Текст книги "One Tiny Lie "

Автор книги: K. A. Tucker

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

“Come on!” Reagan finally squeals, jumping up and down with impatience.

“Okay, okay.” I yank my hair back into a high ponytail and stand, stretching my arms over my head once more before I start following her down the street. It’s a cool, gray day with off-and-on drizzle, another strike against this running idea. Reagan swears that the local forecast promised sunshine within the hour. I think she’s lying to me but I don’t argue. Things have still been kind of strange between us since her dad’s party. That’s why, when she asked me to go running with her today, I immediately agreed, slick roads and all.

“If we take this all the way to the end and turn back, that’s two miles. Can you handle that?” Reagan asks, adding, “We can stop and walk if you flake out.”

“Flakes are good at walking,” I say with a grin.

She sniffs her displeasure. “Yeah, well, you probably lose weight when you sneeze.”

It takes a few minutes but soon we manage a good side-by-side pace, where my long, slow strides match her short, quick legs well. That’s when she bursts. “Why didn’t you tell me about your parents?” I can’t tell if she’s angry. I’ve never seen Reagan angry. But I can tell by the way she bites her bottom lip and furrows her brow that she’s definitely hurt.

I don’t know what else to say except, “It just never came up. I swear. That’s the only reason. I’m sorry.”

She’s silent for a moment. “Is it because you don’t like talking about it?”

I shrug. “No. I mean, it’s not like I avoid talking about it.” Not like my sister, who shoved everything into a tomb with a slow-burning stick of dynamite. Since the morning I woke up to find Aunt Darla sitting by my bed with puffy eyes and a Bible in her hand, I’ve just accepted it. I had to. My sister was barely alive and I needed to focus on her and on keeping us going. And so, at eleven years old and still half-dead from a flu that saved me from the car accident in the first place, I got out of bed and showered. I picked up the phone to notify my school, my parents’ schools. I walked next door to tell our neighbors. I helped Aunt Darla pack up our things to move. I helped fill out insurance paperwork. I made sure I was enrolled in the new school right away. I made sure everyone who needed to know knew that my parents were gone.

We run in silence for a few moments before Reagan says, “You know you can tell me anything you want to, right?”

I smile down at my tiny friend. “I know.” I pause. “And you know you can tell me anything, right?”

Her wide, cheery grin—with those cute dimples just under her eyes—answers for her.

I decide that this is the perfect time to divert the topic completely. “Like you can stop pretending that you and Grant aren’t together.” I manage to grab hold of Reagan’s arm just in time to keep her from diving into the pavement. When she has regained her balance, she turns to stare wide-eyed at me, her cheeks flaming. “I thought you were impervious to blushing, Reagan.”

“You can’t say anything!” she hisses, her ponytail wagging as she checks to her left and right, her eyes narrowing at the bushes as if someone might be hiding behind there. “No one knows, Livie.”

“Are you serious? You think no one knows?” I watch with great satisfaction as her blush deepens. “I think everyone knows. Or at least suspects.” Connor made an off-hand comment the other day about Grant chasing Reagan around. I’ve even noticed Ty shaking his head at them a few times and if he’s clued in, then the rest of the world must be.

She bites her lip in thought. “Come on. We can’t just stand here.” We start back up at a light jog. “I guess it’s been brewing for a while. I’ve always liked him and he’s been flirting with me for the past year. Then I ran into him at the library one night. There was a quiet corner. No one was around . . .” She shrugs. “It just kind of happened.”

“In the library!” I squeal.

“Shhh!” Her hands wave in front of her as she runs, giggling.

“But . . .” I feel my face scrunch up. “Where?” I’ve been to that library plenty of times. I can’t think of any corner dark and secluded enough to do anything in besides read.

She grins impishly. “Why? Want to get your freak on with Connor?”

“No!” Just thinking of suggesting that to Connor makes me scowl at Reagan.

That doesn’t dissuade her, though. With a quirked eyebrow, she asks, “Ashton?”

