Page 111 of Before We Fell

I held out the dog. “I found this the other day. Thought Riley would want it back.”

He stared at me, not the dog I waved in his face, like he didn’t know it was there. Maybe he didn’t want to touch it while I held it.

“Do you want to come in?” he asked instead, shocking me to my booted feet. “We should talk.”

He stepped back, swinging the door open and gave me plenty of room to enter without touching him.

I hesitated. “Is Riley here?”

“She’s at my mom’s, helping her with the horses.”

That was good. And bad. I wanted to see her. Maybe it was better I didn’t.

“Okay,” I said, lamely, hating the tone in my voice. I stepped into his house, so similar to mine except larger and far more open after his renovation. Everything was crisp and warm, and my gaze snagged and stalled on the Christmas tree. It was fully decorated in pink and silver. Tinsel hung perfectly on the faux branches. The pink ornaments, covered in glitter sparkled from the overhead light in the living room.

“You decorated.”

The door closed behind me, making me jump. “Riley insisted.”

I still had the dog in my hand, and I set it on the table. He didn’t seem in any hurry to come closer to me, and I didn’t know how to start this. How did you officially break up with someone when the writing on the wall was clear it was already over?

“How are you?” he asked, and like he re-thought it, asked, “How’s school?”

I didn’t have the energy for pleasantries. Or the mental capacity.

Spinning to face him, I shoved my hands into my coat pockets. He didn’t offer or suggest I remove my coat, so I didn’t bother. We were standing feet apart, there might as well have been miles between us.

“Are we over?” I asked, and my chin wobbled as I formed the question. I bit down on my bottom lip, sucking on it to stop the quiver.

He wiped a hand across his mouth, curling it around his chin and then dropped it to his hip. “The question’s not that simple, Lauren.”

“Were you planning on calling me? Talking this out then?”

He shook his head. “I thought about it. But I still haven’t been able to figure out what to say, I guess.”

Ironic coming from a man who always knew the right thing to say. At least when it came to me. “Then I suppose there isn’t anything to talk about, is there?”

It killed me to take that step away from him. One step. Then two. Toward the front door and the brutal cold that would whip across my cheeks and sting my nose.

“Your brother murdered my sister, Lauren. What exactly am I supposed to say to that?”

He said it to my back, like he hadn’t the guts to say it to my face. Like I didn’t know the reality. Like I didn’t dream of the possibilities of how that night happened.

I looked at him over my shoulder. “It wasn’t me, though.”

“And if he comes back? If he gets clean? If he getsoff?What if he comes back to you and apologizes? Tries to make amends?”

This was his fear? It was a slap to the face and a complete shock to my system. But his pain and his worry were so clearly etched in the hard lines of his jaw and his brow. And in his defensive stance.

I didn’t bother trying to stop the tears that started falling. It would have been futile anyway. “I can’t believe for a second, you could stand here, after knowing how much I despise my brother, that you would think…” That I’d take Travis’s side? Or his? Over Riley’s?

I turned to him, faced him fully. I swiped at my cheeks and steeled myself. “I love you, Noah. I love Riley like she was mine. Do you honestly not think I’d do everything in my power to protect her? God.”

“He’s family.”

“And you were my home, Noah. God, that choice…that decision…there wouldn’t be one if that were to happen.” I was shaking my head. This was dizzying.

And I still…I couldn’t believe him. There had been no point in coming over. I should have mailed the stuffed animal or left it on the porch.

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