“You told me she was already gone,” Dewayne said, turning to look back at my mother.

Mother at least looked apologetic. “I had a pregnant sixteen-year-old daughter, and the father of her child was dead. I didn’t know what to do. I was trying to save her future. She was too young to make the right decisions.”

The right decisions? Hauling me off and trying to force me to give up my baby was not the right decision.

“Keeping Micah was the best decision of my life,” I yelled, unable to control the anger burning inside me at the idea of her not wanting my son.

She nodded. “Yes, it was. You knew better than we did. You knew you could be a good mother. A better mother than I was to you. You showed us all that you would fight to give him a life. And you’ve done a wonderful job. I’m proud of you. I didn’t make you the woman you are, but I’m still proud of you.”

My eyes stung with unshed tears, and I gulped down air to keep from sobbing. “You have no idea what it was like. Loving him all on my own. Trying to be enough for him. Trying to be mother and father to him. Telling him how special he was and that he was my world while he asked questions about not having the family other kids had. You don’t know! You don’t know what it was like! He needed you. I needed you.” The sobs stopped me from saying any more. Then Dewayne’s arms were around me, holding me.

I had imagined this moment a million times since the day she drove out of my life. Never had it been like this. Never had I broken down like this. I was always resolute and strong. I was always proud of myself and would show her I hadn’t needed them. I hadn’t needed her. But never did I break down and cry.

The lost girl who didn’t know how she was going to do it alone was back. She hadn’t been gone. Not really. All along she’d been there underneath the surface. That girl was a fighter, but she was also hiding so much pain. So much betrayal.

“Your father . . . he was devastated. We had tried so hard to protect you. To keep you safe and away from bad decisions. We trusted Dustin. We trusted you. But then Dustin was gone, and you were pregnant. We couldn’t see another way.”

I wiped at my eyes, and Dewayne soothed me with slow strokes down my head and back. I had to pull it together. I had to get through this. I was strong. I had grown up fast, and for a moment I needed to be that girl again. I needed to tell her what she had done to me. And tell her what I had done for myself.

I moved, and Dewayne eased his hold on me but kept his hand on my back, letting me know he was there. He wasn’t leaving me, and I wasn’t alone. He would have been there back then, too, if he’d only been given the chance to know. To be there. He would have been. How different Micah’s life would have been.

My mother and father had taken so much from him. I didn’t know if I was capable of forgiving that. Hurting me was one thing, but hurting Micah was another.

“Micah deserved to know the Falcos. He was robbed of that. They were robbed of that for five years. What did you do with the letters, Mother? Where did they go if they didn’t go to the Falcos? I wrote at least a hundred. I sent photos. For years I tried to reach them. And all along my letters never got there.”

Mother sighed wearily and crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture. Then she looked up at Dewayne. “I didn’t want them to use you and your baby. They had lost Dustin, and then they’d suffered the blow of that Bart girl aborting Dustin’s baby. I didn’t want the world to know you were pregnant with his son too. If they knew, then everyone else would know. You’d not only be a teen mom, but you’d be one of Dustin Falco’s many. I couldn’t let that happen to you. You deserved more.”

I heard what she was saying, but . . . it wasn’t sinking in. It didn’t make sense.

“Kimmy?” I asked, trying to understand why she thought Kimmy Bart had aborted Dustin’s baby.

My mother’s eyes flared with something I didn’t understand as she looked at Dewayne. “You didn’t tell her,” my mother accused.

Dewayne didn’t speak.

He wasn’t talking, and my mother was angry. She was angry at Dewayne.

About Kimmy Bart. And a baby.

“Kimmy was pregnant too?” I asked, still trying to process this.

My mother’s eyes softened with sympathy and something close to sorrow. “I’m sorry, Sienna. I thought by now you would have heard. I didn’t know they’d kept that from you. You’re old enough and it’s been long enough that you can handle the truth. Dustin Falco wasn’t sleeping with just you. Kimmy Bart was pregnant with his baby too. Except she was further along than you, and Dustin knew about it when he died. Kimmy made sure everyone in town knew he was hiding it from you.”

Something inside me died too at that moment. Something I would never get back.

DEWAYNE

Sienna shut down right in front of my eyes. All emotion left her face, and she just stared straight ahead. The one thing I never wanted her to know, her fucking useless excuse for a mother just tells her without warning or preparation. I’d tried to stop her, but the horror of Sienna knowing robbed me of words. I’d been frozen in this awful reality.

“Baby, look at me,” I said, reaching for her, but she stepped back. She didn’t look at me, and instead she moved away. That was worse than someone slicing me open with a blade.

“You were better than Dustin. He was weak—” her mother started, but I turned and glared at her.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” I roared. She’d said enough. I never wanted to hear her speak again.

“Don’t defend him. He used her,” she said.

“I’m not defending him! I am protecting her. Shut up! She didn’t need to hear it this way. She never needed to fucking know. He’s gone. That’s over. She had her memories, and she was happy. Don’t you see that? What is your problem, woman? Do you enjoy seeing her in pain?”

At least she had the decency to flinch.

“Stop,” Sienna said, drawing my attention back to her. “She was right. I should know. That’s something I should have been told a long time ago. I don’t crumble. I’ve proved that. It makes sense, really. He was always near her. She was always around. I trusted him. I did. But it makes sense.”

There was only emptiness in her voice. I fucking hated it. I preferred her tears. Or even her screaming. But not this. It was like she was shutting down and shutting everyone else out. I wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t pushing me away.

