by Tawna Fenske
It’s my first time visiting Austin’s house, and I’m weirdly nervous putting one foot in front of the other along the short brick walkway to his front door. His place is cute, with a huge front porch and a red metal roof that glints with fading sunlight. I trail a hand over one of the bark-stripped logs and wonder what it looks like inside.
I’m about to find out.
Before I can stop it, my brain does a quick survey of the front yard and ponders whether we’d live here or in my little cedar cottage if Austin and I got married.
Stop it.
But I can’t quit smiling as I knock on the door and hear the drum of Austin’s footsteps approaching. I’m grinning like a big dork as he throws open the front door.
The instant I see his face, I freeze. My smile melts like an ice cube tossed in a campfire. Something’s wrong. Something’s very, very wrong.
“Bree,” he says. “Come in.”
I swallow hard, willing myself not to panic. I hesitate there on the threshold, knowing I could still run. Just get back in my car and peel away with my heart racing and my tires spitting gravel.
Escape. Run. Hide.
But I’ve been doing that for years, and I’m so fucking tired.
Austin’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and his expression is perfectly neutral. Or it would look neutral to anyone who didn’t know him, who hadn’t looked into his eyes as he told campfire stories or shattered into a billion breathless bits inside a tent under a starlit sky.
But I’ve seen that Austin, so I can see it in his eyes: He knows.
I’m contemplating escape when Virginia Woof trots up with her furry body wagging. “Hey, girl.” My voice cracks as I stoop down to scratch behind her ears. My pulse begins to slow, and I tell myself I can do this. I can get through whatever’s coming. Virginia licks the back of my hand for courage, then trots off the way she came.
When I look up, Austin’s watching me.
“Come on in.” His voice is warm, but there’s an edge to it. “We’ve got an hour ‘til dinner’s ready, and there’s something I wanted to talk about with you.”
If there was any doubt in my mind, that erased it. I take a deep breath and walk through the door. I’m gripping a bottle of Pinot Noir that will pair well with the pork Austin’s making, holding it by the neck like it’s keeping me afloat in an icy ocean. Straightening my shoulders, I follow him into the living room. The smell of roasted meat is thick and mouthwatering, but it’s not hunger making my belly roil.
“Did you have any trouble finding the place?” Austin asks over his shoulder. He’s two steps ahead of me and doesn’t look back. I try not to take that as an ominous sign.
“No.” I scan his living room, trying to get my bearings. There’s a cozy-looking brown leather sofa and loveseat, plus a red and orange-striped chair facing a giant fireplace that’s fringed with smooth river rock.
I stop behind the chair and grip the back of it with my free hand. Maybe I should offer the wine, but it feels like a feeble gesture. “Austin.” I swallow hard, not sure what to say. “Something’s wrong.”
I don’t pose it as a question, because duh. He looks at me for a moment, then nods. “Have a seat.”
My heart is stuck in my throat as I move around the chair. I start to settle there, but Austin catches my hand. “Beside me, Bree,” he says. “If you don’t mind.”
I don’t know if this will be harder or easier with our knees touching and warmth radiating from his bare arms, but I’m not calling the shots here. He is, and I can’t tell from his face whether he’s angry or hurt or…what?
The one thing I am sure of is that he knows.
He knows.
I set the wine on the coffee table, wishing I hadn’t brought it. Wishing a lot of things that have nothing to do with dinner. I toe off my canvas flats and fold myself into the smallest space possible in a corner of the loveseat. My hands are shaking as I shove them between my knees, determined not to cry.
Austin sits down next to me, his big frame sturdy and warm. He’s close enough to touch me if he wanted, but he doesn’t. There’s a space between us that goes beyond physical distance. I study the side of his face as he rests his hands on his knees and takes a deep breath. Maybe I should say something. Break the ice first or get this over with or—
“Bree,” he says softly. “I know. I know about the accident.”
Accident.
