Page 63 of Boulder's Weight

We get off the bike and head up to my apartment. I unlock my door with shaking hands, Boulder quiet as a mouse beside me.

Inside, he doesn't sit, doesn't make himself comfortable like he has before.

He stands in the middle of my living room, watching me with a look in his eyes that makes me want to run.

The moment it becomes too unbearable, I blurt out my question. "What the hell is going on?"

Boulder pulls out his phone, taps the screen a few times, then holds it out to me. "Got an interesting message earlier."

I take the phone, and for a moment, I think my heart stops completely.

Ask your new girl about Cady Warlow.

The room tilts violently, all the blood rushes from my body, and my knees threaten to buckle.

I stumble backward until my legs hit the couch, collapsing onto it as the phone slips from my suddenly numb fingers.

Cady.

A name I haven't heard spoken aloud in years.

A person I killed and buried the day I turned my father in.

"Who is Cady Warlow?" Boulder asks, his voice deceptively gentle as he picks up his phone. "And why is someone sending me cryptic messages about her?"

I can't breathe.

I can't think.

Panic claws up my throat, threatening to choke me.

This can't be happening.

Not now. Not when I'd almost started to feel safe.

"Kelsey." Boulder's voice cuts through the fog of terror. "I already looked up the name."

Of course he fucking did.

I close my eyes, knowing what he found—headlines, articles, my name, and likely my face plastered across Montana news outlets when the story broke.

"I need you to talk to me," he says, sitting across from me, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "No more half-truths, no more bullshit. Who are you running from? What the fuck is going on?"

I open my eyes to find him watching me, his green gaze piercing right through the walls I've built around myself.

"My family," I say, my voice barely audible. "I told you that much already."

"Yeah, but you left out some pretty fuckin’ important details," he counters, anger edging into his tone. "Like the fact your father's in prison for running a child pornography ring. Like the fact your real name isn't Kelsey."

The bluntness of his words is like he physically hit me.

I flinch, wrapping my arms around myself as if I can somehow hold the broken pieces together.

"Is that what this is about?" he presses. "Are your brothers hunting you down because you testified against daddy dearest?"

Bile rises in my throat at the mention of my father. "You don't understand, Barron."

I hope using his real name will help him be patient with me.

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