“I wanted to keep you from being hurt by the Falcos. So I had your aunt check the mail daily and send me all the letters you sent them. I have them all if you want them. I did keep the photos, though. I want them, if that’s okay. It was how I watched Micah grow. But the letters, you can take those to Tabby. I have them in the car.”

She’d taken the letters because she was punishing us for my brother’s cheating. How fucked up was that? My parents lost their son. Then they found out he had gotten Kimmy pregnant, and she’d had an abortion the day after his funeral. It had spread through town like wildfire. A year later Kimmy moved away with a guy and had never returned to Sea Breeze.

Not having to see her had helped. When I saw her face, all I saw was the girl who’d killed my brother’s kid. I hated her. I couldn’t forgive her. I didn’t even want to. She disgusted me.

“Go. Both of you, go. Leave the letters on the porch. I’m not ready for this. Maybe one day I can find a way to forgive you, Mother, but today is not that day.”

She didn’t look at either of us. Her eyes were still unfocused as she stared off at nothing. “Give me an hour, then please bring Micah home. But I need you to go.”

She was talking to me. She wanted me gone.

Fuck no. She wasn’t pushing me away.

“I’m not leaving you,” I told her.

She sighed, then finally turned to look at me. “Did you know?”

I wanted to lie. I wanted to lie so damn bad.

“Yes.” I admitted the truth because I refused to lie to her.

“Then you need to go. I want you to go.”

“Sienna, I had my reasons. I was protecting you—”

“I don’t care. I want you to go. Leave me. Both of you.”

Then she turned and walked away, locking herself in her bedroom.

I stood there staring at her door, wanting nothing more than to pull it off his damn hinges and make her let me hold her. Explain to her what I was doing. Why I did it.

“She needs time. Don’t do anything stupid. You never were as stupid as your brother. You were the smart one. Don’t let her down, like we did.” Then Nina Roy turned and walked away.

I stood in that living room waiting for sobs, or something to give me an excuse to burst into her room and hold her. There was nothing but silence. She wanted time alone. I would give her that. But this wasn’t over. It was the beginning. She just had to see that.

Six years ago . . .

DEWAYNE

“Slow down, man. You gotta calm the hell down. You can’t kill her. You’ll do life, dude. She’s a kid. A dumbass one, but still, she’s a kid.” Preston’s words were falling on deaf ears. I didn’t give a fuck. If Kimmy Bart had aborted my brother’s baby, I was going to fucking murder her with my own hands.

“Get your ass to the Alpha frat house,” Preston said into the phone. “Dewayne’s going after Kimmy, and word is she’s here. I can’t hold him back.” I knew I had about five minutes before Rock got here. Because if someone was going to stop me, Rock was the only person I knew who had the strength. I had a slut to find.

I’d lost my brother, and Sienna was just fucking gone. Vanished. And now this shit. I had reached my breaking point, and I didn’t give a fuck anymore. Bring on prison. This was all my fault anyway. Fighting with a drunk sixteen-year-old boy had been stupid. He was a kid, and I had threatened him while he was drunk—with the one thing I knew he didn’t want to lose. Sienna.

All of this could have been avoided if I’d just walked out of that house and dealt with him when he was sober. Maybe he had been ready to let Sienna go. If he’d been sober and made that decision, then I’d have let him. If he didn’t know how lucky he was, then he didn’t deserve her. But he didn’t have to die over it. That was all me. Fucking me.

“Kimmy’s slept with most of the basketball team. Hell, I’ve slept with her, I think. That could have been anyone’s kid. We don’t know it was Dustin’s. Just because she was claiming it was his don’t make it his,” Preston said.

I knew this. But I also knew I’d seen my brother fucking her bare. Chances were good that baby had been his. All that was left of my brother, and she’d murdered it. She deserved to die too.

“What if she wasn’t even pregnant? Ever thought of that? She was jealous of Sienna. Dustin wouldn’t break up with her. He loved Sienna. He just wanted to fuck Kimmy. Girls do that shit when they’re desperate. She could have been lying. Don’t do life because of a lying teenage girl.”

I wanted to blame someone, someone other than me, because the pain and regret were too much. If Kimmy had aborted Dustin’s baby, then I could lay all this hate and blame on her. She would deserve it. And I needed to be free of it. I just wanted to take a deep breath again. I wanted to be able to look my parents in the face and not feel like a bastard for being the reason sorrow filled their eyes.

So much pain.

“Where’s Kimmy?” I heard Preston ask some guy who stumbled outside.

“Don’t know,” he slurred.

“Go find her and tell her to hide her sorry ass before Dewayne finds her.”

Preston was determined to stop me any way he could. I’d find her, though. I was running out of time before Rock showed up, but I would find her. If not tonight, another night.

“Shouldn’t have let you drink so much damn whiskey. Always makes you mean,” Preston said, still right beside me. He wasn’t helping. All his yakking.

“Hey, Dewayne, sorry about Dustin, dude,” a guy called out. I didn’t even look at him. His drunken words meant nothing. He didn’t know Dustin. None of them knew the real Dustin. They knew the kid with too much pressure to be the best. The kid trying to find himself. They didn’t know his heart. None of them did.

“Find Kimmy Bart and tell her to fucking run and hide,” Preston called out to him.

Dumbass wasn’t helping.

“I’ll find her. Keep it up. I’ll find her and she’ll pay,” I swore.

“Don’t doubt it. I just hope Rock gets here first,” Preston replied.

I put both hands on the double doors to the frat house and shoved them open, then stalked inside.