The name hits like a punch.
Paul Meadows.
My best friend.
My brother.
The man I trusted to watch my back when I couldn’t be there.
“Watch out for her, Paul. She’s my whole life,” I told him.
That’s what I asked him to do.
And I suppose he did.
Just not the way I meant him too.
I close my eyes for a second, the memory flashing sharp and clear—the video.
The message.
The way my world tilted on its axis and never quite righted itself again.
Her face.
Her voice.
Laughing. Leaning in. Saying things she should’ve only ever said to me.
My stomach knots.
I remember how I refused her calls after.
How I refused his.
What the hell else was I supposed to do?
The two people who mattered most to me in the whole fucking world broke my goddamn heart—and I was half a world away.
What the fuck could I do?
A harsh exhale leaves me as I drop down onto the unfinished kitchen counter, the wood creaking under my weight.
Paul’s dead now.
Drunk driving accident.
Gone before I could ever look him in the eye and ask him why.
Why her?
Why me?
Why did they take everything I had and burn it all to the ground?
I should hate them both.
Hell, sometimes I do.
