Allison’s eyes fly open as the implications hit her. They hit me too as the memory of being in Heath’s arms when his mom and sister walk in crashes over me like a bucket of ice water. And then Laura, shaking and seeming so small in my arms.
Emboldened, I cut off Allison as questions begin to fly from her.
“When?” I say, not needing to elaborate further.
She pleads with me silently, but I don’t so much as blink. At last she lowers her eyes to a thin gold bracelet on her wrist. “We didn’t mean to fall in love, and we tried to deny it for so long because we both loved Jason too. But it didn’t stop, even when we stayed away from each other.”
“You didn’t try very hard.” I pull out the torn photo of her with Jason and Cal, the one where she isn’t gazing longingly at her then-boyfriend. Allison can barely bring herself to look at the two halves when I hold them together.
“That’s why we knew that we had to tell Jason the truth before—before anything happened. We owed him that much. I wanted to do it by myself, but Cal insisted we face him together. So we did...and...” Allison’s lips tremble. “It was awful. He didn’t believe us...and then...” Her voice goes hollow. “It was worse when he did.”
My eyes squeeze shut thinking how destroyed Jason must have been, not just over losing the girl he loved, but losing her to his best friend, just like Uncle Mike lost Mom. And I never knew. None of us did. He never said a word. I open my eyes and a single tear trails down my cheek as Allison goes on.
“He was so angry. He—he drove his fist through the window of Cal’s truck. He started to get sick, you know, because of the blood, but when we tried to help him...he broke the other window.”
I feel cold, listening to her recount Jason’s violent outburst, remembering the way he screamed at me on the phone. The rumors of his temper back in high school.
“That was a week before Cal died, and he was so upset about what happened with Jason that he broke it off. He said that we were a mistake, and if we’d given it more time apart we would have realized it before we hurt Jason.” Her fingers twist tight around the bracelet. “The day before he died he even told me he was going to look into transferring to another school out of state. That was the last time I saw him. I wasn’t there, Brooke, but I know...” Her eyes well with fresh tears. “They met up that night so Cal could tell Jason he was leaving. The last thing he tried to do was make it right between them.”
It’s my turn to stagger this time, shaking my head and acutely trying to block out Allison’s words. “And you were just going to go back to my brother like nothing ever happened?”
“No,” she whispers. “If I couldn’t be with Cal I didn’t want to be with anyone.”
“You told Cal’s brother this?” I ask, even though it shouldn’t matter anymore, even though nothing matters anymore.
She hesitates, and then nods. “A month ago, maybe. I was at his house and...”
I almost double over. The day he kissed me. I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me. Why does that hurt? Why do I care if my heart is breaking when it was already broken beyond repair?
“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.” Allison, openly crying now, takes a desperate step toward me but I instantly retreat. “I did love Jason. I did. God help me, I did.” She collapses. Not physically, she keeps her feet, but emotionally she shreds before my eyes. Her voice is so choked with tears that I can only make out every other word and have to fill in the ones I miss.
She had to disappear after Cal died. She blamed herself for what Jason did that night and she was afraid that if she came forward and talked to anyone about her relationship with both Jason and Cal, then they might have grounds to add premeditation to the charge. That would have meant life in prison at the very least, and more than likely the death penalty.
She couldn’t let the only two people she’d ever loved both die because of her.
Unbidden, pieces from Jason’s arrest and arraignment come back to me. Evidence that fits Allison’s narrative, things I ignored, things that my happy-in-love brother couldn’t possibly have done...but a blindsided and betrayed one?
“I’m sorry...sorry...”
I check the impulse to wrap my arms around her. How can I offer her comfort when she’s taken all hope from me? But I can’t just stand there watching her cry either. People inside the diner have taken notice of us, of the keening noises coming from Allison; a few have even started to approach the door.
“What can I do?” she asks, tears still spilling down her face.
I shake my head. “I don’t know.” I don’t know what any of us can do. Pushing away the thoughts of her with Heath and the agony Jason must have felt when she chose Cal over him, I look at the broken girl in front of me. “I wanted it to be your fault,” I say softly. “But it’s not.”
She lets out one more sob, one so deep and gasping that it sounds like she’s been holding on to it since Cal died.
Mine stays firmly lodged in my throat.
Reaching Daphne, I rest my palms on the cool metal side, gazing at my faint reflection in the glass window, trying to imaging hitting it hard enough to shatter, not once but twice even as I fought nausea over the sight of my own blood.
Then realizing that hitting a window wasn’t enough.
My shoulders straighten as I pull open the door and slide behind the steering wheel. I no longer believe Allison was there the night Cal was killed, but someone was.
Someone who actually saw what happened.
CHAPTER 39
