Dear Ava(47)

“You and your brother and your dad—did you really think I wouldn’t figure it out? You wanted to tell me on Monday? Monday,” I sneer. “How could you?”

He tries to take my hand, but I snatch it away.

“Please,” he says, his voice colored with dread. “Please, listen to me.” He looks around the room. “Let’s go somewhere and talk—”

“Dane remembers something! That’s what all this is, am I right? You and him and the lawyers? I’m not stupid, Knox! He knows, and he told you, and you need time to breathe right after we have…a moment together that I thought meant something. So no, I’m not going anywhere with you!”

The lady from the desk appears next to us, her eyes darting from me to Knox. “Is everything good here?”

No, no it’s not.

“We’re leaving,” Wyatt murmurs to the woman then steers me to the exit. “Sorry if it got a little loud.”

We step outside and Knox follows us, stopping me with a hand on my arm. “Ava, please—”

I whip around. “I’m no one to you. No one.”

Knox scrubs his face. “Please let me talk.”

“More telling me to slow down? I knew something was off with you!”

The silence stretches around us, thick with tension.

“Talk to him,” Wyatt tells me softly. “I’m not leaving.” He wanders off to sit on a bench a few feet away.

I rub my hands over my arms, feeling chilled in the sun as I try to hold myself together. I want to be strong, I want to prepare myself, I want to walk away from him with this anger hot in my chest, but…I have to know. “Tell me why you’re here!”

He grimaces. “When I went home Thursday morning, Dane told me he remembered seeing Liam follow you into the woods.”

My eyes shut as revulsion inches over me, bit by bit, images from the party flashing one by one, that horrible carnival ride. I’m in those woods again and he’s on top of me, holding me down, and I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I can’t scream—

I wrench myself to the present.

“Liam?” I gasp out, shuddering as it clicks. “His voice…I recognized it in the stairwell when he talked to Jolena, and outside the gym that day—” My stomach jerks. “He was angry, and I didn’t…connect the dots, but he hit me.”

Knox’s eyes flare, and I bend over and clutch myself, bile rising.

He tries to hold me, but I push him away. “No!”

I lean against the wall of the police station, and I’m not even aware of how I got there. Knox is next to me and Wyatt has moved as well, his arms around my waist as I cling to him.

“Is he going to be arrested?” I gasp.

Knox closes his eyes. “I don’t know. It’s been hard, Ava. Dane only remembers certain things.”

“What does that mean?” Wyatt snaps, clearly on my side while Knox paces up and down the sidewalk.

He stops in front of me, his face torn. “Liam told Dane that Dane roofied your drink—”

“What?”

“—but he only said that because he’s suspicious that Dane’s remembering. He didn’t, Ava. He didn’t. I know my brother…” He trails off, his hands knotted.

“Spit it out, Knox. This is about me!” I thump my chest, holding myself together with fragile strings.

He gathers himself. “We got inside Liam’s bedroom and found his trophies.”

“Trophies?” Wyatt mutters. “That sonofabitch.”

Knox’s face grows hard. “A bag of…underwear. I saw yours. We’ve been trying to act like nothing is up so he doesn’t destroy them. That’s why I went to the party last night, plus I thought maybe he might get sloppy and do something or say something. Chance and Dane and I…we all went.” He tenses. “I want to hurt him for you, but we’re trying to do this right and get Dane’s story straightened out, see if there’s enough for a search warrant.”

Trophies. I want to vomit.

Wait…

“Chance knows?” I ask.

He nods.

“But you didn’t tell me. Damn you.”

He groans, rubbing his face. “I wanted to talk to my dad before I did anything. I’m not… I didn’t know how to handle it. Dane, he was so fucked up, and I tried to do the right thing, but…”

“Dane comes first,” I say.

“It’s not like that,” he says quietly. “We just thought it would be prudent to wait and tell you what was going on when we were sure we had enough.”

“You’re preparing Dane’s defense in case he needs one.” My hands tremble.

