He wouldn’t waste another solitary one on her. “Forget it.” He wrenched open the door.
Her fingers brushed his sleeve. “Max, wait.”
The door shook the frame as it slammed behind him, drowning out her protests.
Drowning out his own.
* * *
Emma curled up on her bed, trying to silence her sobs so as not to wake Tonya, Katie and Stacy. Her cell phone glowed on her nightstand, revealing that only seven minutes had passed since she’d last checked. Since time had decided to all but stand still. Since sleep continued to elude her.
Though that could be a blessing, since her dreams wouldn’t be much better than reality.
She twisted on her back, scrunching her pillow under her head and brushing at the wet spot left from tears. It wasn’t the first time she’d cried herself to sleep—or tried to—over Max Ringgold. But these tears stemmed from somewhere previously untapped.
And were oddly mixed with a small, yet very tangible, sense of relief.
It was done. Her all-too-familiar burden had been lifted, though a new one had immediately settled in its place. The secret was out. It was over. She could take a breath, a full breath, for the first time in too many years to count.
But they still had to tell Cody.
The relief vanished, and fresh tears soaked onto the neckline of her sleep shirt. And she thought telling Max had been hard? What was she thinking? She wasn’t. Hadn’t. But no, her plan used to make sense, back when it was just her and Cody, when she knew that there was zero chance of running into Max, zero chance for anything to change.
Yet everything had changed, and no one told her.
Because you never gave anyone a chance to.
Her conscience reared, sharp and ugly and all too honest. She flopped on her side, the wet pillowcase sticking to her cheek. All these years, she’d convinced herself Cody’s problems were Max’s fault. If Max hadn’t passed on those genes, if Max hadn’t lived the way he’d lived, if Max hadn’t done drugs, Cody would be different. If Max, if Max, if Max.
If Emma.
Now her conscience sounded a whole lot more like the Lord, another voice she’d squelched over the years of doing everything for herself. She’d been running from more than Max and her past. She’d been running from herself.
And her faith.
“I’m tired of running,” she muttered into her pillow, and across the dorm, one of the girls shifted in her bed, sheets rustling. She stilled, trying to calm her pounding heartbeat, and uttered the words she should have spoken to God years ago. “I’m done running.”
A slight pocket of peace began to envelop her, and she nestled into it like a downy quilt. Cody’s problems weren’t Max’s fault. And they weren’t hers. They were probably a little bit of both—but they were mostly Cody’s. Maybe he’d been reacting in a way that connected to Emma’s bad choices, but he was still ultimately responsible for himself. Just as she was. Just as Max was.
Of the three of them, Emma’s choices might just be the worst. Hers didn’t involve drugs and gangs. But she’d kept her choices and sins a secret. Max had always lived out loud, had never hidden who he claimed to be. He’d definitely made wrong decisions, but hadn’t she? At least Max hadn’t pretended to be something he wasn’t.