Page 35

Five Years Before

He’d always known he was going to hurt her. From that first kiss, he’d known. It was unavoidable. She was planning this forever life for them, but he knew it wasn’t going to happen. He was going to ruin it.

That was why he’d applied to that other school, not the one he and Amber agreed to go to together, but the one a thousand miles away. He was surprised when he’d gotten in, more surprised when they’d offered him nearly a full ride if he wrestled for them. And most surprised of all that he wanted to go.

He didn’t know how to tell her. He knew that he would hurt her. He’d always known.

And then one day, just before senior year, Casey had texted him to come over. She needed to ask him something. He’d assumed it was something about Amber, so he’d gone. But what Casey had asked him was: “Do you think I’m pretty?”

He should’ve said no. He should’ve said, “Doesn’t matter what I think because I have a girlfriend I love and you have a best friend you love.”

But instead, he said yes. And when she’d kissed him, he’d kissed her back.

See? He was fated to hurt Amber. He understood now why Mr. Crane had changed his tune about . It wasn’t that he and Amber had slept together. It was that he’d known who really was.

His mama worked at the hospital where Amber was brought. She knew first. She called to warn him. The next day when the police came to see him, she rushed home from work.

“Don’t you dare question my boy!”

she shrieked. “He’s a child who just lost the love of his life.”

“We aren’t questioning him,”

the policewoman had said, but could feel her clocking the black eye Casey’s father had given him. “We’re just trying to see if anyone has any information on the driver.”

“He doesn’t!”

his mama had said. “And he didn’t even have the car that day. I did. I was at the hospital. Check the parking lot security footage.”

When they left, his mama seemed relieved but was bereft. He’d wanted to be taken away in cuffs. To be punished.

He didn’t go to the funeral. How could he? How could he face her family? They’d known all along.

When the private detective showed up a few years later, wanting to know not just where had been the afternoon of Amber’s death, but who he’d been with, why he hadn’t graduated from school or gone on to any of the colleges that had accepted him, had been relieved. He’d invited the man in. Had brought him to his bedroom, showed him photos of him and Amber, the sheaf of drawings he continued to make of her after her death.

Half an hour into the visit, his mama had come home and found them in ’s room. “Who are you ?”

she asked, and when the man introduced himself as Earl Simcox and produced a business card reading Private Detective, she grew enraged. “Get the hell out of my house. Don’t think I don’t know why you’re after my boy. You got nothing. You aren’t even police.”

The man left. wanted to call him back. He wanted to tell someone. So bad. It was eating him alive. Literally. Since Amber had died, he had dropped fifty pounds without so much as trying.

He looked Earl Simcox up online. He was easy to find. drove out to his office.

The detective seemed surprised—and oddly protective. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

was the first thing he asked.

“Do you think I killed Amber Crane?”

asked.

Mr. Simcox blanched, as if he’d been singed by shame. recognized the feeling.

“I’m a private detective. I just do what I’m paid to do.”

told the detective everything. When he finished, he held out his hands in front of him, as he had seen criminals on TV shows do before being handcuffed.

But the detective was not a cop. And he didn’t have handcuffs. So when put his wrists together, ready to fall on the sword, all the detective did was take his shaking wrists in his own hands.

“Son,”

he said, though they both knew was not his son, was not any man’s son. Never had been, never would be. “Oh, son.”