I don’t respond. I can’t. I’m too busy staring through my binoculars at Reed. It’s like he’s been sucker punched as he pulls the coffin from the earth and drops to his knees. He brushes the dirt off the lid and reads the inscription. I know the scrambled verse will hit him like a truck—his father’s favorite song, except all wrong, the words a warning.Don’t look inside.
But he will.
He wavers for a moment and then finally reaches for the lid.
Relief floods his face when he pulls it open. So much relief. It’s clear in the way he exhales and runs a hand over his forehead. Thank god. His child isn’t inside waiting for him. But mine is. And while his is a phantom, mine is real.Wasreal, I have to remind myself.Was.Because Reed took him away along with Ethan, and every precious moment with both of them that should have come after.
Reed’s relief fades and turns to confusion instead as he plucks a photograph from the coffin and stares at it. He blinks, then returns the picture and reaches for another. I can read his thoughts. Who are these people? Why am I looking at them? What do they have to do with me?
Nothing at all. And everything you can imagine.
Zane adjusts his binoculars and leans over the steering wheel. “Okay, showtime.”
Reed has the gift in his hands now, the picture of the three of us at Disney World. He stares at it for what feels like a full minute before ripping it open. When he does, his face cycles from confusion to understanding, and then from understanding to shock. He snaps his head up and looks around, his features twisted with pain. I can tell he’s fighting back tears, which means he knows who I am. The anguish in his face is so intense, I’m overcome with an unexpected slash of guilt. But it doesn’t last long before the anger rises, and I remember everything he’s taken.
No, I tell myself.No.He deserves this. Every last bit.
Fuck you, Reed.I think.You did this to yourself.
And that’s when I hear the gunshot ring out.
Chapter 43
REED
With the bullet come the memories.
“Let’s get out of here. My place isn’t far.”
Those are Avery’s first words to me on our third date before our drinks arrive. Her eyes are the green of fresh leaves, the green of spring, and I can’t help but cough as I set my water down on the table. I open my mouth to say something, but she’s already standing and taking my hand.
I try to fill the silence as she drives, but any time I’m about to speak, she presses a single finger to her lips and shakes her head. We arrive and she’s on me the second we spill through her door. We’re hot skin and hungry lips. We are need and desire, lust and want. We are two bodies clawing at each other for the first time, both of us hungry. But there’s something else in her eyes, too, a flash of pain swimming right beneath the surface—there and gone in an instant. It’s a glimpse to some deeper part of her—a part I’m suddenly desperate to know because I carry that kind of pain, too.
When we finish, she rolls off of me and threads her fingers through her scarlet hair. “Okay, now we can talk.”
“That’s all it took?” I say with a laugh.
“I had to see if you were worth it first.”
“And?”
“I’d say you passed.”
And then she’s kissing me again, and I’m already in love.
But not real love. Not yet. I’ve been here before. I’ve made that mistake, and I swore I never would again. Which is fine, because it’s easier this way. The flirting. The games. The way we can’t seem to keep our clothes on when we’re around each other. How, with one look, we wind up in bed. Or on the couch, or the floor, or the table.
But this, whateverthisis, is more than sex. I can feel her seeping in. Avery is supposed to be a quick break from my self-imposed seclusion. My “simpler” life. Except, now that I’ve met her, I can’t imagine not seeing her again, can’t envision spending the rest of my days staring out at the horizon alone. It’s ridiculous to think I deserve anything other than that, especially after the things I’ve done, but it’s nice to dream. So, I decide to keep her around, if only for a little while.
We talk. She tells me about her life: a good life with a mostly idyllic childhood. She grew up in Iowa and played soccer in high school until she shredded her knee in state semifinal her senior year. Then came college in Lawrence, Avery a Jayhawk. Two years spent majoring in finance before she plowed into a pregnant woman downtown after a night at the bars.
“There’s something you need to know,” she tells me a month in. Her voice drips with pain as she tells me about the accident. She wasn’t even drunk, just distracted by her friends who were when the woman wandered onto the crosswalk. It happened in a split second. The baby died and Avery spent a year behind bars—but the regret she feels is a life sentence.
When I don’t reply, she mistakes my silence for agreement and stands to leave. But what she doesn’t understand is that I can’t speak. Her words are razors that have sliced me to the core. “Wait,” I say,taking her by the wrist and tugging her back to the couch. “Everyone deserves a second chance.”
“Do you really believe that?” she asks through the tears.
“Yes.” And I do—for her. Never for me. There’s no forgiving what I’ve done.
