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It breaks my heart, but I’m angry at the same time. He’s taken the thing I most hate about myself and he’s made me feel like it’s even worse than I thought. All that kindness he aspires to seems to have disappeared the moment it was put to the test.

And what will happen to me if he ends things? If the Allens kick me out, where do I go? I won’t be old enough to rent a place until April, and I doubt what I’ve earned at the diner this summer will be enough to get me through the entire school year anyway. For Danny, it’s simply the end of a relationship. For me, though, it would be the end of everything.

Four days after he left, I’m at work when I notice a Jeep, just like Luke’s, across the road. It can’t be him, but my gaze jerks toward it as it drives away. I know it was wishful thinking. I want someone to hold me right now, someone who will tell me it’s going to work out, that it wasn’t my fault. But that person wouldn’t be Luke anyway.

Danny calls that night, at last. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m really, really sorry.”

I’m so relieved that I burst into tears, but I’m furious at the same time. He left me wondering for days whether or not we were over; he left me believing he was disgusted by me.

“I know it was wrong,” he says. “I just needed to wrap my head around it, is all. I ended up having too much to drink last night, and Luke said—”

My jaw falls open. Of all the possible outcomes, it never occurred to me he might share my worst secret with someone else. Especially that someone else. “You told Luke?”

“I didn’t mean to, hon. Like I said…I was drinking, and you know I never drink, and the whole thing spilled out.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. It was bad enough that Danny knew, but having Luke know…it’s just too much. “You shouldn’t have told him,” I whisper.

“Believe me, I know. I’ve got a black eye to show for it.”

“What?”

“He punched me and then he yelled a whole lot of stuff. I was pissed at the time but after he left, I realized he was right—you’d have been fifteen or younger and probably had nowhere else to go. I handled it really badly. I’m so sorry.”

“You left me hanging all week, Danny,” I whisper. “I didn’t know if we were even staying together.”

“Of course we were. I was just focusing too much on…” He trails off, and my stomach drops.

“Focusing too much on what?”

He sighs. “That you, you know, you seem to…want that. Sex. Like the thing last fall.”

My chest tightens. He was thinking that I was a slut, that I brought it on myself. “Wow, Danny.”

“I know, I’m sorry. Look, I’m just not used to that. I grew up hearing one thing from my father and it always surprised me when you wanted more. But when you told me what you did, I just pictured…I don’t know. I pictured you being the same way with him.” His voice breaks. “Please forgive me. Please.”

A churlish part of me doesn’t want to. But how can I blame Danny for thinking something I’ve wondered about myself?

“Luke isn’t going to…tell anyone, right? Like he’s not going to report it?”

“He won’t report it. He’s the one who told me you probably didn’t report it in the first place because then everyone would know.”

Thank God. I can just see the reaction at church if they all heard I’d slept with my much older stepbrother. A whole lot of them, perhaps even most of them, would quietly blame me.

“Okay. Just…make sure he doesn’t tell anyone else. Please. Just because he isn’t reporting it doesn’t mean someone else won’t.”

He sighs heavily. “I haven’t seen him since the fight, but yeah, when he gets home, I’ll tell him.”

I still.

“He’s been gone since yesterday? Is that normal?”

“No,” he says, “but he was really mad.”

I consider telling Danny what I thought I saw earlier, but there are tons of Jeeps like Luke’s, and I’d sound crazy even suggesting Luke drove eight hours north for me.

Then again, when I think of his reaction to the bike thing last summer…maybe it wouldn’t sound crazy at all.

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