Page 3 of My Girl to Ruin

The words don’t land properly. They slide past me, incomplete.

I try to move. Everything protests. A sharp burn shoots through my ribs, forcing a rough breath out of me. My fingers twitch weakly against the stiff fabric beneath them, and that small movement feels like it takes everything I have.

Light stabs through my eyelids when I force them open. I’m in a hospital room. The realization comes slowly, piecing itself together through the haze. The smell reaches me next, antiseptic with something metallic underneath it. Machines hum quietly somewhere to my side, steady and indifferent.

I swallow, my throat dry and raw.

“Tyler,” I rasp.

A figure moves into my line of sight. A doctor, I think. Maybe a nurse. I can’t focus enough to be sure.

“You’re awake,” the voice says, carefully.

“Where is he?” I ask, each word scraping my throat. “Tyler.”

There’s a pause, and something cold settles in my chest. The man glances at someone behind him before looking back at me, expression tightening just slightly.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

That’s it. Two words. But they gut me. Words refuse to form. I stare at him.

“He didn’t make it,” he continues, steady but softer now. “The impact was severe. We did everything we could.”

Everything inside me goes still. He was right there. Talking. Laughing. Annoying the hell out of me the way he always did. Planning a stupid trip up the coast like we had time for that kind of thing.

He was alive.

My stomach turns violently, bile rising in my throat. I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t stop the images forcing their way in. The spin. The loss of control. The moment everything went wrong. Something happened out there. Something I’m not reaching. It sits at the back of my mind, just past where I can get to it.

I close my eyes as guilt and sorrow engulf me. Nothing matters. Tyler is dead. When I open my eyes again, there’s another person in the room. Not medical. Uniform. My pulse stutters.

“Mr. Green,” the man says, tone flat. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll make this quick. Based on what we have so far, you were traveling at a high rate of speed when you lost control of the vehicle.”

I should say something. Tell him it wasn’t like that. But the harder I reach for it, the less there is. A stretch of empty road. Tyler laughing. The wheel going light in my hands. Whatever sat between those things is gone.

The officer continues, “As it stands, you’re being charged with involuntary manslaughter due to reckless driving.”

The words don’t register at first. Then they sink in. My grip tightens weakly against the sheets, pain flaring through my body, but I barely feel it over the pressure building in my chest. It’s my fault. I should pay for what I did.

I swallow hard, my vision blurring, not from the lights this time. From something else. Something worse.

Tatum Browning.

Her face hits me out of nowhere, sharp and clear in my mind. Brown eyes. Soft smile. The way she looks at me like I’m something steady. Someone is going to have to tell her that her brother is dead. That I was driving. My chest caves in on itself.

She’s going to hate me. She should.

The thought lodges deep, heavy and immovable. I deserve it. The room starts to tilt again, the edges of my vision darkening as exhaustion pulls me under. The voices fade, the machines blurring into background noise, and I don’t fight it this time.

The last thing I see before everything goes black is the sterile white ceiling above me. The last thing I feel is the weight of it all pressing down. The last thought that follows me into the dark is simple.

Tatum will never forgive me.

Chapter One

Tatum

My hand hovers in front of the door longer than it should. It’s just a door. Dark wood, slightly scuffed near the handle, like it’s been opened and closed a thousand times without care. There’s nothing special about it. Nothing intimidating.