Alex shifts beside him, brows drawn in sympathy. “You don’t have to make excuses for her.”
That’s when the front door swings open and Tara comes clattering in, voice halfway through a passionate argument already. Alfie trails behind her, quietly amused.
“I’m just saying,” Tara declares, “technically, erosion is a cave’s origin story.”
Alfie replies, dry as ever, “And I’m saying that’s not how most geologists define it.”
But they both freeze when they see us, Ethan curled between Alex and me, looking wrecked; Alex with her arm wrapped around him; me hovering nearby like an emotionally constipated scarecrow.
Tara’s expression drops in an instant. “What the hell happened?”
Alfie’s whole posture shifts. His eyes narrow. “Who made him cry?”
Ethan groans, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head. “Nobody made me cry. I am a grown man.”
Tara marches over and drops onto the coffee table directly in front of him. “E,” she says gently. “Talk to us.”
He looks down, shoulders tight, and I can tell he’s trying to figure out how to say it a third time. The words stick.
So I do it for him. “Paige might’ve cheated.”
Tara steps further into the room, gaze landing on me for just a moment.
And for the first time in a long while, I see it—that thing between us that we still haven’t talked about. The weight of a secret we both kept too long.
She knows I’ve been carrying guilt. I know she’s still figuring out how to forgive me.
We haven’t really talked about it since it blew up earlier this year—the whole mess with our dad, the lies, the weirdsilence between us after she found out I’d helped cover for him.
But in that second, our eyes meet and I know we’re both thinking about it.
She blinks it away and turns toward Ethan, settling onto the coffee table in front of him.
Tara inhales sharply. “That bitch.”
Alfie, still at the edge of the room, says calmly, “What’s her address?”
Ethan blinks at him. “What?”
“I just want to talk,” Alfie says.
“Dude.”
“Conversation only,” he repeats.
Alex rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, very casual conversation, I’m sure. Maybe with a crowbar in the car just for ambiance?”
Tara gestures at him without looking away from Ethan. “A very polite, potentially threatening conversation. From my scary boyfriend with God-tier upper body strength.”
Alfie shrugs. “I’m available now.”
Ethan groans again. “You guys are unhinged. Seriously.”
Alex strokes his hair like she’s trying to smooth the hurt right out of him. “Ignore them. Just breathe, okay? No decisions today. No big moves. Just… exist.”
Tara leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “You want to go slash her tires or make a voodoo doll later, we’ll all be here. But for now? You’re allowed to feel like shit. You’re allowed to cry.”
Ethan leans against Alex’s shoulder again, quieter this time. “I just… I really thought she was it, you know?”
