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No. No, no, no. I shook my head, but no words came out. My stomach lurched. My vision swam. I felt my way back to the door, back to the porch steps.
Fiona.
How could this have happened?
How could she have been taken from the earth and I had no clue?
Every insecurity of my teenage self came thundering back, closing in on me, suffocating me, reminding me of how horrible I felt the last time I saw Mrs. P. Reminding me that everyone I loved eventually left me.
“I need… a minute,” I mumbled practically incoherently, then stumbled back outside into the cold.
Inside the privacy of my truck, I slammed my hand against my wheel and yelled out.
Why? Why hadn’t I dug for more information? Why had I buried my head in the sand forweeks?
I collapsed in my car. For Fiona. For Stevie. For me.
49. Josie
“Mom, how did he know you? What’s going on?” I asked desperately, still holding Stevie to my side. She’d buried her head against my stomach and was crying into my sweater.
“He was a student at Northfield High when I taught there,” my mom whispered.
I rubbed a hand over my forehead trying to piece everything together. My mom taught at a local public school the years my dad was an assistant coach for Minnesota’s NHL team. I went to a private school in the city down the street from where we lived.
“And Fiona.” I swallowed down the rest of my sentence and mouthed. “She died?”
She bit her lip and nodded solemnly.
For a split-second, I wondered how Tyler hadn’t known… Then again, he moved away from home and didn’t keep in contact with anyone besides Duke and Claire. And Tyler had no social media either. So when he asked Stevie about rehab and she agreed, why would he question it?
My heart hurt for Stevie. And for Tyler. And for Fiona, who I never even met. But knowing her daughter, there’s no way she wanted to leave her so soon.
“I truly thought he knew. I’m so sorry,” my mom said, her forehead creasing in worry.
I hugged Stevie tighter, but I really wanted to go after Tyler as well. “Can you…” I motioned to the door.
She wrung her hands together nervously. “I’ll have your father talk to him.”
My dad dropped his butter knife at the table. He’d already started eating and was completely oblivious to the devastation happening around him. “Me?” he growled, pointing to himself confusedly.
“Yes,you, Herb,” my mom snapped.
I nodded to the door, giving him a stern face that saidget your ass out there.
He grumbled and bunched his tablecloth in a ball before tossing it on the table and shuffling out of the room.
50. Tyler
The knock on my window made me jump.
I looked to the side to see Coach standing there with his usual gruff face seemingly wanting to enter my car. That would not be happening. There’s no way I wanted Coach to see me like this.
I quickly wiped at my face before rolling my window down slightly. I forced myself to keep an even, deep voice. “Coach, can you uh… can you tell Stevie to come out? We have to go.”
He waited for me to make eye-contact, when I did, I wanted to squirm away from his intimidating stare. “Nope. You’re not goin’ anywhere. Not fit to drive right now anyways, son. Open the door.”
He could tell I was weighing my options, trying to get out of listening to him, because then he practically growled, “Unless you want next practice to be living hell for youandyour teammates, you’ll open this fucking door, Jettersen.”