I feel the burn crawl up my neck. “There’s nothing going on between us.”

“Livie, I saw you two at Shawshanks the other night. I see the looks you give him. When are you going to admit it?”

“What? That I have a roommate with an overactive imagination?”

I get an eye roll. “You know that the more time passes, the harder this is going to get, right?”

“No, it won’t, because nothing is going on between us!” Remembering, I ask, “Hey, did he break up with Dana?”

She shrugs. “I haven’t heard anything, but with him, who knows. Ashton’s a vault.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he could have a dozen brothers and sisters and you’d never know.” Reagan breaks to chug a mouthful of water from her bottle. Wiping her arm across her mouth, she continues, “My dad makes a point of knowing his team. You know—their families, their grades, their majors, their plans after college . . . He thinks of them all as his boys.” Thinking back to the big, burly man from the weekend and all the pats on the back and the questions, I can see what she means. “But he knows very little about his own captain. Almost nothing.”

“Huh . . . I wonder why.” Small alarm bells start ringing in my head.

“Grant thinks it has something to do with his mom dying.”

My feet stop moving. They just stop. Reagan slows to jog in place.

“How?” I ask, taking a deep breath. Meeting other people who lost their parents always strikes a chord deep within me. Even complete strangers can instantly become friends through that kind of familiarity.

“No, clue, Livie. I only know because I was eavesdropping on him and my dad one night in our study. But that’s all that my dad managed to get out of him. He has a way of evading topics. I mean . . . you’ve met Ashton. You know what he’s like.”

“Yeah, I do.” With a growing pain in my stomach, I also know that not talking about things like that normally means there’s a reason. A bad reason.

“Come on.” She gives my butt a slap and starts moving forward again.

I’m forced to join her, though I don’t feel like running anymore. I want to sit and think. Vaguely remembering what Connor told me at Tiger Inn, I ask, “Have you met his dad?”

“At the fall race. He’s usually there with a woman.”

“A wife?”

“I’ve seen a few different ones over the past four years. Maybe they’re wives. Who knows? Then again, Ashton fell from that tree, so . . .” She turns to give me a pointed stare.

“And what’s he like?”

“He seems normal enough.” There’s a pause. “Though I get a weird vibe around them together. Like Ashton’s very careful about what he says and does.”

So Connor’s not the only one who senses something off . . .

“Anyway, so what if he did?”

“So what if he did . . . what?” I repeat slowly, not understanding.

“What if he broke up with Dana?”

“Oh.” Reagan may avoid awkward situations, but she doesn’t hold back on asking the hard questions. I like that about her. Right now, though, I could do without the interrogation. “Then nothing. I’m with Connor. I think.”

“Yeah, what’s going on with you two anyway? Have you . . .” She raises her brow suggestively.

I only shake my head and mutter, “You’re as bad as my sister. No. We’re taking it slow and easy.”

“Sounds boring if you ask me,” she mutters dryly. ”I’ll bet you’d take it hard and fast with Ashton.”

“Reagan!” I give her a playful shove and she starts giggling. But the thought has my stomach doing cartwheels. What if I were with Ashton instead of Connor? No. Impossible.

“You just seem so different around Ashton. And anything to do with Ashton.”

I snort. “Angry?”

She grins. “Passionate.”

Desperate to get the topic off me, I ask, “So are you and Grant together?”

Deftly leaping over a puddle, Reagan says, “I’m not sure yet. We’re pretty casual. Not ready to throw a label on it. Yet.” She ducks her head, a shy smile touching her lips. “I’m crazy about him, though, Livie. If I see him with another girl, I’ll probably go apeshit and kill them both.”

