“Here you go.” I pass Tessa a mug decorated with kittens and cradle mine as I sink on the sofa and tuck my socked feet under me. “So... What’s up?”
Tessa sips her cocoa, silent for a long moment. Then she says, “It’s about Ash.”
Oh god. “Come on, Tess, honest. Drop it.”
“Aud...” She looks crestfallen. “I’m sure you want—”
I shake my head, stopping her.
I have to move on. I really want to find my feet again; regain my confidence and get over the sadness. I want to be happy.
And Ash... He seems to be at the center of my every sorrow.
Tessa sighs and puts her mug on the table. Her eyes are sad. “Look. I get it, okay? He hurt you once, but that was long ago, Aud. You were both practically kids. I know you feel he betrayed your friendship back then, because he started avoiding you.”
“Tess.” My hands are shaking. I put the cocoa down as well and wipe my hands on my thighs. “Why do you keep bringing him up?”
“Why do you think?” She throws her hands up. “I just want you to be friends, at least. You have so much in common.”
“Yeah?” I’m closing off, putting up my defenses, and I can’t help myself. “Like what?”
“You’ve both been hurt by the same person.”
I stiffen. I don’t want to hear this. “I’m sorry if Ash’s been blaming himself for the accident, but you can’t compare that to what happened to me and Mom.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She sucks in a deep breath and gets up. Her high-heeled boots leave deep imprints in my fluffy carpet. “I just thought you might want to know why Ash never answered your calls or called you back.”
That gets my attention. “Why, then?”
Now she hesitates. That’s weird. She’s the one who wants to tell me, and it’s as if I’m pressing her for an answer.
“I feel like an old busybody telling you this,” she finally mutters, “but I know Ash would never tell you. His father beats him. I think it’s been happening for many years now. He never talks about it, but I gathered as much from Zane.”
Holy crap. The words slowly sink in, like hooks of ice. Cold seeps into my chest. “How long?”
“Not sure. Long before the accident.”
“I didn’t know.” He never told me. I never noticed. And he was my friend.
“You know now.”
Tess looks pissed. Is she mad at me? Is she right to be?
I try to remember Ash as he was that long ago. Bruised? Of course he was bruised most of the time. He couldn’t keep out of fighting and...
Oh no. It suddenly hits me how easy it had been to blame the bruises on the fighting. How nobody ever thought his dad had been the one to put at least some of them there.
I breathe past the knot of panic in my chest. “What does this have to do with Ash not calling me back?”
Tessa nails me with her gaze. “That night he left from here, his father beat him up real bad. Ash took off and left his phone at his dad’s house. That’s why he never got your calls. Zane found Ash and took him home with him.”
Jesus. “Is he okay?”
Tessa shrugs.
The knot in my chest gets bigger. I stand up as well, my body vibrating with tension. “I didn’t know all this.”
“Well, you do know. What are you going to do about it?”