It couldn’t have been on purpose. That’s what I told myself. He meant to look at me, and she was sitting so close. Except, he didn’t glance my way for the rest of the game.
After Oyster Bay’s win, we rushed the field, as we always do. I threw my arms around Chace, and though he hugged me back, there was no kiss. I pretended everything was fine, of course. While he made his rounds, fist-bumping his teammates and thanking everyone lining up to congratulate him, I talked and joked loudly with Kara and Stephanie like nothing was wrong—because of course nothing was, I was only being paranoid. Still, I ignored Nicole, pretending she wasn’t there. And then one minute I looked up, and she wasn’t.
Neither was Chace.
They were off to the side, engrossed in a conversation about who-knows-what, Chace looking down at her with a smile that made my heart plummet. Seeing the happiness on both of their faces was like standing beneath the sun, lifting my face to its rays, and yet cut off from feeling any of its warmth. I must have known it then. The two of them, my boyfriend and my roommate, were making the unthinkable choice of cutting me off from the light.
Ryan Wyatt had sidled up to me while I watched them, and he followed my gaze.
“They sure look happy, don’t they?” he remarked with a patronizing smile.
I turned to shoot him a furious glare. How dare he talk like that about my boyfriend and my roommate, as if the two of them were even a “they” in the first place? I may have been neutral on Ryan before, but in that moment, my feelings turned to hate.
“You wanted to see me?”
I turn around, jolted from my memory by the sound of Ryan’s present-day voice. His hair is an uncombed mess, his eyes rimmed with dark circles.
“You look terrible,” I remark.
“Thanks,” he says drily. “So what’s this about? I’m not usually your choice of people to hang out with.”
I take a deep breath. I have no choice but to dive in.
“The party,” I answer. “I remember us talking that night. I was upset. Do you know why?”
I sink into a seat on the bleachers, wrapping my arms around my knees. Ryan sits beside me.
“Is this a trick question?” he asks.
“No, I just—I need to know what we said.”
“I was drunk that night, too, I don’t—” Ryan starts to rebuff me, when suddenly a light flashes in his eyes. “Wait. I think I know what you’re talking about.”
He sounds amazed, as though recalling our conversation is some kind of accomplishment.
“You’re the reason it’s been so impossible to remember that night,” I snap at him. “You and your screwed-up drinks.”
He ignores me, squinting at a point far in the distance.
“You were griping to me about Chace. You guys had just had a fight. I asked you about the blood on your wrist, and you said it was an accident. But then…” He clears his throat, his voice sharpening. “You told me it wouldn’t surprise you if Chace was responsible for Nicole’s scar.”
I stare at Ryan.
“I didn’t mean it.”
“We were all drunk,” Ryan replies. “I didn’t read into anything you said.”
“Why haven’t you told the cops?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. “If he and I got into that kind of a fight—”
I stop mid-sentence as another image floods my mind.
Chace and I are in the woods. He stands a few feet away from me, shaking his head as I yell at him, angry, hot tears rolling down my cheeks. He opens his mouth and words come out that sting and burn, so much that I grab the nearest rock I can find and fling it at him. It hits him square in the forehead. Blood trickles down.
“Oh God!” I yelp. I’ll be in real trouble now, when all I wanted was for him to feel a fraction of the hurt he caused me. I run to Chace and press the sleeve of my sweater to his forehead, trying to stanch the bleeding, but he pushes me away.
“Just get out of here, Lana. Leave me alone.”
“He was alive and talking to me when I left,” I blurt out.
“I know. That’s why there was no point in me telling the cops about the fight. That, and the fact that I need to keep a low profile. Already, the cops are all up in my business just because Chace and I were such good friends. If they knew I’m the one who made the drinks—” He stops short, panic in his eyes as he looks at me. “You’re not going to tell, are you?”
But I’m barely listening. I’m relishing my relief, the tension seeping out of my body like air from a pricked balloon. Until a thought occurs to me.
Just because he was alive when I left the woods—doesn’t mean that it’s not my fault he’s dead.
“Lana.” Ryan elbows me. “What do you say? Are we going to look out for each other in this?”
The thought of aligning myself with Ryan makes me cringe, but I have no choice. I can’t afford to make an enemy of him, not when he knows about the fight.
“Fine. But this doesn’t make us buddies.”