He can have his affair, his lies, his carefully constructed version of reality.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t want any part of it.
And what surprises me most is not the anger, or even the hurt, but the clarity that settles in its place.
I feel free.
And it feels better than I ever expected it could.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Istand in the backyard with one of Whitney’s journals pressed tightly against my chest, the worn leather warm beneath my palm as the late afternoon sun stretches long shadows across the grass. The air is thick with humidity, heavy in a way that makes it harder to breathe, and the cicadas hum relentlessly in the trees, a steady, grating chorus that seems to echo the tension coiling tighter inside me.
Bennett tried to calm me down after the delivery this morning, tried to talk me through it with logic and reason, but none of it stuck. The only thing that has taken the edge off, even slightly, has been too many mimosas and page after page of Whitney’s handwriting, each word pulling me deeper into something I am no longer sure I want to fully understand.
Phillip stands a few feet in front of me, his arms crossed loosely over his chest, his expression arranged into something that might pass for concern to anyone who doesn’t know better. But I do know better. I see it in the small details he can’t quite control, the tension in his jaw, the sharpness behind his eyes, the careful way he measures every reaction before letting it show.
“Where is she?” I ask, my voice unsteady despite the forcebehind it, the words catching on the dryness in my throat. My head aches from too much champagne and too little sleep, my nerves stretched thin enough that everything feels just slightly out of control. Bennett is gone on his run, leaving me here alone with him, confronting something I can no longer pretend isn’t real.
Phillip tilts his head, slow and deliberate, as if he is trying to understand the question rather than avoid it. “I told you before,” he says evenly, “I don’t know where she is. Why are you coming at me like this?”
The calmness in his voice makes something inside me snap.
My hand curls into a fist at my side, nails biting into my palm as a surge of anger moves through me so quickly it feels almost physical. If I had something in my hand, anything at all, I’m not sure I would stop myself. That thought should scare me, but it doesn’t. Not as much as it should.
I thought I left that part of myself behind.
But it’s still there.
Waiting.
“Don’t you dare pretend,” I say, the words sharp, cutting through the space between us. “I know about the fights. I know about the screaming. I know what you said to her.”
For just a second, something shifts in his expression, something darker flickering beneath the surface before he smooths it away, replacing it with that same infuriating composure.
“If you have evidence,” he replies, his tone cool, almost bored, “then why aren’t you going to the police? Why are you standing out here accusing me in my own backyard?”
The question lands harder than I expect.
My throat tightens as I try to form a response, but the truth rises too quickly, too clearly. I can’t go to the police. Not without everything unraveling. Not without dragging the past into the light where it cannot be contained again.
Whitney wrote everything down.
Everything.
Including that night.
The memory presses in, sharp and immediate, and for a moment I can almost feel it again, the panic, the violence, the way everything changed in the span of a few seconds that never truly ended. She saved me. She ended it. And together, we buried it.
If I go to the police now, it all comes back.
Every last piece of it.
Phillip takes a step closer, closing the distance just enough to feel intentional, his voice lowering into something quieter, more insidious. “You’re grasping at straws,” he says, almost gently. “You’re upset, and I understand that. Whitney is missing, and you’re scared. But this?” He gestures vaguely between us, a faint curl of disdain touching his mouth. “This is irrational. You sound unhinged. Maybe that’s why Whitney was so worried about you.”
The words hit with a precision that feels practiced.
“What are you talking about?” I demand, though my voice comes out thinner than I intend. “She wasn’t worried about me. She was terrified of you.”