I frown, trying to picture Grant with someone else. I can’t, what with the way he trails Reagan like a lovesick puppy. And then I wonder if Connor is seeing other girls because we haven’t put a label on anything. What if he is? Does “slow and easy” mean “open to date”? If I saw him with another girl, would I also go apeshit? The girls introducing themselves at Tiger Inn made me realize that Connor could probably have his pick of women, but it didn’t really bother me. An image of Ashton kissing Dana flashes through my head and my stomach instantly falls. I know it’s not right but I recognize that now for what is was, aside from shock. Jealousy. It bothered me. As did hearing that girl at the bar talk about him. And then touching his arm after.

Reagan’s sigh pulls me out of my head and back into our conversation. “Whatever it is, we have to keep it under wraps until Grant is done with school.”

My responding frown tells her I don’t understand why.

“My dad! Aren’t you listening? Oh, Livie.” She gives an exasperated look. “Sometimes I wonder where your head is . . . My dad isn’t crazy about him.”

“Why?”

“He thinks Grant doesn’t take life seriously. Grant’s afraid he’ll kick him off the team if he finds out.”

“But . . . he’s going to Princeton. How much more serious can he get?” I say with a disbelieving snort.

“Serious enough not to do it in the library with the Coach’s daughter,” she mutters, picking up her speed.

Fair enough.

The rain has started up again. It’s a light, cool drizzle and it doesn’t take long to soak through my navy shirt. But I don’t mind it at all. The route Reagan has chosen is a tranquil street through a Pleasantvillesque neighborhood of pretty houses and manicured lawns and large trees, just starting to change colors. It feels good to be away from campus. I feel as though a weight has fallen off my shoulders. Maybe I’m spending too much time there, letting it become a bubble. I let the quiet environment envelop me as I enjoy my escape, focusing on my breathing, surprised that I’m keeping up with Reagan as well as I am.

And I think about Ashton. I wonder about his life, about his parents, about his mother. I wonder how he lost her. Was the cause of death sudden, like a car accident? Or was it an illness, like cancer? Thinking back to our conversation that first week, to his reaction when I told him that I was planning on going into pediatrics and specifically oncology, I have to think that it was cancer.

We haven’t reached the end of the street when Reagan hollers, “Let’s turn around. I’m getting cold and we have almost a mile back home.” She crosses the street to retrace our steps on the other side. “Do you think you can manage a bit faster? This rain sucks.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t trust that weather station anymore,” I call out wryly, sucking back a mouthful of water. My mouth is so parched that my tongue hurts, but I don’t want to overdo the liquids for fear of cramps.

“What weather station?” She glances over her shoulder to give me an impish wink as I speed up, trying to catch her. That only makes her run faster. Too fast for me, I decide, keeping a few paces behind, gazing out on the quiet road ahead. It’s long, with bumps and dips that we’ll need to navigate through, and I need to direct my focus or I’m liable to trip over my own feet.

On the opposite side of the street—the route we were just on—I spot a lone figure jogging. Another insane person out in this weather. My eyes flicker back and forth between the road and the silhouette as I continue. Soon, it’s close enough that I can identify a male. Even closer, I see dark, shaggy hair.

It’s Ashton.

With evenly paced steps, sleek movements, and a stony face, Ashton runs like a well-trained athlete. One in a drenched white T-shirt that clings to every ridge of his chest. And I can’t peel my eyes off of him. My heart is already pounding from the run but now I feel an adrenaline rush coursing through my body, giving me a boost of energy. I feel like I could run ten miles today, like I could leap over cars, like I could—

My hands just barely stop my face from smashing against the sidewalk.

I guess I made enough noise in my fall to alert Reagan, because she screams my name and rushes back. “Are you all right?”

I wince as I pull myself up, a sharp pain shooting through my ankle, a sting in my palm. “Yeah, I’m—” My words end in a hiss as another pain jolts me. “I must have tripped over that ridge in the sidewalk.”

She walks over to inspect the concrete and frowns. “You mean this small, imperceptible hairline crack?”

With a curse under my breath, I mutter, “I warned you.”

“You did. Now what are we going to do?” Biting her bottom lip in, she slides her phone out of her hoodie pocket. “I’ll see if Grant is around. Maybe he can pick us up.”

