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I
think
she
will. She wouldn't have chased after you if she didn't care.

I whipped my head around. “Crap.”

She was right beside my door.
Murder
me, Kenny
, I begged silently.

That
would
be
suicide, man.

I powered down the window. “Julie, I gotta get home. I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Dan, wait.” Julie put her hand on the doorframe. “I…I'm so sorry.”

My eyebrows shot into my hairline. “For what?”

“For everything you went through. For the way I treated you.”

I turned away, stared at the windshield at nothing in particular. “Julie, I—Trust me. You weren't wrong.” Hadn't she said she thought I was a bigger bully than Jeff?

I was. I
am
.

“I don't know what you mean.”

I drew in a breath. “I have to go. I already said too much.” I shifted into gear. “I really have to go. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“No! Not yet, Dan.”

I shifted back into park, shut my eyes, and let my head fall back against the seat rest. “I'm talked out, Julie.”

“Ellison, let her talk.”

I whipped my head around. Jeff stood on the sidewalk near my passenger door. I shoved out of the car. “What the hell are you doing here? You have a death wish or something?”

Jeff held up his hands, palms front. His face was tight and pale when he shook his head. “No, I—” he said and then crossed his arms over his chest. “I need this to stop. I came to talk to him. I didn't know.”

“You didn't know?” I rolled my eyes. “You tormented him for years and you didn't know?”

“Okay. I get it!” he shouted, his hands up again. “It's my fault. I get that. But you need to let her talk.” He swung his eyes to Julie. “You need to tell him now. Before somebody really does get killed.”

Dude, what is he talking about?

No idea, Kenny.

I turned to Julie, expecting to see the same bewildered expression I wore. But it wasn't there. Instead, she shook her head and stared at Jeff with pleading eyes.

“Tell him, Julie, or I will.”

Her eyes closed, her lips moved. “Please. Don't.”

“You're gonna get him killed, Julie.” Jeff took a step toward her. “Is that what you want?”

Her hands flew to her open mouth and covered a sob. “No.”

“Julie,” I whispered. “What's he talking about?”

There was a long silence.

“Dan, please.” She grabbed my hands. “I love you.”

“Then tell me what he's talking about.”

Silence. My eyes darted from one to the other, both of them anxious, but Julie…Julie looked guilty.

“Your name is Ken Mele. She told me…on the first day of school.”

My heart skidded to a stop. My name—my
real
name—bounced around in my head for a moment while I tried to convince myself I didn't hear Jeff right.

You
did,
Kenny said.

I felt sick. “You…you knew?” The truth, hideous and sour, spit in my face, and I wrestled my hands out of Julie's, my heart cracking like a piece of glass.

Run. Run now.

But I couldn't. I was frozen in place by the thought that Julie had lied. Right on its heels was another, much more frightening thought, and I clutched my head, willing it to stay quiet. How?

But I already knew that answer. There was really only one way she could know. My eyes slipped shut, and my head dropped.

Liam Murphy was Julie's brother. Liam. Julie. Related. Liam, Liam, Julie, Liam. Suddenly, it all made perfect fucking sense. Liam, short and skinny, glasses sliding down his nose, unruly tangle of dirty blond hair, standing in his cartoon underwear while my pals and I skewered him with taunts. Liam, the son of Julie's dad and his second wife. Julie's half-brother.

I'd killed him. I'd killed Julie's brother. I'd killed him as surely as if I'd held Brandon's dad's gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Jesus, it was
me
.
I
made her sister run away.
I
made her father turn his back on her.
I
etched those deep lines of pain into her forehead. Every frown, every stab of pain, every tear—all because of
me
. The truth churned and swelled and darkened all other thoughts, all other questions in my mind. I didn't care if neighbors took up torches and pitchforks and burned us out of town. I was broken. Done.

A touch registered on my arm. I dragged my head up, opened my eyes, saw the gold light of Julie's hair. An angel, I thought, choking up again.
Julie
, Kenny said at the same time.

I straightened up, pushed past her, and fled.

Can't Forget, Can't Forgive

The granite block gleamed under the late afternoon sun. I stared at the waves and seagulls etched in the stone, wondering how I got to the beach, to the airplane crash memorial, and how long I'd been there. I shivered, but I wasn't cold. I ached, though I hadn't fought. Somewhere, a radio played a classic rock station and the Police reminded me I'd always be the king of pain. I sat on a bench facing the huge sculpture and wished—just for a minute—that I'd been on the flight that crashed. An end. Why was there never an end?

Beside me, Kenny sat, knees hugged to his chest, quietly crying.

I
don't understand. We're not Hitler. We didn't kill thousands of people in skyscrapers with airplanes. I'm sorry! There. Are you happy? I said it. How many times do we have to apologize? How much torture do we have to take? Just make it stop. Make it go away. Please.

I wish I could, I thought at him and pressed my hands to my face, squeezing my eyes shut, impatiently swiping at the tears that pushed from them anyway. The signs were all there, but I'd ignored them.

God, I
am
an ass.

So consumed by my retrospective, I hardly noticed the presence of anyone else until two hands grabbed my face.

“Dan.”

I jerked at the sound of that voice, her voice, and saw her standing in front of me, her presence felt like a slash to my gut. “No.” I shook my head and squeezed my eyes tightly shut. “Please go. I can't do this, Julie. I can't.”