I don’t know whether to feel heartbroken or relieved that he phrased it that way. How much did he piece together? There’s a kindness in his eyes as he studies me, and it pierces a great big hole in my chest. It’s time to come clean. About all of it.
I take another shaky breath. “Well,” I say slowly, surprised my voice doesn’t wobble. “I guess that answers that.”
“Answers what?”
I pull my knees up to my chest and look down at them for a second, anchoring myself in the tight coil of my own body. “I always wondered if sealed records are really sealed,” I say. “I guess not.”
When I glance up, he’s got an odd look on his face, like that’s the last thing he expected me to say. “It varies from state to state,” he says slowly. “Law enforcement has access to a lot of things the general public doesn’t. Many states that allow expunged records have laws that it can only happen once, so courts need to be able to see if—”
“It’s okay.” It’s not okay, but I don’t need to know the details. Honestly, I’m not even that surprised.
I take a deep breath and begin.
“I had a hard time making friends when I was growing up,” I said. “You probably had cliques of mean girls at your school?”
He looks at me a moment, then nods. “Bree, we don’t need to rifle through your whole personal history. I just wanted to—”
“It was a hundred times worse at Trillington Academy,” I say, determined to get this out there. To make sure he has the whole story, all of it, not just what’s in the reports. “That’s not an excuse, but I want you to have the full picture.”
He nods, recognizing my need to tell the story my way. “Okay.”
I can’t look at him while I say this, so I stare down at my knees like I’m summoning strength from designer denim.
“I was small and skinny and had bad skin and braces, and all those things made me invisible,” I continue. “I didn’t have friends. Not a single one. I didn’t even have a roommate, since my father paid for me to have a private suite at the academy. There was no one who even smiled at me in the halls or asked to copy my homework. Not a single person.”
“That sounds…difficult.” His voice is even, almost emotionless, and I’m weirdly grateful. Pity would wreck me right now, and I think he knows that.
“When I turned sixteen,” I continue, “my father bought me a brand-new Mercedes. Not like I had any friends to go places with, but the fact that my birthday’s in November meant I was one of the first in my class to have a license. To have my own wheels. All of a sudden, the cool girls knew who I was.”
I take a shaky breath and look at Austin. He’s watching me with a neutral expression, with a look he’s probably perfected over countless interviews with suspects. Just tell me everything, the look says. It’ll all be okay if you tell the truth.
Breathing in and out a few more times to keep myself steady, I continue. “Five of us went to a party that night,” I say. “I was driving. Ashley, Claire, Marcella—they were in my grade and didn’t have licenses yet. Bridget was older, one of the most popular girls in the school. It seemed like such a huge deal at the time. Smart and beautiful and adored by all the teachers. She was some kind of dancer, being scouted by Julliard for—”
I stop there because my tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth. My hands are clammy, but my mouth is like sandpaper.
“Wait here.” Austin gets up and goes to the kitchen. When he comes back, he’s holding two glasses of water. He hands one to me and sets the other on a coaster on the coffee table. I take a fortifying gulp, then se
t the chilled glass on a coaster that’s magically appeared in front of me.
With another shaky breath, I continue. “It was a big deal that Bridget wanted to go with us at all,” I say. “I heard she’d been grounded for something, that she wasn’t allowed to see any of her normal friends that week. It didn’t matter. All that mattered is that she wanted to hang out with us. With me, when I’d never had any friends at all, and suddenly I’ve got three popular classmates and the princess of the whole freakin’ school, and we’re going to this party together.”
Austin nods. His big hands are splayed over his knees, and I wonder if I’ll ever feel them on me again. Tears prick the backs of my eyelids, but I don’t let them fall.
“The party was two towns over,” I continue. “It was loud and crazy and not at all what I expected, but I was thrilled just to be there. By the time we headed home, it was after midnight.”
“This was a Saturday?”
“Yeah,” I say, not surprised he knows the day. He probably knows what color ponytail holder I wore. “Ashley and Claire and Marcella were scared about missing curfew and the dorm mother smelling beer on their breath. Bridget was playing it cool, saying she’d only had two beers and it was no big deal.”