“That was impressive, Irish!” Ashton calls out between breaths as he crosses the street toward us. Reagan looks up at him in surprise—as if she hadn’t noticed him running this way. I watch as her eyes drop slightly and widen. Exactly. How on earth could you not have noticed that running down the street, Reagan! She fixes me with a knowing stare, telling me that her dirty little sex-in-the-library mind has connected the dots that led to my tumble. “Hi, Ashton,” she offers with a playful lilt, still looking at me.

He gives her a quick nod before crouching down on one knee. While he inspects my ankle, I listen to his ragged pants and swallow the sudden pooling saliva in my mouth. How is there pooling saliva in my mouth? A minute ago I was parched! The pressure from his fingers, though gentle, makes me flinch, bringing me back to reality.

“Can you stand?” he asks, those gorgeous brown eyes full of concern.

“I don’t know,” I mumble, and struggle to get to my feet. His hands are at my waist in an instant to help me. It’s immediately obvious that I’m not going to be jogging or even walking home. “I think it’s sprained.” I’ve sprained my ankle enough times to know the feeling.

“I’m calling Grant,” Reagan announces, holding up her phone.

Suddenly I’m off the ground, cradled in Ashton’s strong arms, and he’s walking down the street, his hands somehow searing my skin through my clothes. “I’m not standing out here in the rain, waiting for Cleaver to show up,” Ashton throws back.

“Where are we going?” I ask, knowing that our dorm is a mile back in the opposite direction.

Focusing straight ahead, he murmurs, “I’m taking you back to my place, Irish.” By his crooked lip, I know that the innuendo is intentional. But it quickly slides away and he murmurs in a softer tone, “Put your arm around my shoulder. It’ll make this easier.”

I obediently lift my arm and drape it around the back of Ashton’s neck, resting my hand on his shoulder, my thumb settling next to a tear in his collar. I can feel his muscles strain under my weight. I wonder how long they can hold me.

Reagan must too because she runs up beside us to exclaim, “It’s far, though!”

“Half a mile, tops. Go.” He jerks his chin forward and then winks at her. “You don’t want Grant seeing that ass get fat again, do you?”

Mentioning the legendary fat ass is motivation enough. Sticking her tongue out at him and shooting me a pointed look, she takes off down the street at an even faster speed than before. Leaving me alone with Ashton.

“Sorry about the sweat, Irish. You caught me in the middle of a long run,” he murmurs, brown eyes darting to me before shifting back to the road.

“That’s okay. I don’t mind,” I say, my voice cracking. And I don’t, I realize, even though his body is drenched head to toe. I’m not sure if it’s from rain or sweat. His hair is plastered to his head and face, but it still manages to wisp out at the ends in that sexy way. I see a droplet of water running down his cheek and I feel the urge to reach up and wipe it away but I’m not sure if that’s too intimate, so I don’t. But my heart still starts pounding harder than it ever was while I was running.

“Stop staring, Irish.”

“I wasn’t.” I turn to look down the street, my cheeks burning, embarrassed to be caught. Yet again.

He jostles my shoulders slightly as he adjusts his grip.

“Do you need to put me down?”

He smirks. “Eight years of rowing makes carrying you pretty easy, Irish.”

“I guess.” Eight years. That definitely explains his ridiculously fit upper body. “You must really enjoy it.”

With a sigh, he murmurs, “Yeah, it’s relaxing, being out on the water, focused on an end goal. It’s easy to shut everything else out.”

Ashton’s head jerks to the side. I see another raindrop running along his cheek and realize that he’s trying to shake if off since he can’t brush it away.

“Here,” I murmur, reaching up to help him. Dark eyes flash to me with a scowl and my hand instantly recoils. I must have misread that. I shouldn’t have . . . But he’s not scowling at me, I soon recognize. He’s scowling at the nasty red scrape across my palm that I earned with my fall. Distracted by my ankle and by Ashton, I had forgotten about it.

