by Lexi Ryan
“If I could have figured out a way to turn myself in without Coach getting in trouble, I would have done it. You have to believe me.”
She stops and turns back to me. “Don’t you understand? He should be in trouble. He did something terrible, too. He covered up the murder . . . the death . . . the . . .” She squeaks and bites her bottom lip.
But I never wanted to ruin his life, too. I’d already destroyed so much, and I couldn’t be responsible for more. Even now, even with Mia’s anger filling the room, I can’t figure out how I could have made another choice without destroying someone else. Maybe I should have said that I made Coach cover it up. Would they have believed me? “I couldn’t live with myself. I couldn’t turn myself in and I couldn’t stand to look at my own reflection, so I had to find a way to get in trouble—to take some sort of punishment—without hurting anyone else and without telling the truth. They took away football and gave me fucking house arrest.”
“That makes it okay?” She’s still not looking at me. Her hands are clenched at her sides and her voice shakes hard. “You got your punishment and now you can just, what? Let it go?”
“I lie in bed at night and I can’t breathe because I know what I’ve done. Brogan lost everything. I wanted to suffer the same, and if I thought killing myself would bring him back, I would have done it months ago.”
She flinches as if I struck her. “I’m not saying that I think you should have.”
I push off the bed and stand in front of her. Her face is blank and hopeless, like some asshole’s been beating on her and she’s given up. That’s my fault.
I need her to understand. I can take any punishment. I can give up my freedom and my life, but I need her to understand. “Then you were here, Mia. And suddenly I needed to live.” Bile rises in my stomach at the memory of her vacant expression as she waited on my family. “I needed to stop punishing myself for the same reason I couldn’t come forward after Coach covered it up.” I press my palm to the ache in my chest. “I’d already ended two lives. You were the walking dead. I had to wake up and wake you up, because I couldn’t handle the thought of a third life ending because of what I did that night. I couldn’t change things for Brogan. It was too late for him, but if I could save you, if I could wake you up, it would have been . . .”
She cocks her head to the side. “So you fucked me to soothe your conscience?”
I nearly double over from the pain of that accusation. “I know. I’m a piece of shit. But I’m a piece of shit who was trapped in a corner, just doing what he thought he had to do.”
“I have to do this.” She rushes from the room, and I move to go after her and stop.
I’m so ready to be done with these lies. I’m so ready to be released from this purgatory.
All I can do is get dressed while I listen to the sound of her junky old car pulling down the drive. Jeans, a T-shirt, maybe my last outfit outside of jail. I miss the emptiness I felt before I returned, the numbness that got me through the months after the accident. Because right now I feel everything. Ugly. Hurt. Angry. But mostly I just feel the wake of her hatred, so intense it threatens to plow me over long minutes after she’s gone.
All I can do is sit and wait for what happens next.
I drive on autopilot and park the car in the lot. This weather reminds me too much of the night of the accident. The rain falls in thick swaths I could hardly see through on the drive here.
I let the windshield wipers run even after I put the car in park, finding some odd comfort in the rhythmic whoosh whoosh of their dance.
I keep waiting to wake up. I feel like I’ve been living the last four months of my life just waiting to wake up.
That’s not entirely true, though. There were moments when I was alive. Awake. Moments when he was touching me. Making me smile.
How could he have kept this secret?
Yanking the keys from the ignition, I stumble out of the car and toward the only place I could come after what I learned this morning. As much as I told myself the police station was the right place to go, I’m here instead.
The whole drive, I kept thinking, I should go to the police. I should do what’s right. But I couldn’t make myself do it.
I walk through the rain past the tall monument statues and to the modest plot in the back where my brother is buried. I drop to my knees in front of his gravestone and run my fingers over his name etched into the granite.
I’ve been wishing for a way to clear his name, and now I have the opportunity.
Brogan didn’t die because my brother was mixed up in drugs again. He died because some irresponsible college kid drank too much and got behind the wheel. Such a cliché. Such an old story.
Rain and tears mix to blur my vision, but I don’t feel like I’ve been able to see clearly since the day I met Arrow. As much as I miss my brother and want to bring him back, as much as I wanted someone to blame for the horrible thing that happened to him, and as much as Arrow’s story leaves little doubt as to who’s responsible for everything we lost that night, Nic was the fucking idiot throwing punches in the middle of the road on a pitch-black night.
“I can set the record straight,” I tell my brother’s grave, but I can’t hear myself over the pounding of the rain on the gravestones around me. “You worked so hard to stay clean, and they should know. But if I do that, I’m choosing your reputation over Arrow’s life.”
Is it any wonder Arrow spun out of control the way he did? This is a man who’s always done the right thing, and Coach cornered him into keeping a secret he didn’t want to keep about a horrible thing he can’t even remember doing.
Nic never gave a shit about his reputation. That was me. My pride. My insistence on the world knowing my brother wasn’t the scum they believe he was. I know without a doubt Nic could forgive me for staying quiet. He understood secrets better than most. But why does that have to be a choice?
I’m drenched, and I stand with every intention of going to my car and driving to Bailey’s apartment to get a hot shower. Instead, I find myself at Brogan’s grave. Yellow barriers surround the fresh mound of dirt, and being blocked from his grave breaks something inside me. It’s just all too much.
