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I clamped a trembling hand over my mouth to quiet the sob that was working its way up my throat. I waited, staring at him. Waiting for him to take it back. To say my name. To look over and spot me. Anything.

Bryant nodded once. “Good.” Good. That was it.

That was all it took. I knew Lane said his dad was a lot, but watching Bryant’s approval made something inside me fracture. Had he been using me all along? Had last weekend meant nothing to him? Had I given him the only part of myself I’d saved . . . for nothing? Were we over because he’d gotten what he wanted? Mom always said men were only after one thing. I stepped back before they could see me, my shoulder bumping the wall harder than I meant it to. The sound cracked through the hallway, but no one called out.

No one came to save me.

I turned and walked down the hallway, then sped up when tears blurred my vision. I pushed through the doors and into the night air, but it didn’t help. The night air couldn’t fill my lungs.

She doesn’t mean anything.

The words echoed until they drowned out everything else. I reached my car but my hands were shaking so badly I could barely get the key in. I sat there for a second, clutching the steering wheel, staring through the windshield.

I didn’t tell my grandparents where I was going. I didn’t tell anyone. I just drove. I refused to peek in the rearview mirror. I’d call Grandma and Grandpa once I figured out where I was going. As far as I was concerned, Lane Massey had gotten exactly what he wanted from me.

Twenty-Nine

Cali

Ilet out a slow breath and squeezed my eyes shut, letting the cold that snaked over my body keep me anchored.

“You don’t get to say that,” I whispered. The words surprised me. They came out steady, but there was something underneath them that trembled anyway. Lane didn’t move closer, but I could feel him there, just behind me. Waiting.

“I don’t get to say what?” he asked. The confusion in his voice almost made me believe him.

“That you don’t know what you did.” I swallowed and forced myself to keep my voice even. “You don’t get to stand there and act like it was nothing.”

“I’m not saying it was nothing,” he blurted. “I’m saying I don’t understand what I did. If I had known, I would have fixed it. I would have done anything to fix it.”

A bitter laugh slipped out before I could stop it. I shook my head, staring out at the ripples on the water.

“That’s the problem,” I said. “You think it was something you could have just fixed.”

“It was us,” he said, his voice strained. “Of course I would have fixed it.”

I turned then, and that was a mistake. Because he looked exactly the same as he had at seventeen, those eyes . . . they were the same. Locked on me like I was still something he was trying to hold on to, like I was someone he cared about.

“You didn’t see me,” I said. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was really confused.

“See what?” he asked.

My hands gripped the rough wood of the pier beneath me to ground me as the memory clawed its way to the surface. The bright lights. The echo of his father’s voice. The way everything inside me had gone still.

“I was there,” I said.

His brows pulled together. “Where?”

“At the station.” My voice dropped. “The night you got arrested.”

The color drained from his face so fast it was almost jarring. “You . . . what?” he said.

“I came to make sure you were okay,” I said, my fingers curling against my knees. “I stood around the corner because I didn’t want to get you into more trouble. I thought I was doing the right thing and that you’d want to see me.” His mouth opened, but no words came out.

“I heard everything, Lane.” Silence fell between us, heavy and suffocating.

“You didn’t,” he said finally, but there was no conviction in it. Just . . . hope. Desperate, fragile hope.

“I did.” My throat burned now, but I pushed through it. “I heard your dad. I heard what he said about my mom.” My voice wavered on the word, but I steadied it. “But mostly I just heard you.”