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Rowan’s words shocked him. He hadn’t expected her to tell him that she’d killed someone. Had he misunderstood her meaning? Maybe that was it. He needed to say something, but the words had frozen on his tongue. It took him a moment to recover enough to speak.

“Um, I’m sure you?—“

“I meant to kill him. I pulled the trigger and ended his life.”

The sorrow in her voice was heartbreaking. He wished he was with her so he could hold her. “Tell me what happened.”

He heard something clinking in the background, as if she was grabbing something to drink. "It was a year after the crash, and my mom had remarried. I didn't know the man well, but he was living in our house. I was taking classes at the local university. Doing things like staying up late studying and sleeping in. Mom went to work, and he came into my room while I was asleep. He crawled into my bed and woke me up. He tried to play it off as no big deal, that he'd crawled into my bed by mistake. You know how it goes. His old place had his room where mine was along the hall, yada yada yada."

“Fucker. He deserved to be shot for that.”

"Oh, it gets worse. The next week, he came to my bed naked. I got away from him at first. I ran to the bathroom, and he kept trying to break into it. Eventually, he left me alone. But when I left the bathroom and headed back to my room, he came at me again. I ran and ended up in their room. I was trapped, and he made his move. He was on me, trying to get my underwear off. He got it off, but I punched him in the nose and got away. He came after me with a baseball bat, threatening to beat me. I ran outside and made it to his truck. He kept a gun in the storage bin beside the front seat. I grabbed the gun, but he pulled me out of the truck by the legs. He was standing with the bat above his head. I knew it was over. He yelled something about beating me, and I knew if he started swinging the bat, I'd be dead. So I shot him."

Shine felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. She’d been through so much. “I’m so sorry. What you went through was awful.”

“It sucked. The only reason the cops didn’t charge me is my neighbor was outside and saw it all. They said I had no choice. The neighbor said he heard my mom’s husband say he was going to kill me.”

“You did the right thing.”

“Still, it weighs on me.”

“I’m sure it does. But you weren’t at fault.”

She let go of a heavy sigh that sounded like she was releasing the weight of the world. "I've never told anyone that story. Well, a therapist, but no one else."

“Thank you for telling me.”

She blew out another breath that sounded like relief. “I was worried. ”

“I think we both have things in our pasts we wish had gone differently.”

“You can say that again. My mom didn’t forgive me until last year. She was pissed that I killed him. Didn’t care that he was coming after me with a bat and tried to rape me.”

Anger slid through him. He wished he could tell her mother that she was totally wrong about the situation. Rowan had done the only thing she could in that situation.

“What changed her mind?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, when I see you, I’m going to give you an extra-long hug. What you did took strength.”

He wanted to see her soon. When he did get together with her, he really hoped they clicked because he wanted this to work. She seemed like the type of person he could really be with. He hoped his instinct was right. He wanted Rowan in his life for a long time.