Page 67 of No Good Fight

“Yeah.”

“How many of them are in here?”

I stare at the back of her head, at the messy fall of her hair, at my jacket swallowing her shoulders. “Most of them.” I give her the truth, or as much of it as I can. Because I have every single article she’s ever written that I was able to find. Even the ones from high school and college.

She lifts the lid.

The first folder is the worst one for her to see because it proves the timeline immediately. Her first byline from her sophomore year in high school. Printed in the middle of the night in my dorm room, the date written in the corner and saved in one of those protective sleeves. She pulls it free, and the plastic sleeve catches the monitor light.

“You kept this?” she asks.

I step closer, then stop when her shoulders tighten. “Josh sent me the link. He was proud of you. We all were.”

“That explains reading it.” She turns the page with careful fingers. “Not printing it or preserving it and storing it in a box for over a decade.”

“No.” I’m flailing internally and have no idea what to say to her. She already knows I’m obsessed. Already knows I’ve been watching her. But I’m not going to lie to her.

Her laugh is quiet and humorless. “At least you’re consistent with the terrible answers.”

I deserve that, so I take it.

She keeps going, sifting through the pieces of her writing that gave me insight into her soul. A storm-damage piece. A holiday market article. A profile on a retired teacher. A council meeting recap no one except maybe twelve people in town would have read start to finish. Some are marked with dates. Some have notes in the margins, not about where she was or who she saw, but about lines I liked, details she caught, quotes she pulled from people nobody else would have bothered listening to.

That does not make it harmless.

I know that before she says anything.

Alex closes one folder and opens another. “Josh doesn’t know about this.”

It isn’t a question.

“No.”

Her head turns then, and the look on her face is worse than anger. Anger would be easier. This is fear trying to decide what shape it needs to take.

“Why not?”

I swallow. “Because he would have asked me why.”

“And what would you have said?”

“That I was proud of you.”

“That’s not all of it, though. Not your only reason for keeping them.”

“No,” I admit.

She stands with one of the articles still in her hand. The coffee sits forgotten on the table. “How long for real, Ryder?”

“Since the first one.” She already knows that I have it, because she held it in her hand. But I think hearing me say the words has to confirm her suspicions.

Her eyes close for one second.

I hate myself for that, but hating myself doesn’t undo the box at her feet or the way she’s going to be looking at me now.

“When Preston kept things,” she says, opening her eyes again, “he used them to prove I owed him. That I lied or kept a secret. That I changed from who I was. That he knew me better than I knew myself.”

“I know.”