Brogan would know what to do. He was my voice of reason. I just wish he were here to tell me what I’m supposed to do next.
“I think Crowe’s gonna be good,” Chris says between bites of pizza. He and Mason showed up a few hours ago and they’ve been here ever since, making themselves at home and unknowingly distracting me from obsessing over Mia. Not that it’s working, but it’s better than being alone.
“You could paint a thunderstorm with sunshine and rainbows,” Mason says.
I’ve only been half paying attention, and I look up. I don’t want to hear them fighting over whether or not my replacement is good enough.
The rain’s still coming down, and thunder claps over the house. Out the window, a zigzag of orange cracks open the middle of a gray-black sky.
“You guys, will you go?”
They both stop talking and look at me.
“What?” Mason asks.
“We’ll get out of your hair,” Chris says.
I shake my head. “It’s not that. I want you to go find Mia.” I look out at the rain again, the weariness in my gut growing. “I just need to know she’s okay. Don’t tell her I sent you.”
“Yeah,” Mason says.
“Of course,” Chris agrees, pushing his plate aside and standing.
“Anywhere we should look?” Mason asks.
“We’ll start at her dad’s trailer,” Chris says. “I bet she’s there.”
“Then we’ll go to Bailey’s,” Mason says.
“Of course you want to go there,” Chris says.
“Fuck you, I’m trying to help.”
I hold up a hand. “Stop. Start at the cemetery.” Another clap of thunder booms over the house, and suddenly I know without a doubt that’s where she is. Bailey was telling the truth about her not being there
. Mia wouldn’t have wanted to face her dad while she was so upset. And the police would have been here by now if she’d gone to the station. Should I be grateful that she didn’t? But if she doesn’t, we’re both trapped in the hell of knowing this horrible secret. “Start there,” I say. “If she’s outside, talk her into getting out of the rain. But if she’s not there and you find her safe inside somewhere, leave her alone. All I want is to know she’s okay.”
“Yeah,” Mason says. “We’ll let you know what we find.”
“Thank you.”
I pace the long wall of windows in the family room while I wait for them to return. I know they’ll find her at the cemetery. I just know. Like the night she caught Brogan cheating on her, I stayed in my room because I knew she was coming. I’ve always felt that connection to her—like our souls are hardwired together, no matter how much I try to let her go or tried not to care when she was with Brogan. Our connection is some cruel cosmic joke.
I don’t know how long it takes. Minutes pass. The sky grows darker, the storm louder.
I’m on the front porch when Chris’s car tears up the drive and parks behind my Mustang.
Mason climbs out of the back and scoops Mia into his arms. She presses her face against his chest and away from the rain as he carries her to me. She’s drenched to the bone, and her clothes are smeared with wet earth. Her hair is matted and clotted with mud.
“We found her at the cemetery,” Mason says, transferring her to my arms. “She was lying on Brogan’s grave. They have barriers around freshly filled graves for a reason, but apparently she didn’t care. She was just lying in the mud on his grave.”
This is my fault. I did this to her. I took her brother. I took Brogan. And now I’ve broken Mia. The realization makes me hold her tighter.
Chris meets my eyes. “She told us to bring her to you.”
She’s shivering now, and I wonder if it’s the first time all day she’s realized how cold she is.
“I’ve got you, Mia.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and clings to me.
“Need help?” Chris asks.
“No. I’ve got this.”
He nods. “Okay.”
“Call us,” Mason says. “Let us know that she’s . . .” He stops before saying okay. Mia is not okay, and everyone knows it.
“I’ll call you later,” I say.
I don’t bother waiting for them to go. I turn into the house, close the door behind me, and carry her through the living room, through my father’s bedroom, and into the master bath.
I sit her on the edge of the tub and run the water to warm it. She’s shivering full-force now. Every part of her shakes, from her shoulders to her hands to her toes.
“I need to warm you up, Mia.”
She nods and puts her hands to the buttons on her shirt, but they’re shaking too much. I do it for her, ignoring the ache in my heart that demands I hold her close and tight. I pull the shirt from her shoulders and take off her muddy canvas sneakers. She lifts her hips so I can pull her jeans down and off her feet.
I check the water to make sure it’s warm enough, and she climbs into the tub. In nothing but a bra and panties stained beige from muddy water, she draws her knees into her chest and wraps her arms around them.
I sit on the edge of the tub behind her and draw her between my legs. Turning the spray nozzle to the softest setting, I start the process of rinsing the mud from her hair.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
The words are a dull blow to my heart. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Then why do I feel like I’m drowning in regret?”
I swallow hard and focus on the task at hand. There’s so much mud clotted in her hair, and I keep rinsing, watching the brown water circle the drain. I rinse until it starts to clear, then slowly work shampoo through her long locks. She lifts her chin and leans back into me as I massage the suds into her scalp.
When her shivers have stopped and the water runs clear of dirt and shampoo, I turn off the water. My jeans are drenched and my shirt is soaked across the front. I yank off my shirt to get it out of the way and reach for a towel to wrap around Mia’s shoulders.
