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I can’t help it anymore and reach for his hand. He flinches, but relaxes when I lock his freezing palm between my warm ones. Has he been sitting here this whole time? His jeans and shoes are wet, and his skin is ice cold. He must have been outside for at least some of the time. He’s shivering so hard it’s visible.
I let go of his hand and pick up his coat.
“At least put this on, okay?”
I open it and hold it out for him. His dark brown eyes search mine before he leans forward and lets me drape it around his shoulders. He tucks his arms into the sleeves and tightens the fabric around him. Everything in me wishes that was me. My arms surrounding him. My heart beating waves of heat against his like it was meant to since the first time I saw him twelve years ago.
“Kim shouldn’t have told you,” he says. “No one can know the truth.”
Tension knots in my shoulders at the warning in his tone.
“It’s not fair,” I say.
“Neither is a girl losing her life for walking home from a party. Most of the shit that happens in this world isn’t fair.”
“Can I ask you something?”
I see the shield settle over his face, but I have to say it. “If you’d known, if all the factors about what actually happened had been clear from the beginning, would you still have done it? Would you still have confessed to something you didn’t do?”
He closes his eyes again. After a long silence, I think he’s going to ignore my question until…
“I don’t know.”
The simple honesty of his answer takes my breath away. Who is this person? Demon or saint? Victim or hero? I have no idea anymore.
“If I’d known, I would have reacted differently,” I say.
He releases a heavy sigh. “Yeah? What would you have done?”
“This.”
I adjust to my knees and fold my arms around him.
“I would have done this,” I whisper against his shoulder.
His instinctive flinch tells me he’s not used to affection, so I hold tight until his muscles start to relax. There are so many things to say, so many horrific wrongs to be righted, but I don’t know where to start.IfI can start. How the hell do you move on from this?
Closing my eyes, I absorb as much of him as I can, his scent, his essence, whatever remains of the beautiful soul we have to find again. Because maybe that’s the most tragic part of all. The fact that he didn’t just give up his freedom that night, but paid an eternal price two naïve kids couldn’t possibly have understood.
And then my stomach rolls at a new thought.
If he was willing to endure years of prison for his sister, what would he do for her friend? My crush on him hadn’t come out of nowhere. I suspected the feelings were reciprocated, which was the only reason I had the courage to ask him to prom. That is, until he demonstrated—very publicly—how wrong I was.
“The football game,” I say.
He tenses again, and I can’t breathe. Oh no. What if that’s all been a lie too? What if I hated him for years because…
“Did you really feel like you’d ‘rather crawl through broken glass than go to prom with me?’” I can barely get the words out.
He doesn’t respond, and I lean back to read his expression. Tears burn my eyes at the look on his face. Oh god.
“Tristan,” I breathe out.
He lowers his gaze, and a rock lodges in my chest.
“Why?” I ask, pulling away from him. “If you liked me too, why did you make me hate you?!”
He shakes his head, and a new kind of anger flares inside me. The kind of rage that comes from events that shouldn’t have happened.
