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“I’m fine. Just got dizzy.”

He doesn’t look convinced but thankfully doesn’t continue his thought, which I’m sure was something along the lines of,Especially since there’s nothing you can do or say to help her because she can’t even stand to look at you.

My breath hitches in my still-tight chest. “I’m only here in the first place because you’re not the only one worried about her. So I came to see for myself. What you’ve said is a lot to take in. What Isawis a lot…” I trail off, unable to put words to the tangled knot of guilt and worry inside me.

“Hey. This isn’t your fault. You know that, right?”

I’m surprised for the few seconds it takes for me to remember he heard me speak at the convention. I might not have said Evangeline’s name, but I shared candidlyabout the guilt I carry—will always carry—for hurting the girlfriend I loved deeply. And like my sobriety, Evangeline’s and my shared history is an open secret.

I look away from the knowing glint in his eyes.

“Left down the main hallway. Second door on the right.” Martin’s voice is low, vibrating with sudden fervor. “I left her wrapped in a blanket on the bed and half-asleep. I’ll run interference if I see Clay.”

My head whips toward him. His brows lift expectantly, an unmistakable challenge in his eyes.

I bark a disbelieving laugh. “Are you for real? She literally fled when she saw me. Better that I bring what you’ve said to her parents, to Lily and Rye, and they?—”

“Maybe you’re right,” he interjects, his expression torn between worry and conviction. “But can you really leave without trying?”

I huff and drag a hand through my hair again, no doubt making it even more chaotic than usual. “Think you know me, huh?”

His lips twitch. “Pretty much.”

I look at the house, at the door leading inside.

To her.

“Fuck it.”

As I stride away, Martin calls, “Thatta boy!”

I flip him off over my shoulder, his startled laugh swallowed by voices as I part the crowd with my steps.

CHAPTER SIX

evangeline

Curling further into an unfamiliar blanket on a stranger’s bed, I bring my fists against my breastbone and press toward the ache beneath.

I don’t actually hate Wilder.

I wish I could.

Maybe if he were still a drug addict, leaving the wreckage of his selfishness scattered in his wake, it would be easier. But since I’d never wish a relapse on him, I’m left instead in the itching intersection between a grudge I can’t let go of and a maudlin longing that time has reshaped but not erased.

At least the years have granted mesomeclarity. Enough that I know it’s not himI miss so much as the person I was before I fell in love with him. Seeing him just reminds me of that loss.

But as with everything tied to Wilder, even my clarity on the matter isn’t simple. It has depth and weight. A history full of tangled shadows and glimmers of inescapable light.

No matter how much I might want to at times, I can’t pull up the roots he planted inside me when we were young. They’re too deep. He’ll always be the boy I worshipped as a child. The teenager who read my poetry, picked up a guitar, and changed the course of our lives. The unique, complex man who opened my world with equal parts conflict and communion.

He’ll always be a part of me.

I can’tnotbe happy he got the help he needed and turned his life around. That his career took off and his music has garnered both success and acclaim. That he’s sober, stable, and by all accounts thriving.

But feeling happy for him from afar, buffered by the life I’ve built for myself, is one thing. Being close enough to see the freckles in his eyes is, as tonight proved, drastically different.

It took years for the high, piercing note of my heartbreak to fade. For me to let go of Wilder, of who I thought I was to him—who I thought we were to each other—and move forward with my life.

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