“I have to take care of Dane, Ava. Liam’s family has big money around here. Every step my dad has made is carefully calculated.” He gives me a pained look. “Dad will get you a good lawyer—”

“Stop.” I shake my head, emotions all over the place, rage mixed with helplessness over Liam, anger at Knox, and anger at myself. I trusted him, and he—he pushed me away for his family.

I picture Mama’s taillights fading away in the distance. In the end, I’m the only one looking out for me, and I’ve known this for a long time. Most of the time I can shove all that down and pretend it doesn’t hurt to be left behind by the people who are supposed to love you.

But right now, my chest aches, and I can’t think straight with all this information.

“Dane would never hurt you,” Knox says. “You don’t know him like I do, but I know he’s innocent. I have to prove that, for him, for you, for us—” He stops abruptly and reaches out, taking my arms as Wyatt eases back, giving us space. “Tulip, please don’t be angry with me for not telling you.”

I stare up at him. “Why can’t I be angry? I point-blank asked you what was wrong—”

“I love you,” he says, his gray eyes clinging to mine. “Can’t you see that?”

I suck in a breath.

“I don’t know when, maybe last year, watching you with Chance, then it grew when I hired that P.I. and I got wrapped up in you and how fierce you are, Tulip, so beautiful and so much strength that I don’t…shit, I don’t know how you do it here at this place when I can’t even stand it. I see who you are and it terrifies me and I tried to stay away, but I didn’t, even when I swore I would, and now I’ve hurt you, but you have to take a good long look at me, a fucking long look and see what I’m made of, what makes me tick, and it’s about you.”

His words rip me apart.

He cups my cheeks, and I search his face.

Knox isn’t ready for you, his dad said.

I’m tired, so tired, my body weak as I come down from the adrenaline rush I got when I walked into the station.

And I just…

Need to think.

He swallows thickly. “Tulip—”

“Go back inside, please,” I manage to push out. “Dane needs you.” I know my mind is scattered, but one thing I’m sure of is that his family is his first commitment, not me, and I don’t blame him. He and I have obstacles in front of us. His walls, mine, Dane’s connection to what happened.

But…

I love you.

I lock down those words he said to me, shutting them inside that chest and wrapping a heavy chain around it.

“Don’t leave. Not like this,” he whispers, as if reading my thoughts. “Don’t walk away. Things will work out. Don’t, please. You belong with me, you do—”

I sigh. “Please, just…leave me be.”

I pull back and walk away from him.





23





I’m sitting at the stone picnic tables outside the dorm that afternoon when a sleek gray Porsche parks in the lot and a guy gets out. I watch as he scans the entrance and heads toward the door, then he slides his gaze over to me and stops. He sticks his hands in his jeans, walks over, and sits down next to me.

This is the closest we’ve been since I came back and Chance still smells the same, a hint of leather and male spice. It brings back memories.

We don’t speak for a few minutes, each of us not looking at the other, just watching some guys tossing a Frisbee on the commons.

A long sigh comes from him. “I fucked up my apology in History of Film when I said you hurt me. I really suck.”

“You do,” I say, still not looking at him. I flick my eyes back at the parking lot. “Your dad gave your car back?” I shrug as he starts, not expecting me to know. “Piper told me he grounded you from it.” I whistle. “That’s a long time to not have that sweet ride.”

In my peripheral, I see his nod. “He’s been pissed with me for months. I deserved it.” He pauses, his fingers rubbing at a crevice on the stone table. “Knox said he saw you today at the police station. He said he told you I know everything now.”

I sigh, not wanting to go there. “I got your flowers.”

He huffs. “Did you toss them?”

“Not yet.”

He smiles. “You should. I was at the market for my mom, and as soon as I saw them, I thought of you. We had some good times, didn’t we?”

I think about those sweet notes in my locker, the hugs and kisses after games. “Yes.”

“I still love you, you know. Can’t get you out of my head.”