Page 144 of Sunkissed Colorado

“I had to try. I need to explain this to you first, because you’re the one who was hurt most by it. I had to tell you to your face that I’m sorry.”

“You’resorry?” Conflicting emotions flashed through me. Sorrow for the fact that he’d lost his sister. Building anger at his seeming admission that he’d hurt me. “Did you start the fire at Hearthstone?”

“No.”

“Tell me the truth, Leo. That’s the only way this will work.”

“I didn’t do it. But I know who did. I’ll tell you, but I need you to sit down first. There’s a lot I have to explain.” He nodded at me. “Your voice. That’s from the fire?”

“The smoke.” My stomach churned, nausea rising.

A look of despair crossed his face. “This is awful. All of it.”

If Leo was faking, he was putting on quite a show.

The chair scraped against the floor as I pulled it out and sat down. “Then go ahead. Explain it to me.”

Leo brought up his hands to swipe his fingers through his hair, and the metal cuffs jangled on his wrists. “I guess it starts way back. Even before Jessa died.” He was quiet for a moment, like he was gathering his thoughts. “My sister and I…we argued a few days before.”

I sat forward, putting my elbows on the table. “I remember. What was that about?”

“Well, I…” He grimaced. “I read her diary.”

“You didwhat? You read your big sister’s diary?” I huffed. “Not okay.”

It was strange how I suddenly felt pulled back to those days. Remembering Jessa. How alive she had been, how vibrant. It almost made me want to laugh, thinking of how animated Jessa would get when talking about her arguments with her brother.

I was so eager for any new trace of her. Maybe that was another reason I’d come here to see her brother.

“I’d seen her texting with someone,” Leo went on. “She’d put the name in her phone as ‘Him.’ In her diary, she wrote about having a secret. She’d written that she felt bad about this secret, and she didn’t know what to do. It had to be about this guy. I couldn’t let some creep mess with my sister.”

“She didn’t tell me his name either. That was her choice.”

“But if Jessa was keeping the guy’s identity from even you, that seemed like a bad sign. Right?”

I’d had a similar thought back then. If I’d read that stuff in her diary, I would have freaked out too. Why hadn’t Jessa told me this secret if it was upsetting her?

Was itreallyabout her crush, or about something else?

“A few days before she died, I confronted her about it. Demanded to know who this guy was. And she wouldn’t tell me. Yelled at me for invading her privacy and said I was way off base.”

I blew out a breath. “Okay, but why are you telling me thisnow? With everything that’s going on?”

“Because I believed you after she died. You said there had been someone else there at the creek that night. Who else could it be but the guy she was supposed to meet?Him.”

Chills raced over my skin. “But who could it have been? The police thought I imagined hearing someone else’s voice, but they still checked on where our school’s football players were that night. Everyone was at the bonfire.”

Leo looked down at his hands. “I know. I was at the bonfire too. Getting drunk off my ass while my sister was… How could anyone be sure we were all there the whole entire time?”

The same thing I’d always wondered.

Yet Leo didn’t know who Jessa’s crush was, and neither did I. Maybe it was wishful thinking, the idea that somebody else was there that night.Somebodywas responsible. When it could just as likely have been a terrible, random accident.

It would’ve been so much easier to have someone to blame. But that didn’t make ittrue.

“What does any of this have to do with the fire at Hearthstone?” My voice cracked from using it so much. “Or the fact that someone has been harassing me and did the same to me back in high school. Accusing me of being a murderer. Maybe even the same person who spread the rumors that I pushed Jessa into the creek. I assume you heard the rumors too?”

He glanced down guiltily. “I’m just trying to make you understand. Some people might’ve thought you were responsible for Jessa’s death. But I never did. I knew how much you loved my sister.”