“Look, I ain’t got nothin’ against you, Tyson. I think you’re cool in that quiet, nerdy way. But shit, you’re seventeen, and he’s twenty-five. He’d be fucked if anyone found out. We’re talking jail and the sex offender registry.”
My breath caught in my throat as everything started to lock into place. He hadn’t wanted to finish things with me. His words in his car were meant to hurt so I’d hate him, but it was all to push me away from him. He was trying to do the right thing, but it didn’t mean I’d forgive him. He should have told me. I’d have understood, but he decided to take it all on his shoulders because…he didn’t think I could handle it.
He didn’t think I could handle it.
Was I just a delicate person on the brink of disaster to him? Is that how he saw me?
“Miss Sayer?” a voice called.
I took one last look at Ford, absorbed all of his words, and then erected my wall so high no one would ever be able to climb it again. Cade may have been protecting himself, but now it was my turn to do the same.
Chapter Fifteen
ARIA
Boxes filled with everything I’d collected in the seventeen years of my life surrounded every surface. My bed was dismantled and ready to be taken to the moving truck. My drawers were empty, my closet bare, and all that was left was the bedside table I kept my secrets in.
“Aria? You nearly finished?” Lola asked from the bathroom.
The apartment was full of people helping us move from this apartment to the new house Sal had bought. I hadn’t seen it. I hadn’t wanted to see it. They were starting a new life, and I wasn’t sure there was any space for me in it anymore.
Things were changing, more than they ever had before, and all I wanted was something to—
I darted to my bedside table and plucked out my black case. The case I stared at for way too many hours to be healthy. It held all the secrets that kept me sane. Secrets no one could know about. No one but Cade.
Footsteps echoed closer, and I spun around, hiding the case behind my back. “Aria?” Lola asked.
“I’m finished,” I told her.
She smiled at me, but it was a sad kind of smile. They all knew what had happened last week at school. My week suspension was coming to a close, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about going back to school on Monday.
I’d kept myself buried away in my room for so many hours, and now it was coming to an end. I’d be somewhere new. Somewhere I hadn’t grown up. The thought had my gut churning.
“I’m gonna take this out into the living room for the guys,” Lola said, holding up a box of toiletries. As she walked away, I took one last look at my room. It had been my salvation when I’d needed it most. I inhaled a deep breath and shook my head. This apartment was haunted with memories, so maybe it’d be a good thing moving out of it.
I unzipped my school backpack and shoved the case inside it, not wanting anyone to stumble across it as the boxes were being moved across town, or for it to get lost. I couldn’t lose the one thing I needed most in this world.
Laughter filled the apartment as I moved down the hallway, but as soon as I stepped into the living room, it all drifted away. I’d stared at the same spot for hours and hours at a time, but I’d never looked at it knowing it was the last time.
The carpet had been replaced because the bloodstains couldn’t be scrubbed out of it, but that didn’t mean his body wasn’t still there. His ghost haunted the spot, and I swore this part of the living room was colder.
The space where his chair used to sit was empty. It had been since that morning. Nothing could ever replace what was once there, both Mom and I knew that, and neither of us tried to put anything there. It was a silent agreement we’d stuck to.
My body swayed forward, and I placed my clammy palm against the cool wall. I stared at it in shock, remembering the blood splattered over it.
“Aria?” Mom frowned as I stepped back. “Honey, what’s going on?” I shook my head, my mouth opening and closing like a fish, but no words would come out. “Is it because we’re moving?”
I turned to look at her, my feet unsteady. “Dad,” I managed to croak out.
She heaved a breath, almost as if she was fed up with hearing his name. “Stop thinking about it.” Her voice was different now, farther away, but closer all at the same time. I stared at her, really stared at her, and realized how much she’d changed. The sadness that used to surround her was replaced with happiness, and the slump of her shoulders wasn’t there any longer.
“I—”
“It was nine years ago,” Mom ground out, her tone telling me she didn’t want to talk about it. She never wanted to talk about it, and that was part of the problem. She never wanted to speak to me about what I’d seen. She never wanted to acknowledge what I saw on a day-to-day basis. She never wanted to admit what had happened.
“Nine years, ten months, and sixteen days,” I croaked out, backing up another step and causing my back to hit the wall. My skin crawled at being pressed against it, but it was stopping me from falling.
“Aria—”