“Thanks for letting me do it. What else did she want to talk about?”

“She wants to leave West Virginia.”

“What?” I nearly shouted.

She couldn’t leave yet. I needed to explain to her what had happened. I had a chance to get her back, and it was probably my only chance. I wouldn’t let her leave until I explained everything.

“Relax. She’s not leaving until the semester is over. You have more than enough time to tell her everything.”

“Don’t scare me like that. Look, I’m going to head over to her dorm in a few, but I wanted to talk to you first. Something happened last night with Ally.”

He held up his hand to stop me from continuing. “I swear to God, if you tell me you slept with her, I’m going to kill you.”

“Definitely not. I surprised Ally when I came home last night. I saw her without her shirt.”

“Dude, really? Why do you need to tell me something like that? She’s my sister.”

“Let me finish. I saw her without her shirt. She’s not pregnant.”

Andy froze at my words. “Wait—what? I’ve seen her, Jesse. She is definitely showing. Emma saw her, too. Emma said that Ally made sure to show off her stomach as she said that she was having your kid.”

“Ally had some kind of band thing she was using to make it look like she was pregnant. I saw it on the sink.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I wish I were. I got into it pretty bad with her last night. She tried to lie and say that you and Emma were getting married soon. She wasn’t happy when I told her that I’d already talked to you, and I knew that you weren’t with Emma. She lied about everything, Andy. She wasn’t raped, and she sure as hell isn’t pregnant. It was all part of a plan to keep me away from Emma.”

“Are you sure, Jesse? This is my sister we’re talking about here.”

“I know it is. That’s why I came to you. I kicked her out of my house last night, and I’m hoping that she’ll just leave town. If she doesn’t, I think you’d be the best one to deal with her. I can barely stand to look at her at this point. She’s convinced that it’s all Emma’s fault that I don’t want to be with her. I seriously think that she’s lost her damn mind. Who the fuck lies about being raped?”

“Ally has always been a little strange. You never saw it because you didn’t live with her. I never thought that she’d do something like this though.”

“Neither did I. I don’t even know what to think about all of this. She destroyed my relationship with Emma before, and Ally did everything in her power to keep me away from Emma this time.”

“Ally has been in love with you for most of her life. That’s a long time to love someone and end up being rejected—twice.”

“That doesn’t give her an excuse to go batshit crazy.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’ll go out and look for her today, but don’t expect much. If Ally wants to disappear, she’ll disappear. She’s always been that way.”

“Let’s hope she leaves. I don’t want her anywhere near Emma.”

“I don’t know if Ally will stick around or not. She has always been a wild card.”

“Until we’re sure that she’s gone, I want one of us around Emma at all times.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting here?”

“She lied about everything, Andy. Until I know that she’s going to leave, I’m not willing to take a chance.”

“All right, all right. We’ll drive Emma nuts by babysitting her.”

“I don’t care if we annoy her. At least we’ll know that she’s safe. I’m going to go and talk to her now. Hopefully, she’ll give me enough time to catch the door before she slams it in my face.”

Andy laughed. “She’s feisty when she’s mad, and you definitely pissed her off. Good luck. You’re going to need it.”

“Thanks.” I waved as I walked out of his apartment.

Then, I headed back down the stairs. I barely paid attention to where I was going as I walked to my car. All I could think about was Emma’s face yesterday. I’d hurt her so bad and I wasn’t sure if she’d ever forgive me.

As I drove to her dorm, I kept going over what I would say to Emma when I saw her. I’d screwed up royally last night, and I hoped that it wouldn’t ruin my chances of getting her back. Surely, if she had come all this way to find me, she would listen to what I had to say. I couldn’t lose her now that I had the chance to win her back.

I still couldn’t wrap my head around everything that Ally had done. No matter how I looked at the situation, I had no idea how she’d thought her plan would work. What would she have done when it was time to have her baby? She had to know that she would get caught eventually.

I remembered the little girl I’d met so long ago. She’d looked so sweet and innocent as she’d watched Andy and me playing together outside of her house. It had taken weeks after they’d moved into the trailer park for her to finally talk to me. Their mom had moved them to the park after their dad died in a car crash. As I had gotten older, I’d come to realize that their mom wasn’t much of a parent. She’d spent most of her time drinking, leaving Ally and Andy to take care of their house.

I knew her mom’s lack of parenting had to have affected Ally in some way, but this was ridiculous. Andy had grown up in the exact same situation, and he hadn’t ended up batshit crazy. Sure, Andy had done the typical teenager stuff, like fighting and drinking a lot, but that hadn’t been nearly as bad as what Ally had done.

I pulled up in front of Emma’s building and shut off my car. I smiled as I remembered the time she’d fixed this very same car. When I’d first moved here, Mark had offered to buy me a new Jeep. I’d declined, not wanting to give up one of my few reminders of Emma. She’d barely known me then, but she’d still helped. That was what Emma did—she helped others. She was such a good person, and Ally had put Emma through hell repeatedly.

I opened my door and stepped out. I still had no idea what I was going to say to Emma. I would just have to wing it and hope for the best. After trying to figure it out all the way over here, I would have thought that I could have come up with something halfway decent to say.

