had done—leaning forward from the lighthouse, falling asleep at the edge of the water—the time he had found me on Breaker Beach, drinking so I wouldn’t have to make a decision either way.
Salt water in my lungs, in my blood. A beautiful death, I had believed.
But it had been Sadie’s death instead, and the reality of it was horrible. All I could give him was the truth. “It was a bad time.”
He sighed, ran his hand through his hair. “I know. I knew it was bad timing.” He saw it the other way—that it was his fault. Timing, not time. “You weren’t yourself.” Except I was. In one way or another, I was never more myself than right then. Desperately, terrifyingly, unapologetically myself. And I’d just discovered the power of it, how it wreaked destruction, not only on myself but on others.
“When I saw you on the beach,” he continued, “I wanted to die, too.” A smirk to soften the truth.
“I didn’t go there to hurt you. Some nights I’d sleep out there.”
“I know. That’s why I went there. You weren’t home, and I was worried.”
They had just shown up. Two guys, a bonfire. I knew them, a year older, but I knew them through Connor. “Everything just went to hell.”
I thought of that journal, how fast I was sinking, at the whim of some current I couldn’t see.
He sighed, then spoke quietly, as if someone else might be listening in. That detective, somewhere on the dark beach in the distance, watching us. “I need to know, Avery. What role you’re playing here. It’s not just your life, you get that? It’s mine, too.”
I didn’t understand what he was implying. “I’m not—”
“Stop.” His entire body changed, no longer feigning nonchalance. Everything on high alert. “The police kept asking why I was there that night, at the party. And I didn’t know what to say.”
“Why were you there?”
“Are you kidding me?” His eyes went wide. “You sent me the address. Why did you want me there?”
“I didn’t.” I pulled out my phone, confused, even though this was a year ago.
“You did. You sent me the address. Listen,” he said. He leaned forward, close enough to touch. “It’s just me and you here. No one can prove what you say to me right now. But I have to know.”
I shook my head, trying to understand. “It must’ve been Sadie,” I said.
The same way I’d just accessed her phone. I checked the password settings on my own phone now. She’d programmed her thumbprint, just as I’d done on hers—we’d done it together, years earlier. Because we shared everything, for years. And when that changed, we’d forgotten to redefine the boundaries.
Now I was picturing Sadie getting Connor’s number from my phone. And then sending him a text about the Plus-One from me. She wanted him at the party that night. Which meant she was planning to be there, too.
“It was from your number,” he said, his hand braced on the bench between us.
“I didn’t send you that text, Connor. I swear it.” And yet he had shown up, thinking it was me. It was a startling confession. But Connor always saw the best possibilities in people.
“It’s not over, Avery.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Collins questioned me, sure. But I’m not the only one they want to know about. Not back then, and not now.” Even in the dark, I could feel his eyes on the side of my face. I pictured that list. The one I’d been filling in to make sense of things. But also: the one Detective Collins had slid in front of me the very first day. He’d written out each name. Avery. Luciana. Parker. Connor. A list of suspects.
Mine was first on that list. He’d practically told me from the start: You.
And I’d gone straight to him with the phone, hoping he’d reopen the case.
“Did you tell the police about the text from me?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t mention it.” His eyes slid to the side. “I didn’t mention you at all. So don’t worry.”
“Why not?”
“Maybe I’m a better person than you.” He shook his head. “I loved you once.” Changing his tune but proving the first comment true in the process.
“You hated me, too,” I said.
He grinned tightly. “I don’t even know who I’m talking to anymore. What you’re like.”
An echo of Greg’s thoughts, claiming I was Sadie’s monster instead of someone fully formed. There were pieces of others who gave everyone shape, of course there were. For me: my