Page 199 of P.S. I'm Still Yours

And Kane knew.

I’ve only ever known Brody as Finn Richards’s older brother and Dean’s best friend. I used to date this guy Ben, and Dean was his older brother. They were two years older than us, and so we didn’t run in the same circle.

I knew Gray had landed himself on Brody’s bad side after getting into a fight at a party, but shit, I had no idea that fight was about me.

Gray wanted to defend me.

And it got him killed.

“I’m so sorry.” Kane’s broken rasp pierces my heart right in the middle.

He’s sorry?

My shock evolves into rage. “How fucking dare you call yourself his friend?”

He glances down at his feet.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” I cry out, my breathing out of control. “If I hadn’t found out when I did, would you have ever told me the truth?”

He doesn’t say anything, tears streaming down his face.

That’s my answer.

“You were going to let me wonder for the rest of my life, weren’t you?”

Still, he says nothing.

“Why?” I’m hysterical at this point, my entire body consumed by tremors and violent sobs. “Why didn’t you just tell us?”

I immediately know I can’t handle whatever response he’s about to give me. I can’t handle another piece of information when I’m having a mental breakdown.

“You know what? I can’t. I just…” I wipe my face swiftly, failing to pull myself together. “I can’t do this.”

Then I do the only smart thing I’ve done all summer.

I turn…

And leave Kane Wilder behind…

* * *

It’s funny how the worst betrayals come from the people closest to you.

How the people you’d trust with your life can make you wish you were dead at a moment’s notice.

I might not be dead yet, but I sure as hell feel like it.

I’m sure I look like it, too.

I haven’t left my bed in forty-eight hours except to go to the bathroom and shove whatever food I could find into my mouth—anything to get my stomach to shut up.

I thought going back to school would make everything better, but it turns out I’m just as depressed at the dorms as I was at my mom’s.

It’s been four weeks.

Four weeks of wasting away in bed, battling inner demons and wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do with what I know.

Four weeks of ignoring my friends because I’m too busy trying to survive to answer their messages.

---