The dorm was silent as I walked in and climbed the stairs. It was still too early for any college kid to be up on a weekend. I hoped that Emma was awake, but I doubted it. I would just have to deal with the grouchier version of her. After yesterday, I deserved it. I walked up to her door and knocked. A minute later, I heard the lock clicking, and the door opened.

She frowned when she saw it was me. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Can we talk?” I asked as I looked at her.

It was obvious that she’d been in bed. Her hair was rumpled, and it was sticking out around her head. I couldn’t help but smile at the princess pajamas she was wearing. They were so her. She was a real-life princess to me.

“I think we did enough of that yesterday,” she said as she started to close the door.

I reached out and caught it just in time. “Things have changed.”

“What? Are you a bigger douche canoe today than you were yesterday?”

“Look, I said a lot of stupid shit yesterday that I didn’t mean. I talked to Andy last night, and he cleared up a lot of stuff for me.”

Her eyes widened. “You talked to Andy?”

I nodded. “I did. He knows that I’m here now. He thinks that we need to talk, too.”

“What about Ally? I’m sure she wouldn’t be happy if she knew you were talking to me.”

“Ally is one thing I need to talk to you about. Can I come in?”

She eyed me warily. “I really don’t want to see you right now, Jesse. I think you made your opinion of me very clear yesterday.”

“I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I regretted everything as soon as the words left my mouth.”

“I’m sure you did. Just go, Jesse, please.”

She tried to shove the door closed, but I held my hand against it.

“You need to hear what I have to say. It changes everything,” I said.

“Everything has already changed. I did a lot of thinking after you left yesterday. I was stupid to come here and think that everything could go back to the way it was. Once this semester is over, I’m leaving. You’ll never have to see me again.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” I said softly as I pushed the door open enough to step inside. “Just hear me out.”

She sighed as she closed the door behind me. “Fine, but you can wait until after I shower.”

“I’ll wait for as long as you want me to.”

She rolled her eyes, and then she grabbed a shirt and pants from her closet. “I’m sure you would.”

I sat down in the chair next to her desk as I waited. At least she hadn’t kicked me out. I knew she’d wanted to, so I considered myself lucky. I watched her walk into the bathroom, and then I heard the water turn on a few seconds later. I concentrated on the desk in front of me to keep from picturing her naked. If things were different, I’d be in there with her right now. Showering with her had been one of my favorite things to do when we were together. Seeing her naked and wet wasn’t something that I could ever forget, not that I ever wanted to.

She reemerged from her bathroom a few minutes later. She looked amazing without any makeup on and with her wet hair hanging around her face.

“You look beautiful,” I said before I could stop myself.

She blushed furiously. “Tell me what you came here to say, so you can leave. I have stuff to do.”

She refused to look at me as she grabbed her brush off the dresser, and then she started dragging it through her hair. I tried to focus on what I needed to say as I watched her.

God, I’ve missed her so much.

“A lot has happened since I talked to you yesterday.”

“I’m waiting,” she said as she sat down on her bed and looked at me.

“After I left here, I drove around town for a while, and I ended up at Andy’s apartment. He wanted to kill me at first, but we managed to talk without hitting each other. Well, I did hit him, but I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“Why did you hit Andy?” she asked incredulously.

“Because I thought he was cheating on you. When I showed up, a girl was walking around his place, wearing only his shirt.”

She laughed. “I’ve walked in on that a time or two. Andy always has a girl over there.”

“I’m glad you find it funny. I didn’t. I had no idea that you two weren’t together, so I punched him. After we both calmed down, he told me that you two were nothing more than friends.”

“And now, you’re here because you feel like an ass for saying all of that to me yesterday. Well, guess what? I don’t care. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. You just wanted to make me feel as bad as possible.”

“I feel horrible for what I said, but I’m not here for that. After he told me the truth, I realized that Ally has been lying to me—a lot.”

“Why do you seem so surprised? That’s what Ally does—she lies.”

“I know that now, but she was my friend. When she came to me this summer, I tried to ignore the fact that she’d lied to Andy about me sleeping with her. She needed help, and I couldn’t turn her away.”

“Why did she need help?” Emma asked.

“When she came to me at the beginning of the summer, she told me that she’d been raped back in California. She’d run away because she’d discovered that she was pregnant, and she was afraid that the guy would hurt her if he found out, so I took her in.”

“Wait a minute—she told me that the baby was yours,” Emma whispered.

I could see the hope in her eyes even though she was trying to hide it.

“I agreed to tell anyone back home that it was mine, so no one would find out that she’d been raped.”

“Oh my god. All this time, I thought you two were finally together and that the baby was yours. She made it seem like that was what had happened.”

“We’ve never been together, and we never will be. The only girl I’ve ever cared about is you, Emma. The minute I saw you, I knew that you were something special.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“I was angry with Ally for lying to me about you and Andy, so I went home to confront her. She didn’t know I was home. I surprised her and caught her without her shirt.”

Emma raised an eyebrow.

“Let me finish before you say anything. I saw her without a shirt, and she’s not pregnant. She lied about everything.”

“Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack. Once she realized that she wasn’t going to get away with it, she came clean, and I kicked her out.”