Page 35
I exhaled through my nose, gaze flicking briefly to Soren, then Jonah, before settling back on Sawyer. Her gaze caught mine for only a heartbeat before mine dropped.
“I just didn’t say anything.” A humorless huff escaped. “Figured if I left it alone, maybe you wouldn’t have to deal with it again.”
Soren moved beside her, arms folding loosely across his chest. He didn’t speak, but I sensed the quiet scrutiny. Not hostile—just attentive, like he always was. Like he was trying to understand why I’d kept it to myself. Jonah leaned back against the wall, tattooed arms crossed, watching me as if he was trying to see through whatever I wasn’t saying.
Sawyer finally spoke. “You thought ignoring it would make it better?”
I let out a quick breath, almost a laugh. “Yeah. Stupid, right?”
“No,” she said immediately. The words pulled my gaze back to hers.
The tension around her eyes eased. Her shoulders weren’t braced for a fight anymore. Whatever exhaustion lived there hadn’t dulled the sincerity in her expression.
“It wasn’t stupid,” she insisted. “It was . . . considerate. In a really frustrating way.”
My mouth twitched faintly. “Frustratingly considerate. I’ll add it to my bio.”
She took a small step forward. Not close enough to touch me, but enough to close some of the distance.
“Thank you,” she said. My head lifted.
“For not forcing it,” she replied. “For not bringing it up when I clearly wasn’t ready to process it.” She hesitated, “And for saying something now.”
Only now, since speaking, did breathing feel less like work.
“I didn’t want to drag up bad memories for you,” I admitted. “I figured if you wanted to remember, you would. And if you didn’t . . .” I shrugged lightly. “I wanted it to be your call.”
Her lips pressed together, as if she were holding on to something steadying.
“Cali didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, her head tilting slightly as she watched me. Nobody spoke.
“I know,” I finally said.
Jonah glanced between us. “You’re gonna have to give us a little more context than that.”
Soren nodded once. “Yeah. We’re missing about . . . ninety percent of what happened.”
My thumb traced the scar along my knuckles before I looked away. “Right. Yeah.”
Sawyer regarded me. “They should know.”
Silence stood between us, solid as another person. “Cali was there.”
I’d already crossed the line, and there was no point pretending I could step back over it.
“Back then,” I continued, “when everything went wrong.”
Soren’s brows knit. “The fight?”
My jaw tightened just a bit, but I kept my voice even. “It was fifteen years ago,” I said. “High school parking lot. End of the day, buses pulling out, everyone halfway between going home and looking for trouble.”
Heat baked the asphalt. Someone shouted. Then everything narrowed in the moment until all I had seen was Dawton standing too close to Cali.
“Sawyer was with her foster brother, Dawton.” I glanced at her briefly.
Soren’s expression hardened slightly. Jonah straightened up from the wall.
“He had Sawyer by the arm,” I continued. “Yanking her around like she weighed nothing. She kept trying to pull free, and he just—” I swallowed the rest of the sentence.