When Austin speaks, his voice is low. “It wasn’t just beer,” he says. “That’s what the report says. Three-and-a-half grams of cocaine, plus pills and paraphernalia for—”
“Yes.” I press my lips together as though that might stop the words coming out of his mouth. “That’s what they found in my purse. Coke and oxycontin and a pipe and a baggie of weed. It was all in there.”
His eyes flicker with surprise, like he expected me to deny it. Like he thought I’d explain away all those drugs somehow. A regular person would ask questions, but Austin doesn’t. He waits for me to continue, to spill out the story the way I need to tell it.
I close my eyes, summoning the strength to get through this next part. “The cops didn’t search me until hours later, but everything was still in my purse,” I say slowly. “They came to my father’s house with a warrant. With the news that witnesses identified my car, my license plates.” I swallow hard, determined to get the words out. “With the news that a man was in a coma.”
Felony hit and run.
Manslaughter.
Charged as an adult.
The words echo in my head like I’m hearing them for the first time, even though it was thirteen years ago. The police delivered them in staccato bursts while I sobbed, and my father glowered before slamming the door and calling the most expensive, powerful attorneys on the East Coast.
“The police barely got to question me at all before the lawyers swooped in,” I say. “They had plenty of evidence, but not as much as they could have gotten. They didn’t even drug test me. I got out of it on some stupid technicality.”
This is where Austin’s face hardens.
I don’t blame him. How many cops have been inches away from nailing the bad guy—someone they know without a doubt is guilty—only to have him plucked off the hook by some slimy, high-rolling lawyer?
“The guy survived,” Austin says. “The man in the coma. The guy you hit. He eventually pulled through.”
I nod, grateful for that one small blessing. “Yes. And I spent four months in a juvenile detention center.”
A reform school for rich brats.
I don’t say this, but Austin knows. He’s done his homework. “That must have been tough.”
“It was barely a slap on the wrist.” I shake my head and squeeze my knees tighter to my chest. “The victim wasn’t even out of the hospital yet.”
Austin’s silent. He’s processing, and I give him time to do that. I study his hands, part of me wishing he’d reach over and lace his fingers through mine, but I know I couldn’t bear it right now. That kindness, it’s something I don’t deserve.
Because we haven’t gotten to the worst of it.
“Bree,” he says softly. “People make mistakes. Teenagers especially. They do dumb things, hurtful things.” He hesitates, blue eyes searching mine. “You’ve learned from it, right? Become a better person.”
Tears flood my eyes, and I nod because I can’t find my voice. I can’t find a way to tell him he’s wrong, that this is so much bigger than he realizes. He’s such a good man, such a kind man, and I don’t fucking deserve it. This is what I’ve known, deep down, all along. That this thing would catch up to me.
“Oh, Austin,” I whisper as a tear slips down my cheek. “That’s not it. This is so much worse than you think.”
There’s an incredulous look in his eyes, like I must be exaggerating. I wish I were. I’ve never wished so hard for anything.
“Worse,” he repeats, like I might have forgotten the meaning of the word. “Worse than drug use and driving under the influence and fleeing the scene after you hit and nearly kill a pedestrian?”
“Austin,” I choke out. I let go of my knees and press the heels of my hands against my eyes. Tears leak out from under them as I take a few deep breaths. I need to pull it together, to force out the rest of the words.
When I drop my hands, he’s watching me. Those blue, blue eyes search my face for truth. For what I’ve kept hidden all this time.
“I’ve never done drugs in my life,” I whisper. “Not cocaine. Not pills. Not even marijuana, and I’m living in a state where there’s a legal pot shop on every corner. And I’ve never driven drunk. Not once, not ever.”
His brow furrows with confusion, and he stares at me like I’ve lost my marbles. I can almost hear them rolling on the floor, along with the last nuggets of my instinct for self-preservation.
