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“Complicated how?” My heart dropped because I was still missing something—something vital. Something that was going to change everything. “Are the two of you…”
“What? No. No way. We’re family.”
“Family? I don’t understand.”
Something akin to shame washed over him. “She’s my cousin, but like I said, it’s complicated.”
Cousins.
They werecousins.
I couldn’t get my head around that. “I don’t understand.”
“Becca.” He took a step toward me, but I held up my hand in warning.
“No, Evan. You don’t get to just drop this on me and not explain anything. How could you keep that from me? How could you…” The fight inside me withered and died.
I was done.
I was so freaking done.
His lips pressed together in a tight line, the way I’d seen so many times before. He wasn’t going to say anything. He was choosing silence over fixing his shit storm of a mess.
“I see.” I tipped my chin at him, forcing myself not to break. “I’ll see you around,math guy.”
I fought back the tears as I walked away from him.
It was ironic, really. For someone whose life had changed so much in a split second once before, I’d forgotten how quickly it could happen.
How quickly everything could turn bad.
* * *
The house wasquiet when I finally arrived home. I hadn’t headed there right away. Once the tears started falling, I knew they wouldn’t stop in time, so I diverted to the park in our neighborhood and sat on one of the swings until I was all cried out. My cell phone bleeped constantly. But I didn’t check the messages. I couldn’t. Not yet.
Maybe I never would.
My whole existence at Credence High was a lie.More lies. Scarlett hadn’t taken pity on me that day she invited me to The Vault; she’d done it as a favor to Evan. Because somehow, he’d known that Kendall planned to make my life hell—like she had with Ami. It explained Evan’s coolness toward me in those first couple of weeks. But it didn’t explain why he felt he needed to look out for me. I was no one to him.
No one.
“Mom? Dad?” I called, trying to even out my voice as I checked my reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t great, my eyes were sore and puffy, but I had my story all ready to cover for the truth. After all, lies were kind of my thing now, weren’t they?
The sound of hushed voices pulled me toward Dad’s office.
“Hello?” I pushed the door ajar. The room was bathed in a dark glow from the lamp on the desk. A man I didn’t recognize stood and looked back and forth between Dad and me.
“I’ll be in touch.” He moved toward me, and I stepped back giving him space. “Becca.” The man nodded and disappeared into the hallway.
“Who was that?” I glanced back into the hallway, but the man was gone, the sound of our front door closing reverberated through the house.
“That was Mac.” Dad didn’t look up. He sat hunched over his desk, gripping a glass of something that looked like whiskey maybe. It wasn’t even after ten yet, so what the hell was going on?
That was Mac? His friend? I’d only met Mac once when I was much younger. He’d been busy with work since we arrived in Credence. Something he and Dad had in common. Dad had rarely been home lately. But Mom had been here when I left for school, so where was she now?
Unease swirled in my stomach. Why did it feel like my crappy day wasn’t over yet?
“Dad? What’s wrong?”
