Page 68 of H E R

I shake my head. “You have no right—”

“You gave himeverything!” he shouts. “For years I lived on your sweet nothing. Because that’s what you gave me. Buthim?”

“Noah, you’re drunk. You should go home and—”

“What, like you give a shit?” He shuffles his weight from one leg to the next and his shoulders shake.

“I do care—”

“Bullshit,” Noah spits. Then he tosses his hands in the air and almost shouts. “I fucked up, okay? But I’mhere. Please, Justice.”

“You work for the man who killed my parents!” I roar. And Jasmin opens the screen door to our trailer. A few neighbors who were already out stare at us, but I don’t give a shit. “Might as well pull the trigger yourself by allowing him to get away with it. And not just that, you keptmefrom finding him. You played me.”

Noah shakes his head. His eyes are blotchy and red, swollen. One eye is still black, and he looks pale. His white shirt is dirty, and somewhere deep inside I want him to go home, shower, eat, and sleep. I want him to go back to the Noah I thought I knew. The friend that would never in a million years betray me or put my family in harm's way.

Jasmin steps out. “They used her as leverage because of your fucking jobs, Noah. They would’ve raped and then killed her.”

Noah slaps both his hands over his face and he yells out a sob. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. I was trying to get out, I was trying to out them. But they own the cops. I wouldn’t be surprised ifhe’sin on it!” He points behind me to Dylan’s trailer.

I turn on instinct and when I look back, Noah’s eyes almost pop out of their sockets. He points to my neck. “Youfuckedhim?” His fingers dig into his chest, holding the spot where his heart is.

“If you would’ve told me thesecondVork and his men came to you, my respect would still be yours. You betrayed me in the worst way possible. And if it weren’t for Dylan, I’d be dead right now.”

The realization of this truth washes through me. Ice fills my veins and I tremble. But Noah glares behind me, fixated,obsessed.

“So youfuckedhim?”

I can hear Jasmin throw awowat him, and my fingernails dig into my palms. “That’s none of your business.”

Noah nods and inhales heavily through his nose. He wipes at his snot and dabs his eyes roughly. “This isn’t over, Justice. Itcan’tbe.”

In my peripheral, I see Jasmin shake her head softly.

“You should go.” I walk toward my best friend and don’t look back. I turn her around and we both retreat into our tiny rectangular box. I hear Noah shout incoherently, and we both peer out the window to watch him kick the ground paving his walk of shame back to his trailer.

“What do you think he means by‘this isn’t over’?”

I look away from the window and touch my mother’s bracelet. I stroke and count each charm and almost smile when I get to the black fox. “I don’t give a shit.”

“What if he does something stupid?”

“What’s stupider than joining Vork’s crew and doing his bidding?”

“It was horrible watching him,” Jasmin whispers almost just to herself.

I nod. I’ve never seen Noah so torn. Not when his father left them. Not when he broke his arm four years ago. And not even when his mother fell ill and had to stay in the hospital for two weeks recovering. Tonight, he looked like a writhing man struck down by flames and bullets all at once. I swallow the lump forming in my throat and squeeze my eyes shut. Warm tears fall over my cheeks.

“Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong, Justice. I watched you push Dylan away for weeks. You didn’t lie or cheat on Noah. Buthedid.”

I know what she means. I’m sure Noah never cheated on me with another woman. But he cheated me out of the truth. He didn’t allow me the benefit of knowing what issues plagued him. We would have joined forces and come up with a way to catch Vork in a net of a mutually plotted deceit. Instead, he chose the man who took everything from me and kept everything from me. He underestimated me, betrayed me, mocked me, and conspired against me.

The door creaks open and a cheerful Jule sinks as soon as he sees me. “What happened?” he demands.

I sniffle and dry my treacherous tears. “Nothing.”

“Noah came by,” Jasmin offers and lifts her shoulders up at me when I glare at her.

“I thought I told him to keep off our property.” He drops his stuff near the door and is about to pounce out when Jasmin and I both reach for him. We pull at his arms and tug him back.

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