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“You’re a good person, Gwenna.” That’s Dove. I can tell because he’s right beside me. “Staying here. You couldn’t force your presence on him in a million years. He’ll wake up and I know he’d love to see you. He went over there for you. He feels so sorry for what happened.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’ll get over it. I understand—his feelings… All the guilt.” I lift my face and look from Dove to Michael. “I know why he came to Gatlinburg and bought the house. He got in…too far. Just like I did.”
Michael steps closer, his eyes warm on mine. “How do you feel about him, Gwenna? Do you hate him?”
I laugh. “Hate him! Barrett?” I smile sadly, wiping stray tears from my cheeks. “I still love him. I get that he—”
“He loves you.” Michael’s eyes are heavy on my face. “Barrett loves you, Gwenna, and he feels like shit. He didn’t mean to get in with you like he did. It was a group secret, and one he wasn’t supposed to ever tell. He didn’t want to tell you. He thought he could make it up to you. Make you love him and make your life good, so maybe that wouldn’t matter. Could be in the past. Do you understand that what he told you put…” He shakes his head. “He told you because he loves you. He was worried, and he knew that it would make you hate him, but he also knew he needed to protect you.”
I’m crying again. “I don’t get it.” I look from Dove to Michael, suddenly afraid. “Should I be worried. Like…”
“It’s settled, Gwenna. Bear turned himself in, in Colorado. It’s all settled.”
My pulse races. “He hasn’t called me.”
Dove steps in front of me. “Gwenna. Do you remember that night? The night in Breckenridge, when you and Bear—” I’m nodding, so he pauses; when I don’t speak, he goes on. “He told you it was him, and you were very upset. Sliced your fingernails into his neck—” Dove points to his own throat— “cut up his face. He got in the snow and laid there so you could go at him, he let you punch him, got his nose all busted up, black eye right here…” Dove gestures to his own eye. “When we found him, he had called your friend Jamie and waited with you while she got there. I guess you passed out. We found Barrett walking through the woods. He didn’t know what day it was, what time it was. He was in shock.”
“He thought that we were there to kill him,” Michael puts forth.
Dove’s eyes hold mine. “That’s what he wanted.”
His words slice at my soul. My poor Bear. I try to imagine myself beating him up, but I can’t remember. My chest aches. “Why are you telling me this?”
Their eyes meet for a moment. This time, Michael speaks. “Gwenna, we understand your feelings. How betrayed you must feel. Angry. No one has been in your position here but you. And we respect that. We just wanted you to understand that Barrett loves you. More than his own life. He wants you to be happy. He wants healing for you.”
I shake my head. Without Barrett, I can never heal. “It doesn’t make sense…” but it doesn’t have to. It’s my heart. “You don’t get it.” I put my head in my hands again. “No one gets it! I can’t be happy without Barrett! He’s my happy. Even if he did do something awful.” I lift my face and look at both of them, his friends who helped him. “I don’t care, okay! I know him, I love Barrett, I forgive him. There’s no other option. I’m a human being and not some robot. I was shocked and upset.” I start sobbing. “It wore off in like a day and then I realized that he didn’t— I know he doesn’t want to be with me.”
Dove’s arms are around me again, squeezing me against his chest a little hard. “Gwenna.” His hands grip my shoulders. I look up into his brown eyes. “Barrett would do anything to be with you. He would have killed Niccolo in a heartbeat if you hadn’t shot him.”
My mind hums. I get a heavy breath. “I killed him. I killed Jamie’s boyfriend.” I can feel hysterics gather in my chest, a heavy wall of weight that needs to be let out. “Is Bear going to be okay? Am I going to get arrested?”
“Gwenna… Calm down.” Dove’s hand rubs a circle on my back. “If you can calm down, there’s some things we want to tell you.”
Fear pierces my heart. “What kind of things?”
The two men look at each other, and then at me.
* * *
Niccolo
It was never really my fault. Were it not for Dad’s addiction to loose pussy, I would never have been on that road at that time. Who expects a person walking by the road’s side dressed in black?
I was going faster than I should have been. You could say that. But I had snow tires. Again, I didn’t know there would be anybody walking on the shoulder. I didn’t see her face until it hit the windshield. From that moment forward, I knew my victim: Gwenna White, my new conquest’s best friend. Gwenna White, the guest of Larry Madison and family. She was even in his jacket.
She was carrying a plant: a gardenia. It hit the hood of the car, the edge of the plastic pot leaving a tiny dent I never could get out.
When I left her there, she seemed unconscious but alive. I couldn’t call the police. For starters, I didn’t have cell phone service. Since I had to leave the scene to go get help, why would I tattle on myself? And ruin my career? And ruin my reputation? Why? Because that would undo what had happened?
I got to my brother John as fast as I could. I told him I’d seen a hit and run, and so I called it in—anonymously, of course. With our dad’s reputation, why leave names? John understood.
Not long after that, something strange happened: John got a call on the same secret agent phone I used to call about Gwenna. He got a call from Barrett Drake. John rushed off, and only later did I find out why.
Months later, we stayed up over gin and tonic. John asked me about Gwenna—what had I heard about the girl’s recovery—and I almost passed out. He didn’t know. Thank fuck, he didn’t know my secret. I was still with Jamie. He was curious, he said.
I told him the girl was living. Didn’t die.
John told me about Barrett. How he couldn’t eat or sleep, was all thrown of