“You should really think about never running again, Irish,” he mutters.

“And you should think about wearing more clothes while you run,” I snap back, my anger flaring without warning, followed quickly by heat crawling up to my hairline.

“And why is that, Irish?”

Running my tongue over my teeth to buy myself time, I decide to ignore his question. “I could have waited for Grant.”

“And died from pneumonia,” he retorts in exasperation, adjusting his grip once again. The movement shakes my leg, which shakes my foot, which shoots a pain up my leg. But I fight the urge to wince because I don’t want to make him feel bad.

Ashton settles into a quiet, fast-paced walk with his eyes straight ahead, and so I assume all conversation is over.

“I’m sorry about your parents.” It’s so quiet I almost miss it.

I peek at him from the corner of my eye to see him staring straight ahead, his face a mask.

I’m sorry about your mom, too.

It’s on the tip of my tongue but I bite it back. Reagan was eavesdropping, after all. She’s not supposed to know. I’m not supposed to know. Not unless he tells me.

So I don’t say anything. I simply nod and wait in silence for him to make the next move. He doesn’t, though. There’s another extremely long, awkward pause, where neither of us talks. Where Ashton stares straight ahead as he walks, and my eyes shift back and forth between his face and the turning colors of the trees. Where I soak up his body heat, acutely aware that I’m covered in his sweat. Where I feel his heartbeat and try to synchronize my own heartbeat against it. And then acknowledge that that is utterly ridiculous.

I can’t handle this silence.

“I can’t believe Reagan’s dad knew them,” I say casually, adding, “and that he recognized my mother in me. I didn’t know that we looked that much alike.”

Ashton’s brow furrows deeply. “You remember what she looks like, don’t you?”

“Yeah. But my parents lost all of their childhood and college pictures in a flood one year, so I never got to see her at the age I am now.”

I sense my fingertips rubbing across warm skin and realize that at some point in my reverie, my hand staged a mutiny against my common sense and slid under the collar of Ashton’s shirt. I watch my fingers still drawing little circles as if of their own free will. And, seeing as I’m feeling all kinds of brave today and seeing as it’s a fairly innocuous question that a person who didn’t know the answer would ask, I decide to ask it, keeping my voice casual and light. “What about your parents?”

There’s a pause. “What about them?” He tries to sound bored but by the way his arms constrict around me, the way the muscles in his neck spasm, I know immediately that I’ve hit a nerve.

“I don’t know . . .” Turning to look out on the road, I murmur casually, “Tell me about them.”

“There’s not much to tell.” The bored tone has switched to annoyed. “Why? What has Reagan heard?”

Keeping my focus ahead, I take a deep breath and decide not to lie. “That your mother’s . . . gone?”

I feel Ashton exhale. “That’s right. She’s gone.” It’s very matter-of-fact and doesn’t invite further questions.

I don’t know what makes me push my luck. “What about your father?”

“He’s not . . .unfortunately.” The contempt is unmistakable. “Leave it alone, Irish.”

“Okay, Ashton.”

By the time we reach their house, I’ve asked Ashton at least five more times if he wants to rest his arms and he’s told me at least five more times to shut up about him needing to put me down.

And we’ve said nothing else.

He marches right past Reagan—freshly showered and drowning in a pair of Grant’s sweats—and a curious Grant, and upstairs, past the communal bathroom, to the bathroom within his bedroom. He gently sets me on the counter.

The corresponding groan tells me he should have put me down long ago.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, guilt washing over me.

Reagan and Grant appear in the doorway as Ashton stretches his arms in front of his chest and then over his head with another groan.

“Look at those big, strong muscles,” Grant says with an exaggerated lisp, reaching out to squeeze Ashton’s biceps.

“Fuck off, Cleaver,” he snaps, swatting his hand away. He grabs a towel from the hook and starts patting my hair and face with it.

