Page 110 of Never Will I Ever

It’s not my father’s name on my screen right now, though.It’s not Kaleb’s either. But the name I find instead does send a similar jolt of electricity through my core.

Alpine Ridge Office.

While I know it could very well be Colin—and it would make the most sense for it to be him—even just the slightest chance that the guy who stole my stupid, withering heart will be on the other end of the line has me scrambling to accept the call.

“Hello?” I say on an exhale.

“Avery?”

It takes me a moment to place the voice, but the second I do, I’m hit with a wave of guilt.

“Elijah. Hey, kid. What’s up?” There’s a beat of silence on his end, and it has my back stiffening with worry. “Elijah, is everything okay? Is something wrong? Why are you still at camp?”

Glancing down at my watch, I note it’s the last day of camp, and well after the time the kids should’ve been picked up.

“You just left.”

Shit.

“You and I both know I wasn’t supposed to be there at all.”

There’s a rustling on the other end of the phone, and I can almost see Elijah vehemently shaking his head in response. What’s worse, though, is the way I can hear the tears cracking his voice when he speaks.

“You told me we both were. You said we fake it ‘til we make it, to believe in ourselves, and all this other crap that all turned out to be a lie.”

“Elijah, none of that is a lie.”

“Then why did you leave?”

Swallowing harshly, I utter a gruff, “It was just time for me to go.”

“You keep lying!” he shouts, his voice breaking some more. “Stop lying. Dayton and Colton already told me everything.”

Dread has my blood freezing like ice in my veins. “What did they say?”

I hear his shaky breath on the other end of the line before he word-vomits everything he’s been holding back.

“They said you only talked to me and were nice so I’d tell my dad how great you are and you’d get back into college. And when you got what you wanted, you left like it was nothing.” He stops, a garbled cough coming through the phone speaker that’s enough to break my heart in two. “And that’s…really fucked-up.”

I don’t have it in me to remind him not to cuss. Not when everything he’s said is the truth. The whole plan was fucked-up. I thought the same thing going into the summer, but I still went along with it anyway. Executed it to perfection and then got the hell out of Dodge.

And Elijah was the collateral, just like Kaleb said he’d be.

I’m slammed in the gut by another wave of guilt, and this time, I don’t try to fight it. Instead, I let it drag me under and force myself to feel it.

“It was fucked-up,” I agree softly. “I hurt you, and I’m sorry for that. But I’m not sorry for being someone you could confide in. And I promise you, everything I said to you this summer was the truth.”

“I forgive you,” he whispers after a moment. “But I’m still mad at you for leaving.”

The coil wrapped around my chest eases up ever so slightly. “Oh, c’mon. Things couldn’t have been that bad without me there.”

“They sucked.”

I scoff. “You’re telling me that once I left, everything went right back to how it was on the first day? Colton and Dayton stopped hanging out with you? You stopped having fun? Because I have a very hard time believing that.”

“No, but it wasn’t the same without you there,” he repliesimmediately.

His honesty stings, but it’s the soft sniffle on the other end of the line that’s my undoing.

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