Eli nods, his elbows on his knees. “Yeah. I do.”
“Totally,” Fallon agrees, staring at the floor. “It’s not even a question.”
“Then we act like it,” I say. “No more hesitation. No more waiting for the right moment. She’s in danger. She’s scared. And we’re her defense. Not just physically. Emotionally.”
“But what happened?” Eli asks, finally voicing the question we’ve all been chewing on since she rushed out of the gymnasium. “Why did he come back? Why now?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, frustration tightening my chest. “But I intend to find out.”
An hour passes. Then two. The clock ticks loudly on the wall. Every time a car passes on the street outside, my head snaps up.
I check my phone compulsively, but there are no messages from her. The silence is maddening.
I’m climbing the walls.
“She said she’d be here in the morning,” Eli says around midnight.
“I know.”
“I’m going to bed,” Fallon says, standing up. He looks defeated. “I can’t just sit here.”
“Go,” I tell him. “I’ll be up.”
I sit in the armchair, staring at the dark window. I don’t sleep. I wait.
A soft knock on the steel door drags me out of the light doze I fell into around 4 a.m. I’m on my feet instantly, moving across the concrete floor.
I open the door.
Amber stands there. She looks exhausted, dark circles bruising the skin under her eyes, but she’s dressed in fresh clothes—jeans and one of my oversized sweaters.
She holds her phone in one hand, a stack of index cards in the other.
“Hi,” she says softly.
I step back, letting her in. “Are you okay?”
“I will be.” She walks to the living area, not sitting on the sofa, but sinking onto the rug in front of the fireplace. Eli and Fallon appear from their rooms, pulled from sleep by the sound of the door.
They sit down around her, forming a triangle. I take a spot on the hearth, close enough to touch her knee.
“I have... it’s hard to say,” she starts, her voice trembling. “I don’t want you to look at me differently. But you need to know.All of it. Because if he comes back... you need to know what you’re dealing with.”
“We don’t care about the past, Amber,” Eli says gently.
“You might,” she says, “when I tell you about my struggle with drugs.”
My head snaps up. “Drugs?”
She nods, staring at her hands. “It was a long time ago. Before I had Maisie, I used whippets to numb everything. When I met Luke, I had been out of a terrible relationship and a single parent for so long. I was weak. I wanted to numb everything.
“And Luke helped me with that. He had quite a vibrant social life; going out every weekend, drinking with friends. I liked that he invited me. I just wanted to be chosen, Eli. And Luke was choosing me. It started simple. Beers, shots, cocaine. Then it got worse, especially after things started going wrong with Luke. I used pills and whippets and tequila. Whatever I could get.”
My heart breaks for the woman standing in front of me. I can see the shame radiating off her, but all I feel is a blinding, protective rage.
She was hurting, and instead of helping her, he weaponized her pain.
“Sweetheart…” I reach out, covering her hand with mine.
