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Putting pressure on the side of my head to stop it from aching, I ask, “Of what?”
When she holds up a piece of paper, my eyes scan the headline “Murder Suicide in Atterton,” and my stomach drops. I rush to open the door to hang my head out just in time to throw up. She knows . . .
She knows my actions led to her mom’s death. And I need to face her, to face the victim of my poor decision that night. My hair and the collar of my shirt get soaked, but I don’t care. The cool rain revives me enough to sit back up. “Story—”
The front door slams shut, so I open mine again to get out, not caring if I get wet. “Story?” I run to catch her on the sidewalk, cutting off her path. I grab her arms and plant myself in front of her. “I need you to listen. I was young and—”
“Rich and bored and didn’t give a fuck about anyone else. I know, Cooper. I read the police report and how you sideswiped his truck. I read how you were so high and drunk that you didn’t realize you were alive until you sobered in a jail cell. I read Hank’s account of the accident and how you came out of nowhere and hit him on Taylor Drive. And then I read your account. You didn’t even bother to lie.” She tries to step forward, but I hold her there.
“I wanted to die, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.”
“But you did,” she screams, but the rain dampens the sound. “You hurt me, Cooper!” She looks away, denying me the window to her soul that gave me life. As long as I had that, I still believed we could find our way back.
That hope is gone when she says, “The crime wasn’t you denting Hank’s truck. The crime is that you set him on a mission to take his anger out on me. I told you that he had an ax to grind that night all because a ‘rich kid’ fucked up his truck. And since the police were already there, they gave him a ticket for out-of-date registration.” She takes a breath and hits me with a glare. “Your parents’ insurance would have covered the truck, so that means my mom died because of a hundred-dollar ticket. His mood and that money are why he broke me and killed her.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” The heat in my eyes isn’t from the rain that remains cool on my skin. It’s the tears that I’ve never cried and the reality of losing her.
“I was fucking stupid.”
“You forgot high. Was it weed . . . or ecstasy? What were you on that made you feel invincible?”
“Everything,” I reply too hurriedly, convicting myself before I even have my trial.
Last night, I was hell-bent on causing her to break up with me to keep the truth of my role in her mom’s death a secret. If I went away, so would the truth. Living the lies would be better than torturing her a second time in life.
I would leave. I’d do that for her. I would make her hate me, so she’d have a chance to find someone new. Now, I would do anything to keep her for just one more day, even if it means she knows that truth. I’ll confess every sin I ever committed if I just get to stand here with her. “Anything I could get my hands on.”
Her arms are lifeless in my hands but never once has she pulled away. “To numb your pain?” she asks.
“To numb my life away.”
“And instead, you destroyed mine.” Wrangling free, she dips the umbrella, exposing her to the pouring rain. As her hair begins to drown and the pajamas she’s wearing are drenched, she stares at me like she doesn’t know me. She stares at me as if it’s the last time she’ll get the chance. Then walks around me.
I jog next to her, trying to stop to talk to her again because if she gets to her apartment, I may never get my second chance. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know,” she repeats. “You didn’t, but you also didn’t care. When you were speeding down a busy road, you didn’t care that you might hit somebody. You didn’t care that you were so high that you lost control of your car that Mommy and Daddy gave you. You didn’t care, Cooper, that you could have killed an innocent victim. So yes, you didn’t know, but you also didn’t care.”
“I was arrested and thought that was the end.”
She holds up the drenched paper. “Because it was the end for you. Your daddy would come bail you out like he’d done before for your reckless behavior.” Her tears fall with the rain, and I’m not sure what’s louder, the sound or my blood rushing in my ears. “But the end of your story was only the beginning of my nightmare.”
