Heath nods. “There were pictures of her on his phone. Nothing bad,” he’s quick to add. “Just more pictures of her than anyone else. Gwen knew he must have cared about her and decided real quick that I had no business being with her, innocent or not. And itwasinnocent, Brooke.”
I try not to flinch when he says my name. I do all the same. I actually believe him, which makes it worse. “You still didn’t tell me. That day at your work. I was so—” I close my eyes “—broken, and instead of telling me what you knew—that there was more to know—you let me leave.”
Heath shakes his head. “No. I found Allison because I thought she might know something that would help you, not hurt you more. I wanted that for you, and I didn’t find it.”
It’s my turn to shake my head, not in denial but because for every second that passes without telling him about Laura, I’m doing the very thing that I’m accusing him of.
“Hey.” Health lifts a hand to cup the underside of my jaw. “It’s not us. It was never us, okay? However hard it may be for some people to accept, the crime wasn’t yours.” He glides his thumb along my cheek. “I was wrong. I was such an idiot to have ever treated you like it was.”
Gently, even though I want to do the exact opposite, I tug his hand away, following it with my eyes so I don’t have to see Heath’s face.
“What if I did,” I say, my throat so thick it’s painful to speak. “What if I found something that would hurt you more, should I tell you? Should I protect you from the truth too?” I’m still holding his hand, so I feel his tendons tense even though his face is expressionless.
“There is nothing that can hurt me more.”
But he’s wrong. He’s so wrong.
“My little sister...she was there hiding in the woods that night. She—” my voice cracks. “She saw everything. There was no fight. Cal... He was there to tell my brother he was leaving, that he was sorry. Jason led him on, made him think he was going to accept the apology so Cal would come close enough...” I can’t say the rest. I don’t have to say the rest.
Heath’s other hand moves to his head and clutches it. “Did she—” There’s almost more air than sound passing through Heath’s lips. “Did she hear if he said anything before he died?”
“He didn’t say anything.” Tears are welling up in my eyes and his when our gazes meet. “I know all this, what he did, but he’s still my brother and I’ll always love him even while I hate what he did. And I know that means that you and me...” I shake my head. “Heath, I’m so—” I don’t get thesorryout before Heath has me in his arms.
“No,” he says and I feel his lips moving against the crook of my neck. “I don’t need apologies from you. I just need you.”
Maybe people watch us, maybe they whisper and gasp. Maybe they skate by without noticing us, or not caring if they do. The only thing I know is that Heath is still holding my hand when I introduce him to my sister.
And he never lets go.
CHAPTER 47
I’m the one who hesitates at our porch once Laura and I get home after dropping Maggie off and saying goodbye—however temporarily—to Heath. Laura halts at the top step, looking back to see I haven’t even started the first.
“Brooke.” My name isn’t a question. She knows why I’m hesitating, but she’s urging me on all the same. “No more secrets.”
It’s what we promised each other driving home. Heath was my last one, and she took it so much better than I expected her to. I owe a lot of that to Heath, for the kindness he showed her even after what I’d just told him. I also owed Maggie. She filled Laura in on how Heath and I fell into each other, how it was strange and not strange at all that we shifted from the connection our brothers foisted on us—one full of anger on his part and guilt on mine—to one of our own making; one we thought no one in our small town or smaller houses could ever condone. And how that blew up in our faces. Heath and I haven’t talked about how our families are going to handle the idea of the two of us together, but I know he’s right; the crime isn’t ours and no one, let alone our families, should punish either of us as though it were.
I’m not expecting to win my parents over easily, and not just about Heath, but when Laura offers me her hand, I take it.
There’s no machinery whirring in the basement when we walk inside. I guess that Dad’s efforts to distract Mom have run their course, or else he’s as anxious to hear what came from my meeting with Jason as she is.
They’re together at the dining room table—the two of them, not Uncle Mike—and Dad stands when he sees us. I’m not entirely sure if Laura is up for participating in this conversation with me or not, and I can’t force her. I let go of her hand and approach the table, more relieved than I can express when Laura matches my steps rather than retreating upstairs.
Mom is holding a mug, watching us. She doesn’t say anything, but her grip on the mug is causing the muscles in her arms to flex to the point that I worry she might shatter the ceramic. Dad must have a similar concern, because he slides the mug free and replaces it with his own much less breakable hand and returns to his seat beside her.
Then there’s no more delay.
“He’s fine, Mom, Jason’s fine.”
Her grip on Dad’s hand doesn’t lessen, and her knuckles are still bone white.
“And so is Brooke,” Laura says from my right.
Then, only then, does she loosen her hold. Watching it, I feel an invisible fist relax around my heart, one that I only just now realize has been slowly clenching tighter and tighter since Jason’s arrest. I swallow to push down a sudden thickness in my throat. I’ve always known Mom loves me, and I understood that Jason’s situation would demand more of her attention, consume her heart even as it filled it with pain. I never thought I resented or felt slighted by that, but I have. I’ve had to be the strong one, the one who holds on when everyone else is letting go. The one not allowed to fall, not allowed to falter or hide. The one who was expected to wake up every Saturday morning and visit a prison not always because I wanted to see my brother, but because I couldn’t let Mom go alone. I came home today thinking that’s all she’d be able to care about—whether or not Jason was okay, whether or not I was going to keep visiting him so that, in her mind, he’d stay okay.
I didn’t think there’d be anything else left.
Mom pushes back her chair, rounding the table to my side. My face crumbles as she reaches me.
