“Yes.”
“Good. That’ll lead you to the front gate. Then go left and just keep going until you find the police station.”
I closed my eyes, sent a quick prayer up to heaven or wherever prayers went in moments like this, and sped away so quickly that I thought I might have given myself whiplash.
The thoughts you have in moments of stress.
Chapter 29
Donovan
“Why are you protecting that bitch?” Amanda demanded. “You and I both know she’s responsible for what happened to Joshua.”
I stood behind a tree, listening closely to her footsteps, trying to figure out her exact location. I couldn’t run any more. My chest burned, my heart pounding. And the wounds in my arm were pumping so much blood, I was safer standing still. I was leaving too big a trail.
“John Kyle killed Joshua,” I wheezed.
She came closer. I could hear her footsteps before I heard her voice. So close. Why didn’t I have my gun?
I needed my fucking gun!
“But John wouldn’t have been so angry if it weren’t for her. If he hadn’t insulted her and Joshua hadn’t spit on him.”
“How is that Kate’s fault?” I called to her, jumping to another tree, trying to keep space between us.
Not enough. I could hear her tracking my voice; I could hear her come closer.
“How isn’t it? If she wasn’t giving it to every boy in town…”
“Shows how little you knew Kate back then. Not as well as Joshua. He knew she hadn’t done anything wrong.”
“He didn’t know anything like that. He just knew she was his sister and it was his job to protect her.”
“He was a good guy, but he wouldn’t have stood up for her if he’d thought it was true.”
“What do you know about it?”
She was growing agitated. Not listening to me as closely as she should be. Maybe I had a chance.
“I knew Joshua since we were both seven, Amanda. I think I knew him pretty well.”
“Just because you knew him longer—”
“I know that he loved his sister, but I’ve seen him back out of a fight because he knew Kate was in the wrong.”
“She’s the reason—”
“He knew it was me, didn’t he?”
The reality of it sunk in the moment I said it aloud. I’d kept the truth from myself all these years, but I suddenly realized how clear it really was.
Joshua had known all along. He knew Kate and I were in love. He knew that it wasn’t just some passing crush. And he knew we’d get around to telling him someday.
He defended her that night—not because she was his sister and they had a relationship like no other siblings—but because he was defending us both.
In a way, it was my fault he was attacked that night. Joshua saw the writing on the wall, knew John Kyle was out to get anybody, and he was willing to take the heat on himself. Because he knew.
Because he was my friend.
He practically told me. Days before that night, he told me.
“It was just a prank,” I said. “One last hurrah before graduation.”
“Yeah, but to pin it on John Kyle and the others? Not smart,” Joshua said. “I heard that John was arrested last month for stealing a car. Not the kind of guy you should be getting tangled up with.”
“John’s harmless. Just a wimp trying to pretend he’s a tough guy. I can deal with him.”
“Yeah, well, I hope so. Otherwise you might have just put into motion something we’ll all regret.”
Joshua glanced toward the door, aware Kate was standing just on the other side. Then he moved closer to me.
“You’ve got more important things to worry about now,” he said softly. “A future. Don’t let one last hurrah ruin that, my friend. This, this future, is too important.”
He knew. It was so clear now.
“How could any of us have known that John Kyle would lose control that night?” I asked, trying to keep her distracted, trying to find the advantage. “I don’t think even John knew it was coming. And I think he’d be the first to take it back if he could.”
“She took away the only thing that mattered to me,” Amanda said, her voice moving closer and closer. “We were going away to school together. We were going to have a life together.”
“We were all supposed to have a different life, Amanda, but sometimes, things don’t work out the way you think they will.”
“No,” she said, more to herself than to me. “No, no, no.”
I could hear the exhaustion in her voice, the crazy starting to leak out. I remembered something else Joshua once told me. Amanda saw a psychiatrist when we were in high school. She was on medication, but he didn’t know what it was for. He said she acted strangely every time he asked, so he stopped asking.
I slipped around the trunk of the tree and peeked behind me. She wasn’t there. Then I moved again, going a quarter turn each time. I spotted her almost immediately, walking slowly toward my tree, just at the wrong angle.