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“I don’t know. Maybe you thought she would be on your side or something.” He looks skeptical, like he’s not sure what to believe.

Something else occurs to me in a rush. “My diary went missing a week or two before our fight,” I say. “I found it later, so I didn’t think too much of it. I figured I’d just misplaced it or something. But now… maybe Genevieve took it.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because I used to write about you in it. I know that was probably stupid, but it wasn’t like I could tell anyone about us, and I needed an outlet. I wrote about you and us and The November Place. If she took my diary, that would have been all she needed to find out what was going on. I know she was jealous that you paid attention to me when she wanted you, maybe that was enough to make her want to blame all this on me.”

Tate and Callan are in the doorway of the kitchen now, watching this go down. They’re quiet, just observing while Ares thinks. His brow is furrowed, and his eyes are stormy.

I feel like I’m holding my breath. If he doesn’t believe me, then I don’t know what I’ll do. If he still thinks, after all this time, that I’d do that to him, even while there’s evidence that I didn’t, I think that might really be the end of anything we could have had.

Then Ares curses under his breath. “Fuck. Would she do that?”

I shrug. “She wanted you. She didn’t make a secret of that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Fuck. The texts looked so real, and I didn’t think there was any other reason The November Place would be in there. No one else knew.”

“I know,” I murmur. “It was a really convincing lie.”

“But it was still a fucking lie. And I fell for it.”

He looks like he might be sick, and honestly, I’m right there with him. After so many years, we finally have the whole picture in front of us. I spent so long not understanding why any of this happened, and Ares thought I’d betrayed him.

There’s a lump in my throat at the thought that all of this could have been avoided if Ares had believed me back then or at least given me a chance to ask why he thought I’d do something like that. But I understand now why he didn’t. He had reason to believe that I’d taken something special to us and used it to hurt him, all because of the rivalry between our families.

There’s tension in the air, and Ares looks like he might snap. The weight of eight years of silence and distance and resentment is crashing down around him, and he sways like he might fall. He takes a step toward me and then another, before dropping down to his knees in front of me.

My eyes fly open wide as he reaches out, taking my hands in his. His eyes are wild when he looks up at me, regret and hurt so clear to see. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Brynn. It’s all this bullshit between our families. I was so—I don’t even know how to describe it. My family got in my head. I told them about us after I saw the texts. I was so fucking angry at you and your family. My mother kept saying that of course you’d do something like this. Of course you would try to ruin us so your family could come out on top. And I believed her. I believed the texts. I didn’t listen to you, and I should have. I always trusted you before that, and I should have trusted you then. If I’d listened…” He shakes his head, his hands clenching around mine. “I’m so, so sorry. We can’t get that time back, and that’s my fault. But please forgive me, Brynn.”

I swallow hard. This is not the conversation I thought I would be having tonight. My head swims with the truth of it all, and I can’t decide how I feel. I should be angry. At Genevieve for being such a jealous bitch that she’d do something like this. At Ares still, maybe, for believing it and not listening to me. Maybe even at myself for not trying harder to get through to him.

There’s a sense of relief over it all though. That now finally the truth is out, and Ares knows I wouldn’t do anything like that to him, the rivalry between our families be damned.

For a solid few seconds, I have no idea what to say to him. There were times in the years directly after our falling out, where I imagined what it would be like if he came to me and apologized. If he decided to listen to what I had to say and believed that I had nothing to do with what happened with his dad. I imagined myself being cold to him sometimes, telling him it was too little too late. I thought about how happy I would be other times, knowing that I would probably take him back and accept his apology.

Faced now with the thing that I’ve thought about for so long, I’m frozen and unsure. There’s a part of me that’s still hurt that it took him eight years to question any of it. The other part of me is just elated that the truth is finally out.

The words still don’t want to come, and honestly, I don’t know if I can say I forgive him just yet. But it’s clear that he means every single word, so I nod. I am touched by his words and his willingness to accept fault for all of this.

Ares smiles, relief clear on his face. He gets up and leans in to me. There’s a second where he just looks at my face like he’s never seen it before, and then before I know it, he’s pulling me in to kiss me.

It’s not like the other kisses we’ve shared on this trip. Those were full of passion and haste, but there was always something about them that spoke to the torn nature of our relationship. They were never fully present.

This kiss feels deliberate and full of meaning. His mouth caresses mine, and it’s like he’s trying to apologize and reaffirm his feelings all at the same time. I kiss him back, swept up in it, until the need to breathe pulls us apart.

Tate and Callan are still there, quiet but watching. I’m hyper aware of their presence, but for some reason, it doesn’t feel invasive.

It’s probably good that they’re here to witness this, or I’d think it was all a fever dream when I wake up in the morning.

Ares looks down at me, his eyes warm. He reaches up and tucks some hair behind my ear, lingering so his fingers brush over my cheek. I lean into it, my eyes fluttering closed for a moment because it feels nice to be touched like this again. I remember being surprised by how tender he could be when we were younger, and it seems like he hasn’t lost that quality at all.

We could stand here staring into each other’s eyes all night, but I’m very aware that it’s late and we still have a lot of driving to do tomorrow.

Reluctantly, I pull back. “We should probably get some sleep,” I murmur.

Ares nods. “Yeah, that’s—probably a good idea. We should think about getting an early start tomorrow if the roads aren’t shit.”

He steps back and glances at his friends, like he didn’t realize they were there and saw the whole thing between us.