“What! I was going to go pick you up, but Reagan said you two wanted to—” Reagan’s sharp elbow to Grant’s ribs shuts him up mid-sentence.

“Here. Tea.” Reagan hands me a steaming mug.

One sip tells me it’s not just tea. “You spiked the drink of an injured person,” I state flatly, the alcohol burning in my throat. “Who does that?”

“It’s better than what a lame horse gets,” Reagan answers as she unlaces my shoe and slips off my sock. Air hisses through my gritted teeth. “How bad is it? Should we take you to the hospital?”

I see the purplish bruise around my instep and my swollen ankle. “No, it’s just a sprain, I think.”

“You’re not a doctor yet, Irish,” Ashton murmurs, leaning over to study it, and I see that the back of his shirt is like a second skin. Every ridge, every curve, every part of him is visible. Perfect. Where my body protected the front of him, his back took the brunt of the rain. If he’s cold, though, he doesn’t let on. “Let’s ice it for now but if it gets worse, I’m taking you to the hospital.” I nod, noting how Ashton takes over the situation, as if I have no say in the matter.

“These should help you.” Grant holds up a set of crutches. Seeing my frown, he explains. “They’re Ty’s. He sprains his ankle at least twice a year with a party injury. It’s good that he’s short. They should be about the right height for you.”

“He won’t mind?”

“Nah, he won’t need them until November. Like clockwork,” Grant says, and then peers down at my foot. He smiles.

I’m suddenly self-conscious. “What?”

With a shrug, he says, “You have sexy feet, Irish.” His words are quickly followed by a grunt as Reagan playfully smacks his chest.

“Stop ogling my roommate’s feet!”

“Fine, let me ogle yours.”

“Eww!” she squeals, ducking under his arm to tear out of the room, Grant chasing her.

“Bring some ice up!” Ashton hollers behind them, followed by, “The idiot’s going to get kicked off the team,” in a low mutter.

I watch him as he searches through the vanity cupboard and resurfaces with a first-aid kit in hand. “Not if the coach doesn’t find out. They’re happy together.”

Ashton freezes. It’s a good four seconds before his hands start moving again, pulling out antiseptic and bandages. “Do you want to call Connor to let him know you’re here?”

Connor. “Oh, yeah.” I hadn’t even thought about calling him. I kind of forgot about him . . . Not kind of. Completely. “He’s working on that paper at the library, right? I don’t want to disturb him.”

Cradling my injured hand in his, he looks up to ask me quietly, “Are you sure?”

And I get the feeling that he’s asking me something entirely different. Am I sure about Connor, perhaps.

The atmosphere in the room feels thicker suddenly, as my lungs work hard to drag air in and push it out, those dark eyes of his searching mine for an answer. “I think so,” is all I can manage.

He shudders, and I remember again that he’s sopping wet. “You need to change. You’re going to get sick,” I murmur, my eyes pointedly on his shirt.

Setting my injured hand down, he reaches back over his shoulders and pulls his shirt forward and over his head. Tossing it to a corner, he turns back to take my hand. And I’m facing the chest that I’ve not been able to dislodge from my brain for weeks. The one that instantly makes my breath hitch. The one that I’ve never had a chance to stare at so blatantly while sober. And I do stare now. Like a deer caught in headlights, I can’t seem to turn away as I take in all the ridges and curves.

“What does that mean?” I ask, jutting my chin toward the inked symbol over his heart.

Ashton doesn’t answer. He avoids the question completely by sliding his thumb across my bottom lip. “You have a bit of drool there,” he murmurs before turning his focus back to the scrape across my palm, allowing my face to burn without scrutiny.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I hear myself mutter as he shifts my palm over the sink. The leather band around his wrist catches my eye, the one he doesn’t seem to take off. Ever. Reaching over to tap it with my free hand, I ask, “What’s this for?”

“A lot of questions today, Irish.” By the way his jaw clenches, I know it’s another answer hidden in his vault.

