Page 51 of If You Dare

I jump out of my skin and whip around, the sob caught in my chest.

Wes looms above me, a bouquet of flowers clutched in his hand, dangling down at his side.

Shit. I didn’t think he’d be here until later with his parents.

“What?” I ask, my brain scrambling, trying and failing to make sense of his words.

“You said you wished you were the one who died that night.” His voice and eyes are flat, emotionless.

“I do.” I mean it with every thread of my being.

Part of me—a stupid, moronic part—hopes he’ll sweep me up in a hug, rub the back of my hair while we cry together over the girl we both miss so much that her loss is a weight pinned against our chests, crushing and suffocating.

He doesn’t, of course, and the sob builds in my throat, but I manage to swallow it down.

When silence falls over us and Wes doesn’t make a move to strangle me, I try one more time. “I know you don’t want to hear it, Wes, but I’m s—”

“Shut the fuck up, Violet.” He lifts a hand, the words coming out without his usual venom, but the order makes my lips clamp shut. Like he’s too exhausted for his revenge plot today. “Get the fuck out of here or I'll bury you here myself.”

I hold up my hands, backing away from Chloe’s grave. “Okay. I’m leaving. I’m s—” But I stop myself, knowing that for some reason,sorryis the last word Wes Novak wants to hear from my mouth.

I half run toward the parking lot, getting away from Wes as fast as possible before he changes his mind about letting me leave unscathed. Before he shoves my face in the dirt and makes me eat it.

When I reach the parking lot, my breaths heave from my chest. Wes sits in front of Chloe’s grave, the side of his body facing her stone and his arms resting on his knees, like he’s chatting with her casually. Until he swipes across his cheek with a thumb.

I turn away, giving him the privacy he deserves. Toward me, his exterior is cold, hard. But somewhere deep down, that softer part of him, the part that made him the Wes I knew before, is still in there.

I’ve always known he has a big heart. Bigger than he ever likes to show. I once thought I had a place in it.

But I never will.

* * *

Wes

The fucking stuffed duck.The prize she won at the carnival. The little duck Chloe instantly squeezed and cooed over the second it was in Violet’s hands.

The duck that reminds me of our first kiss. When I pressed my lips to hers and wondered how I’d gone an entire lifetime without kissing her. When I knew there was no way I’d be able to stop myself from kissing her again.

Watching Violet sob in front of my sister’s grave stopped me dead in my tracks. Like I almost forgot she had a heart in there. That before Violet killed her, they were best friends.

But the last person on this Earth who deserves my sympathy is Violet Harris.

If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be celebrating my sister's birthday at her graveside. I wouldn’t have bought her fucking flowers because when she was alive, she didn’t even like them. Said they were boring, unoriginal. The type of gift every girl got. The kind of gift that didn’t require any thought.

If she were still alive, she’d be mocking me right now.You’resounoriginal, Wes.

Without her, I am.

A deranged part of me wanted to drop to the ground beside Violet and pull her in for a hug. Mourn over my sister together like we would have if Violet hadn’t been the one responsible for putting her in the ground in the first place.

The sickest part of all of this is the one person I want to comfort me is the reason I need comfort.

Mom and Dad arrive carrying trays full of saplings and hand shovels so we can plant them around Chloe’s grave.

“Wes, your father and I were just talking on the way over. Remember that summer when Chloe was about twelve and she got really into gardening? Then that wasp stung her on the foot?”

I chuckle. “Yeah, and she got mad at me for killing it.”

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