mouth, but before I can say anything, the plastic rustles behind me and the woman I’d spoken to comes through. Her eyes lock on mine.
“Upset or not, you can’t just go walking through any door you please. Come on now.” She moves to the side and gestures for me to precede her back through the curtain. “I’m sorry, Heath, I tried to stop her.”
“It’s fine, Irene,” Heath says. “She’s my—” He cuts off, glancing at me as if I know how to finish that sentence. I don’t, especially not with the rapt audience we’ve amassed.
I recognize two guys I used to go to school with, including Eddie Leonard, one of Jason’s self-proclaimed former best friends who traded in on my family’s suffering to stretch out his fifteen minutes of fame with every reporter who came knocking. He was the one who started the rumor about Jason bashing in the car of some guy for asking out a girl he liked when they were seniors. The way he’s eyeing me now has me shifting to hide behind Heath, only to realize that only fuels the speculation of everyone around us.
Irene takes in Heath’s hand on my arm and the way he’s subtly placed himself in front of me, and she sighs loudly. The look she gives him is almost motherly. The one she gives me isn’t exactly harsh, but it’s disapproving all the same. I realize then that by turning me away, she was trying to spare Heath from exactly this situation rather than outright shun me. And whether or not he’s aware of the repercussions that are going to rain down on him from my appearance here today, she has no doubt. “She shouldn’t be here.”
“It’s okay,” Heath says. Irene nods, not in agreement, in resignation.
“You can use my office.” She spares one last look at me, reproof clear in every inch of her face, before clapping everyone around us back to work.
Heath’s hand sliding into mine startles me and pulls my attention back to him as he leads us to a door marked Irene Willis, General Manager. As soon as we’re inside and the rest of the world is shut out behind that closed door, I wrap my arms around myself and move away from his touch.
“I’m so sorry for that.” I nod at the door and all the people on the other side of it. “I should have thought about what would happen if I showed up here where people know you.”And know who my brother is, I add silently.
“Irene’ll understand, and I don’t care about the rest of them.” He moves toward me, his brow furrowing when I retreat farther.
“I don’t even know why I came,” I say. “You’re the last person I should be coming to about—about—”
A tendon in Heath’s neck jumps, but his gaze on me stays steady. “This is about your brother?”
Looking into Heath’s gray eyes, warmth beyond anything I’ve ever felt before suffuses my body, only to leave me cold and numb the second I lower my gaze. “It’s always about my brother, isn’t it?” I force my arms down, to release even that small gesture of protection. “What we’re doing, what we’ve been doing... Heath, what are we doing?”
“I never made you show up at that tree.” I see his booted feet come into view and I look up. He’s close enough to touch me again if he wants, and with Irene’s desk behind me, there’s no more room for me to back away. His voice is like a caress when he speaks again. “You came ’cause you wanted something from me, same as I wanted something from you. Brooke, I—”
“It is about my brother,” I say, stopping the hand he’s started to lift to my face the only way I know how. “I told you I was going to visit him today. It’s usually my mom and me, but Laura was sick, so Mom stayed home. It was the first time I got to see Jason and talk to him by myself since...since the beginning.”
Heath is still holding my gaze, but he’s tense now, like he’s preparing for a bomb to drop. He’s not wrong.
“I asked him about the night, to help me understand.”
“Brooke.” My name on his lips has never sounded so loaded, so sad. He’s warning me and pleading with me at the same time, and it makes me want to cry as I keep going. I have to tell him.
“It’s all I think about. I have the same recurring nightmare of Jason and Cal fighting, only I can’t ever make out what they’re saying. I can’t ever see that moment where my brother—”
“Stop!” I flinch as Heath barks the word out and squeezes his eyes shut. “You have to stop. He murdered my brother. That’s all there is, and if you keep pushing for more—” he sucks in a deep breath through his nose and lets it out “—trust me when I tell you it won’t help. Nothing helps.”
“What does that mean?” He’s never spoken to me like this before, like he knows something I don’t, and every part of me feels alert waiting for him to explain.
His eyes open and lock on mine. “It means that we have to stop trying to let the past control our future. It means we don’t need to keep finding excuses to see each other if that’s what we want.” He reaches for my hands. “It’s whatIwant.”
Inside I’m screaming at him. Hecan’twant this, me, us. We would be a plague on each other, and if he needs any proof of that all I have to do is open the door and show him all the appalled faces waiting outside. Or better yet, I can take him home, introduce him to my parents and Laura and watch them recoil and flee, but not before they shatter into a million tiny pieces before our eyes.
Will he take me to prom? Ask his mom to help him pick out a corsage for me? Will our families have barbecues together and sit side by side at Friday night football games? Will Laura want to tag along on our dates like she used to with Jason and Allison? Will he want me within a mile of him when the anniversary of Cal’s death comes around, or will the mere thought of me make him gag?
It’s making me gag now, because I know there can be only one answer, and it has nothing to do with what I want. I slip my hands free from Heath’s. “Jason told me something today. He tried to take it back and say I was twisting his words, but he made it sound like there was somebody else there in the woods that night.”
Heath recoils so fast that I start to reach out to catch him. The look in his eyes, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and the fists clenching at his sides all but beg me to stop, but I can’t.
“I can’t let it go, I’ve tried and I can’t. Not until I know if—”
“If what, Brooke? If the real murderer is still out there while your innocent brother rots in prison?”
