Worst of all, I’d gone and blurted out my darkest secret to him only moments ago, thinking it was what he wanted to hear. So now he knew everything about me. Even the parts I wanted to keep hidden forever.
The bed dipped as he sat down, shoulders sagging.
I was tempted to slap him again, right across the face, but as I looked at his sad blue eyes peering up at the necklace, something in my heart cracked.
He was devastated. It was written all over his face.
Grief was a demon, and it had obviously broken him, filling him with darkness. He needed to feed that darkness to cope with it, and it had grown so hungry that only other people’s suffering could sate it.
It wasn’t an excuse. Not for the horrendous way he’d treated me. But I understood.
He was trying to cope with the reality of his sister’s death by treating it as a mystery that needed solving. A mystery with an evil villain at the center. It was his way of escaping the pain. Escaping the horrible truth of what really happened that night.
In order to do it, he needed to find someone to blame. Someone to suffer his wrath.
That person—the villain—ended up being me.
My anger was still simmering beneath the surface, but now it was accompanied by feelings of compassion for him. Feelings I thought I buried long ago.
I sat down next to Hunter. “Sorry for hitting you,” I muttered.
He leaned forward, cupping his head in his hands. “Don’t,” he muttered. “Don’t say you’re sorry.”
“But—”
He cut me off. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Fuck, Laney… I’m so sorry. I did all of this to you, and I was wrong. So fucking wrong.”
“Yeah, you were.”
“You should call the police.”
“Why?”
“So you can ruin my life like I tried to ruin yours.” His voice cracked with desperation as he spoke. He sounded as broken as he looked.
“I don’t know if I can do that,” I murmured.
He rubbed his face. “You have to. I can’t be here anymore. I just… fuck!” He looked up at me. “Call the police, Laney. Tell them what I did.”
I could’ve done just that. His phone was right there on the nightstand, and I knew the code.
Instead my fingers twitched on my lap, itching to touch his hair. His face. His body.
I should hate him. I shouldn’t wonder what it would be like to throw my arms around him and comfort him instead. But I couldn’t help it.
I finally darted out a hand and put it on his left leg. “Why do you think someone killed Lindsay?” I asked. “I thought it was ruled a suicide.”
“It was,” he said. “But…”
“But what?” I said gently.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I need it to be someone else’s fault,” he muttered. “Otherwise it’s mine.”
My brows knitted. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, I told you my story, so I’d like to hear yours now.”