Page 26 of Almost Ravaged

“I’d rather be tired than groggy,” he defends. “Plus, if I nap, there’s a chance I won’t wake up for two days.”

Another yawn catches me off guard. “That, I understand.” I shift from hip to hip, working out the tightness in my low back. “I plan to go with you later. To the ice arena.”

He doesn’t object, but his jaw ticks, a clear sign that he’s holding back his thoughts on the matter.

Whatever.

I’m more at ease when the three of us are together. There’s no other way to describe it. It’s easier to function, easier to breathe. I don’t have to pretend quite so hard when Atty and Ty are by my side. I won’t apologize for wanting to stick close. Even if that damn jaw tic prods at my anxiety. I don’t want to be alone anymore. Not after we fought like hell to get here.

Our lives imploded that fateful day in May.

We drove north that night, and for two days, we stayed in a motel. It was Atty’s idea, and a damn good one. We’d been gone for hours before the incident. All it took was a few texts and social media posts to lock in our alibi. It was easy to sell the story that we were just three kids on a birthday weekend road trip that took them farther from home than originally planned.

With our parents gone, there was no one around to contradict our story.

Investigators eventually tracked us down. None of us had to fake it when they delivered the news, along with their theory.

Mr. Tremblay violently attacked and killed my parents. His motivation was a personal grudge and greed. A few of the guys he worked with down at the yard confirmed he’d been ranting for days about being “owed” an allowance that the provence paid my parents to foster Ty.

We left the gun near my dad’s body when we left the house that day.

We’re damn lucky there wasn’t a more thorough investigation.

No one ever suspected we were there. No one but the three of us will ever know the truth.

We didn’t have access to the house right away. Thankfully Ty was already eighteen and could book a motel for the three of us for a few weeks.

We spent most of that summer in a zombie-like state. We were numb. Hollow. Devastated, with no one else to talk to and no way to begin processing what had happened.

To this day, Atty doesn’t know I pulled the trigger.

It’s my darkest secret, but one I’ve never regretted.

When summer ended, we went our separate ways, sticking to the plans we’d made before our lives fell apart.

I went to school, while the boys played for the Scorpions until the day before Tytus turned twenty-one. That’s the rule: even one game past twenty-one, and a player is ineligible for the NCAA.

After three months off, they’re itching to be back on the ice and part of a team.

Me?

I’m just glad we’re finally together.

We made it. No one here knows our history. The ghosts and the guilt will be quieter.

And the three of us will be together. Regularly.Finally.

For three years, I’ve only seen the boys sporadically. I’d drive up to visit on occasion, and they’d pop in during rare breaks from games and practice. They stayed with the same billet family for two years but were separated last year when their original family moved and they were given new placements.

A handful of times a year, when they played near me and my school schedule allowed, we would get special permission from their coach and book a suite at the hotel where the team was staying.

Those weekends were my saving grace. They kept me going and pushed me to stay on track.

Now we’ll be on the same campus, at the same school, and just a few minutes’ walk from each other’s dorms. The relief that knowledge provides has finally allowed my nervous system to regulate, at least a little.

“What?” I goad when Atty stays silent. If he has an opinion about my need to tag along to the ice arena, he might as well get it out of the way now. He won’t change my mind, but it’ll prevent us from getting into it later.

He shakes his head, dismissing the notion, then opens his arms to me in offering.