Page 44 of Love Me Boldly

“Of course.” Piper grinned, and there was nothing kind about the venom in her tone. “Graham told you, right? I mean, he told me he told you about our friend who was killed, so I just assumed that he told you they were engaged?—”

“That’s enough, Pipe,” Graham snapped and put himself between me and her, but the damage was done.

“But Graham,” she whined.

“Eli, get her out of here,” he demanded, and then he was in front of me, blocking my view of everything.

“She had to know, G. You know Fee would be so ticked about this. Shelovedyou!” As she shouted, her voice turned shrill but quieter. I imagined Eli picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder to do what Graham had told him to do, and I would have laughed, but there was absolutely nothing to laugh about.

Sophie Alston was killed by a drunk driver.

Sophie Alston was the governor’s daughter.

Sophie was also the girl my father ran off the road.

My father was the loser drunk driver who killed Sophie.

And Graham was going to marry her.

“I have to go.” I sputtered the words, and as Graham reached for me, I shook my head. “Don’t. I have to go.”

“I’m sorry,” Graham whispered. “That’s not…please…listen to me for a second.”

I’d listen to him for hours. I’d let him explain everything. But it wouldn’t change a thing.

Because once I opened my mouth and explained everything back, whatever we had growing between us would be lost forever.

“Bye, Graham.”

* * *

“It could be a coincidence,”Tracey whispered.

Her arms were wrapped around me as we sat in her small living room she shared with three other girls.

“How many other Sophies were killed by a drunk driver in the last year?”

Man, my throat hurt. My eyes did too. My lips were cracked and dry, but it was my throat that hurt the most.

No, my chest. Definitely the pain crushing my chest like an elephant was stomping on my sternum was the worst of it.

And my damn phone kept buzzing. It’d been going off and on all day long, and I should have answered it just to shut him up and get him to leave me alone, but I couldn’t bring myself to hear his voice.

Not after what I’d just learned.

It wasn’t just my dad calling, either. It was the calls and texts that started coming in from Graham that made me toss my phone into my bedroom and shut the door as soon as I called Tracey.

I’d barely gotten a word out, more like a single sob before she said, “On my way.”

That felt like hours ago. A lifetime. How could everything change so quickly?

I was already dreading having to tell him about my dad eventually and the guilt I felt that I hadn’t yet, not when he’d been so honest. But this?

How did I recover from this?

And had he been as honest as I thought?

“Okay, maybe not a coincidence, but maybe there’s an explanation? I mean…how did he not recognize you? And being engaged? That wasnevermentioned in the trial. You’d think the lawyer would have used that in opening or closing arguments, orsomething.And Graham was never there. I feel like we would have seen Piper too, you know?”

---