“I’ll clean the tub later,” she whispers.
“Mia.”
“I’ll clean the tub later,” she says, her voice stronger now. “Because it’s my job.”
I shake my head. I’m not going to argue with her about this now. I just want to get her in bed, get her warm, and know she’s safe.
I lead her up to her room, leaving a trail of footprints behind me. I find a sleepshirt and a pair of underwear and hand them to her. She gives me her back as she pulls off her wet bra and panties and puts on the dry clothes.
I pull the covers back and lead her into the bed, but as I draw them over her, she shakes her head. “Arrow?”
“Yeah?”
“Please don’t leave me. I’m so tired of hurting all alone.”
I draw in a ragged breath before nodding. I shuck off my wet jeans and toss them over the back of her desk chair before climbing into bed beside her. She rolls to her side, and I pull her back against my front and hold her as tightly as I can without hurting her.
“Brogan would have done the same,” she says. She finds my hand at her waist and squeezes my fingertips in her palm. “What Coach did to try to protect you . . . had their positions been reversed, Brogan would have done whatever he had to do to protect you. It still would have been wrong, but he loved you. He wouldn’t have wanted your life to have been ruined by one mistake.”
I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if it means she understands but she still has to go to the police, or if it means she plans to carry this secret, too. All I know is that right now she’s in my arms, and I thought I’d never get to have her here again. I know she’s safe and dry and warm, and the dirt from my best friend’s grave isn’t knotted in her hair. All I know is that whatever she decides, the only sure thing I have is this moment. So I take a breath and I accept it for the gift it is.
“You choose everything, Uriah. You chose that we stayed in this house. You chose that your delinquent son would serve his house arrest with us when I wanted nothing to do with him. You even fucking chose that we got married in Vegas instead of giving me a real wedding. You’re not choosing this. Her father brought a gun into my house, and she’s fucking your son. You don’t think you’re next? You don’t think she’ll spread her legs fastest for the one with the most money?”
My door flies open and Arrow walks in, his jeans unbuttoned and slung low on his hips, a towel in his hand, his hair still dripping from his shower. Apparently he’s been listening to Gwen scream, too. Not that we could miss it at the volume she’s carrying on.
I woke up to an empty bed and Gwen shouting. I guess they got home earlier than expected.
He stares at me and shakes his head. “Don’t listen to her.”
The thing is, I don’t even care that she thinks I’m a whore. She had no idea what I’ve been through and why I’ve made the choices I have.
“You think I don’t know about her mom?” Gwen shouts. “That I don’t know you denied me and used your dying wife as an excuse when you were fucking the trash?”
Uriah’s voice is a series of low murmurs, and though I can tell he’s been weighing in on this conversation, I have no idea what he’s said to his wife.
Arrow squeezes his eyes shut. “Jesus, Mia. I’m sorry.”
“Either she goes or I go,” Gwen says. “And that prenup might keep you from doing right by me, but my lawyer will make damn sure you do right by your daughter.”
I grab my suitcase from the closet and put it on the bed. I can’t do this. I can’t tear apart another family. Maybe Arrow was driving the car, but I’m the reason Brogan was on that road. I’m the reason my brother showed up, and I’m the reason they were fighting instead of going home.
“What are you doing?” Arrow asks, as I open a draw
er and pull out a stack of clothes. I ignore him and take them to my suitcase. “She’ll get over it, Mia.”
“It’s time for me to leave. I’ve been unprofessional.”
“Jesus, Mia. I . . .” He turns toward the sound of Gwen’s heels as they grow closer on the wooden staircase.
She throws the door open and scowls at Arrow before leveling her angry gaze on me. “I’m done,” she says. “You think I’m not a fit mother. You think I can’t do this on my own.”
Have I really been so bitchy? Do I come off as if I think I know how to raise her daughter better than her? “I never said that.”
“There are plenty of people who’d be thrilled to have your job. Who I could pay a whole hell of a lot less because Uriah doesn’t have some irrational sense of guilt toward them.”
That’s a slap in the face. I pride myself on making my own way, but they don’t pay me like they do because I work hard. My paycheck is about Uriah’s guilt. It shouldn’t hurt—shouldn’t matter—but it does.
“I’m not fighting with you, Gwen.” What could I say anyway? That I deserve that check? I’m not sure it’s true. That I haven’t been sleeping with Arrow? At this point, everyone seems to know I have.
“I am,” Arrow says. “She’s the best fucking nanny you’re going to find around here. She does everything for you and she loves Katie. What are you—”
Gwen holds up a hand. “Get out of my face. This is about my baby. This is about my baby’s life.”
“Are you sure?” Arrow asks. “Because it sounds like it’s about your petty jealousy over a woman who hasn’t lived in this city for almost six years.”
I still at Arrow’s words. He’s defending me. I don’t want to compare him to a dead man—it’s not right, and it’s not fair—but Brogan always found a way around defending me to his mother.
“I’ve had enough,” Gwen says. “Mia, you are out of here.” She turns on her three-inch heels and leaves the room.
Arrow opens his mouth and goes to follow her, but I reach out and squeeze his wrist before he can say anything else. “Just let it go.”