“What are you talking about?” he says. “You admitted to the police that you drove under the influence. The drugs—”
“Weren’t mine.” My interruption is barely a whisper, but it stops him in his tracks. “None of it was. And I wasn’t behind the wheel, either.”
Austin stares at me. Just stares. “There were three separate witnesses at the scene of the hit-and-run who identified you.”
“Identified my car,” I tell him. “And they all believed me when I confessed I was the curly-haired brunette behind the wheel.” I laugh, but it’s a hollow, brittle sound that’s halfway between a sob and outright hysteria. “Of course they believed me, because what kind of idiot confesses to crimes she didn’t commit?”
Austin’s gaze is steady. He looks at me for so long I think he’s turned to stone. That he might not say anything at all.
Then he reaches out and puts his hand on my knee. My breath catches in my throat as one big palm closes over me. I stare down at it and will myself not to cry.
“You took the fall,” he says. “For someone else’s crime.”
I break down then, gasping for air as fat tears roll down my face. It’s his touch that does it, that unravels me completely.
I keep going, struggling to get the words out. “I wanted them to be my friends,” I choke. “I thought if I took the rap, it would all work out and then we could—”
That’s all I manage, but I can see Austin piecing the rest together. The way my daddy hid me away those first few hours so I’d be sober by the time police came with their breathalyzers and accusations.
But I was sober already, that’s the irony.
My daddy and his lawyers made sure I got off easy, just like I knew they would. Money will buy that for you.
But it can’t buy everything.
“I don’t understand,” Austin says slowly. “How is this worse? You didn’t commit the crime, Bree. If what you’re telling me is true—”
“It is true.” Finally, finally, what I’m saying is the truth.
But not all of it. Not yet.
Austin produces a handkerchief from somewhere, and I take it gratefully, mopping at my eyes and trying to contain the torrent of fluids leaking out of my face.
Look him in the eye. My own voice whispers the command in the echo-chamber of my brain. To say these next words,
I need nothing between us, no gazes skittering away in discomfort. My heart stops as his blue eyes lock with mine. My whole chest is frozen, but I force my lips to move.
“Two months after the accident, those same girls went to another party. Ashley, Claire, Marcella—Bridget was driving.” I take a shaky breath. “On the way home, they hit a telephone pole. Ashley was killed instantly. Claire hung on in some kind of medically-induced coma for two weeks, and then she—she—”
“She died.” Austin says the words, but I can tell he didn’t know. That this wasn’t in the report, because why would it be? I wasn’t connected to that crime. Not on paper, anyway.
But in reality, it was all my fault.
“I was locked up then, so I didn’t learn about it for months,” I say. “Marcella survived, but lost both her legs. And Bridget went to prison. Grownup prison, because by that time she was old enough to be tried as an adult. She wouldn’t have been two months earlier, but by then she was.”
“Jesus.” Austin sits back on the couch with a stunned expression.
And there it is. This badass cop, the officer of the law who’s seen some of the worst crimes imaginable, is shocked. By me, by the magnitude of what I’ve done. Of what I set into motion.
“Obviously, the whole thing was my fault,” I say.
“Bree, no.” His argument sounds feeble, watered down.
I mop my eyes again, then hug my knees tight to my chest. “If I hadn’t taken the fall for the first accident, Bridget would never have been behind the wheel,” I say. “All those other girls—they’d have gotten busted for being drunk that first night, but they’d all be safe and whole and would have husbands and families and—”
“You can’t believe that.” His fingers tighten around my hands, and I realize he’s still holding them. I think we’d both forgotten. “I’ll admit this is a lot to process,” he says, “but you can’t possibly shoulder all the blame here.”
“Are you serious?” A horrible, dry little laugh slips out of my mouth, and I recognize I’m on the brink of hysteria. “It’s absolutely my fault. I was the one who offered to take everyone to that party. I was the one who let Bridget drive my car that night, even though I knew she’d been drinking. I was the one who said, ‘Hey, pass me all the drugs and stuff, it’s cool. My rich daddy will get me off and then we can all be friends, right?’”