Damn it, she shouldn’t have taken the pills. They made her foggy, and she suddenly realized she needed to be sharp right now.
She shook her head. This was all crazy. Utterly nuts. She couldn’t go through this again. She knew Josh was gone. Knew it in her soul.
So why were two people suddenly claiming he was still alive?
She looked blindly out into the blank night. The answers were there, if she was willing to face them. And Derek Allen was the key.
CHAPTER 30
After several hours of worrying, and shaking off the fear that crowded in to fuel her nightmares, Aubrey finally fell asleep in the hospital chair. She managed to stay under for a full hour. When she woke, the sun slinking through the blinds, she had a sleepy thought: Keep her head in the sand. Dismiss the craziness from last night as exactly that. The guy from the cafeteria was wrong. And Daisy, well, Daisy had suffered a head injury. Insisting Josh was alive . . .
So much for running from the truth.
Aubrey awakened more fully, finally allowing the thoughts she’d been trying to pretend she wasn’t having to come to the fore.
There was a clear resemblance between Josh and Chase. She’d seen it from the very beginning; that’s what had intrigued her in the first place. It wasn’t looks: Josh was fair, with blue eyes and brown hair. Chase had darker skin, not tan, just more olive, with coffee-colored eyes and blond hair. The basics were different. The bone structure was different. But there was something similar in the way they walked, the way they talked, the way they kissed, the way they made love. Something similar, but so very different.
Josh had a scar on the inside of his right thigh, and a constellation of freckles on his back with which Aubrey, for fun, used to play connect the dots. The result was a lopsided Mickey Mouse. Chase didn’t have freckles on his back or a scar on his thigh. She’d seen both areas and she knew they weren’t there.
The whole idea that Josh was Chase, that Chase was Josh, was ridiculous.
So why was she sitting in her mother-in-law’s hospital room wondering if it was possible? And trying desperately to deny the fact that somewhere, deep inside, she wished it were true?
Reality check, Aubrey.
She’d spent years making Faustian bargains with God, offering to do almost anything to get Josh back. And now, now that she’d finally started to sew up the gaping hole in her heart, she had a chance to start over, and she’d be damned if she was going to let it pass her by.
Chase had woken her from a deep sleep. They’d been talking, a lot, about her past and her life, about his dreams for the future. Even about Josh. She was developing real feelings for him, strong, raw, and unrestrained emotions. Emotions she almost didn’t recognize as possible to belong to her. Emotions that made her feel alive again.
Continuing to see him, to allow her heart free rein, was a disaster in the making. But the thought of never seeing him again, never being with him, hurt. She had to find a way to continue the affair and protect her fragile heart at the same time.
She’d never been without Josh. Even in death, he’d been as real and tangible to her as if he’d been alive, whispering in her ear. But a part of her had never forgiven him for leaving. For dying. My God, what if she had been found guilty and had gone to jail for murder?
She shuddered. It wasn’t the first time she’d played the what-if game. But now, she had a path out. She couldn’t—no, she wouldn’t—let anyone ruin this for her.
She turned the card over in her hands. The day Josh was declared dead, Chase showed up. And only a few days later, here was another guy appearing out of the blue, giving her a card with the name Derek Allen, offering answers. It was time to take off the blinders. Hiding the truth from herself wasn’t going to work anymore. She didn’t want to drag herself through it all again, but she’d be damned if she would miss an opportunity to find out exactly what had happened to Josh.
But she was going to need help. She couldn’t do this alone.
She needed Tyler.
CHAPTER 31
Josh
Fifteen Years Ago
“Yo, Hamilton. Tonight’s the night, huh? You finally gonna bone that girl or what?”
Josh pushed against the lineman, forcing him back into the secondary.
“Fuck you, Kowalski.” Josh wrenched the older, bigger boy to the ground. The whistle sounded. The coach shouted, “All right, all right, line up again. Hamilton, quit jawing with Kowalski. Cover Sulman.”
Josh gave Kowalski one last hard shake, then turned to Kevin Sulman. Arlo lined up next to him this time.
“Let’s tag-team his pansy ass.”
“Oh, yeah.”