Page 60 of The One Before

“You should give yourself more credit,” I say. The soft glow from the fireplace dances across his features, accentuating his handsomeness. I don’t think I could go the rest of my life without his face.

“I know being with someone like me isn’t easy.”

“It’s worth it,” I say, kissing his forehead. My own tears fall, landing on his hand.

He stands and walks back to the fireplace. He finishes his drink, holding the empty glass as he watches the fire. “I’ve thought a lot about what you said. How we can overcome anything together. I know that now. I never want you to feel blindsided again.”

“I’m sick of talking about the past. Let’s just be happy together. We were so happy, weren’t we? Before all these stories got the better of us.”

“Unless we accept what’s happened in the past, we can’t move forward. That’s why I need to tell you something.”

“Coop, I know who you are. I don’t need explanations—”

“No,” he cuts me off. “You need to hear this. I owe it to you, before we go any further.”

“Okay.” I’m uneasy again, not sure I can take any more indecision. “What is it?”

“You need to know the truth about Laura.” He turns to face me. “You need to know why I killed her.”

Forty-Six

Madison

The room is spinning. My heart is racing, but my body is frozen in place. Did I mishear him? Is this his idea of a joke? No one would joke about something so sinister. Especially Coop. Especially after I’ve left town to think things over. He’s serious, his face red and his chin trembling.

“You did what?”

“I killed Laura.”

I expect Coop to run at me. Instead, he slowly walks toward me, puts his hand on my shoulder. This man I love, who does so much for others—even now he’s trying to calm me—just admitted to killing someone. I wriggle away from his touch, attempting to dart for the door. His grip on my arm isn’t aggressive. It’s gentle, but I see the desperation on his face.

“Madison, listen. Everything you said was right. You deserve to know what happened. I’ll make sense of this. I promise.”

I don’t understand. Coop is admitting to killing a woman I didn’t even know existed until two days ago. I can’t make sense of what he’s saying, and yet he looks like the man I love. I start hyperventilating. Coop dashes to the kitchen and comes back with a glass of water and a washrag. I take the water but dodge his attempts to place the towel on my forehead.

“Did you murder Celia, too?”

“No.” He throws the towel onto the floor. “I told you that.”

“Yesterday, you said you didn’t know what happened to Laura Price. You whined about the unfairness of being accused of two crimes. Everything you told me was a lie.”

“Not everything. When you mentioned Laura, I didn’t know how to react.” He stands and walks back to the fire. “Everything I told you before yesterday is true. I did not kill Celia. I left her at the lake, and to this day I don’t know how she died. Losing Celia that way, so suddenly… it changed me. The way I was treated in the wake of her death made it worse. People turned on me. Spread rumors and filled my head with lies. That first year of college was a blur. I hardly have any memories, but I’ll never forget how I felt. It was all anger and paranoia and outrage. After a while, I started to believe those horrible things people said about me. I felt like a monster, not because of what I’d done, but because of how they made me feel.”

The light I’m accustomed to seeing in his eyes is gone. His pupils are black, his mind back to that dark part of his past, when he was first labeled a murderer, and there was nothing he could do to prove his innocence.

“Then I met Laura,” he continues. “She was innocent and fun. So very beautiful. She had this glow about her that pulled me out of the dark place I was in following Celia’s death. With her, I thought I might have a shot at happiness. A normal life.”

“What happened?” I ask, my throat dry, despite the gulps of water I chug.

“She found an article online about Celia’s death. One of those snarky ones suggesting I’d killed her. I’d never told her anything about Celia, so she didn’t know how to react. I’d fooled myself into thinking I could be with Laura and all the bad stuff from the past wouldn’t be able to hurt us.

“She couldn’t understand why I hadn’t mentioned Celia before. The night she confronted me, she hammered me with questions. Some shitty rumors were more believable to her than the time she’d shared with me. I was so angry she wouldn’t listen. I no longer felt like the boy she fell in love with. I was back to being that monster all those people made me out to be. We fought, and she tried to leave her apartment. When I tried to pull her back, she clipped her head against a nightstand.” He pauses, struggling, all these years later, to say the words. “She died. Bled out right in front of me.”

As I listen, I picture everything he tells me. Coop’s desperation and Laura’s fear. How quickly their argument had turned fatal. “You’re saying what happened to Laura was an accident?”

“An accident I caused. Yes.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

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