Reagan was right. He doesn’t talk about anything personal. With a sigh, I watch him unscrew the cap off the antiseptic and hold my hand out. “It doesn’t even—” The word “hurt ” was supposed to come out of my mouth. Instead, a string of obscenities to make a lifelong sailor proud shoot out. “What the fuck are you doing? Shit! You don’t pour it on like that, you fucking jackhole! Fuck!” I’m seething in pain, the sting agonizing.

Ashton isn’t paying any heed, turning my hand this way and that to examine it closer. “Looks clean.”

“Yeah, because you just bleached the shit out of it!”

“Relax. It’ll stop stinging soon. Distract yourself by staring at me while we wait for this to settle down. That’s how you got yourself into this mess to begin with . . .” Amused eyes flash to mine for a second before dropping back to my hand. “Nice combination there, by the way. ‘Fucking jackhole’? Really?”

“I meant it in the nicest possible way,” I mutter, but it isn’t long before I’m fighting my lips from curling into a smile. I guess it is kind of funny. Or it will be when I can walk again . . . Determined not to give in to temptation, I let my eyes roam the small bathroom, taking in the tiles in the glass shower stall, the soothing off-white walls, the white fluffy towels . . .

And then I’m back to Ashton’s body because, let’s face it, it’s so much more appealing than tile and towels. Or anything else, for that matter. I study the black Native American–style bird on his inner forearm. It’s big—a good five inches long, its details intricate. Almost intricate enough to hide the ridge beneath it.

The scar.

My mouth opens to ask but then firmly shuts. Peering up at the sizeable Chinese script on his shoulder, I can see another ridge skillfully covered. Another hidden scar.

I swallow the nausea rising in my throat as I think about the day my sister came home with a giant tattoo of five black ravens on her thigh. It covers one of the more unpleasant scars from that night. Five birds—one for each person who died in that car that night. Including one for her. I didn’t know what it meant at the time. She didn’t tell me until two years ago.

With a heavy sigh, my eyes shift to the symbol on his chest once again to study it more closely.

And see another ridge so expertly concealed.

“What’s wrong?” Ashton asks as he unwraps a bandage. “You’re pale.”

“What—” I catch myself before I ask what happened, because I won’t get an answer. I avert my gaze to my scraped hand to think. Maybe it’s nothing. It’s probably nothing. People get tattoos to cover scars all the time . . .

But everything in my gut tells me that it’s not nothing.

I watch him affix the bandage over the scrape. It’s no longer stinging, but I’m not sure whether that’s due to time or the fact that my mind is working on overdrive, twisting and turning the puzzle pieces to see how they fit together. But I’m missing too many. Simple things like that leather band . . .

The leather band.

The leather band.

It’s not a leather band, I realize, peering closely at it.

I grab Ashton’s hand and hold it up to inspect the thin dark-brown strap—the stitching around the edges, the way the two ends meet with little snaps—to see that it likely was a belt at one time.

A belt.

A small gasp escapes my lips as my eyes fly from his arm to his shoulder and finally land on his chest, at the long scars hidden beneath the ink.

And I suddenly understand.

Dr. Stayner says that I see and feel others’ pain more acutely than the average person because of what I went through with Kacey. That I react to it more intensely. Maybe he’s right. Maybe that’s why my heart drops and nausea stirs in my stomach and tears trickle silently down my cheek.

Ashton’s low whisper pulls my attention to his face, to see the sad smile. “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that, Irish?” I catch his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. I’m still holding his wrist, but he doesn’t pull away from my grasp. He doesn’t pull away from my stare. And when my free hand reaches up to settle on his chest, over the symbol, over his heart, he doesn’t flinch.

I want to ask so many questions. How old were you? How many times? Why do you still wear it around your wrist? But I don’t. I can’t, because the image of a little boy flinching against the belt beneath my fingertips brings the tears on faster. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right, Ashton? I won’t tell anyone,” I hear myself whisper in a shaky voice.