“Dan.” She took my face in her hands. “Look at me. Look at me, Ken!”

My real name from her lips forced me to obey. How could I not look at her? She took my breath away every time I did.

“Please don't hate me. Please. Tell me you don't hate me.”

We
don't hate you!
Kenny shouted through the tears.

Oh God, I wanted to. Tears dripped down her face, plopped onto my arm, and I couldn't stand it. Even over the dozens of questions in my mind, I couldn't handle it and twisted free.

“Is it true?” I didn't know why I'd asked. I already knew that it was.

“Please. You have to listen to me. I never wanted you to know. I'm so sorry you found out like this.” Again, she took my face in her hands, forced me to look at her, at the years-old pain in those blue eyes.

No. No. No!
Kenny's cries echoed in my mind.

The earth tilted on its axis, and my stomach pitched again. I pulled away from her touch, sinking, waiting for the weight of my guilt and shame to finally, hopefully suffocate me. “I knew it wasn't real. I
knew
it.” I laughed out a harsh sound. “I'm on this…this staircase to hell. Every lie I told, every
single
one, it just brought me another step down, another lie closer to hell. But you—” I waved a hand at her, disgust tinting my vision. “You were on your own staircase, telling your own lies.”

I leaned over my knees, buried my face in my hands. Laughter, hysterical and raw, burst from my lips.

“They say, ‘It takes one to know one,' but I never knew! I asked you—I
begged
you to tell me your brother's name, but you swore it wasn't him. You kissed me.” The words were like a blade, cutting me, bleeding me. “You
slept
with me. You told me you
loved
me, but it was all a fucking lie.” I pressed my hands to my ears to silence the sound of that blade coming again. And again. And again.

I jumped to my feet, ready to run.

“No! No, Dan, that part wasn't a lie. I swear I love you. I admit what Jeff said was true, but then it all changed, Dan.
I
changed.”

“Oh, you changed, huh?” I sneered. “When did all this change happen? 'Cause you didn't say anything on the first day of school. Or the day after that. Or the fucking day after that,” I shouted. “So what was the plan, Julie? You wanted revenge? When were you gonna take it?” I taunted.

“No!” She pressed hands to her ears. “Not revenge. I swear I didn't want to hurt you.” She sobbed. “I never wanted that.”

That stunned me into silence.

“I just wanted my dad to like me again. He's been looking for you for years, and I thought…I thought I could give you to him. I could be, like, a hero instead of just the spare girl.”

I
got
into
a
lot
of
trouble
intentionally. For attention.

Julie's words, cued up like a favorite song, kicked my ass. All the crap she'd done to get attention—I was nothing more than the latest piece of it.

Somehow, that seemed fitting.

My face twisted, but she rushed on, “Since I was thirteen, I've had this picture of you in my mind. The big bad bully who teased Liam so badly he had to kill himself to escape. I
hated
that boy. And I hate my dad more.” She paused on a sob. “But it's not who you are. You weren't supposed to be so…so…
good
! Standing up for Brandon, kissing that baby's boo-boos, always doing the right thing. I never expected to love you,” she finished and grabbed my shoulders.

“Don't.” I pushed out through clenched teeth. “Don't you
dare
tell me you love me.” I shook her hands off me.

Julie recoiled as if I'd slapped her, and my heart squeezed in my chest. My hand shot out to steady her, apologies hanging from my lips. When, when would I learn words could cut? Hadn't I just felt their sting?

“Dan, please. Listen to me.” She clasped her hands together like a prayer. “I've been doing my best to keep my dad away from you. Making excuses, blowing him off, picking fights, anything to stop him from showing up and seeing you. I know he's mad, but he won't really hurt you—”

“Jesus, Julie! What the hell else do you think he's gonna do?” I flung my arms up, striding back and forth on waves of rage. “Pat me on the back with a ‘Nice to see you paid your debt to society' speech? He tried to strangle me right in the courtroom! He showed up at our house with a goddamn baseball bat.”

I paced, fury surging in my veins, until I saw Kenny. He was still curled up, crying. I sank down to the bench beside him, scrubbing my hands over my face. “I just want to know when you were gonna spring the big reveal on me.” I twisted my lips into a sorry excuse for a smile.

She jerked again.

Cut
it
out, man.
Kenny lifted his head to snarl, but I ignored him.

“I was never going to tell you.”

My jaw dropped. “How—”

“I know! It was dumb. As soon as I knew the kind of person you really are, I swore I would never tell you. All I had to do was keep my dad away from you, and I could have pulled it off. I hardly ever see him.” She sobbed out loud, hiding her face in her hands. “But then he figured out something was up and just wouldn't stay away.”

A surge of bitterness speared through me, and I started a slow round of applause. “Congratulations. I thought I was an incredibly gifted actor, but you have me beat by light-years. Every time you called me
Dan
, I had to swallow back the puke from the lies while you're telling lies just to get your daddy to look at you.” My voice was a shrill screech by the end of my tirade. “You know what's seriously messed up? I have my grandmother's engagement ring in a box in my room. My folks gave it to me on Christmas Eve. I was gonna give it to you someday. Guess the joke's on me.”

I
said
cut
it
out, dick!
Kenny's mental punch to my gut made me gasp.

My rage evaporated as suddenly as it had formed, and I hung my head over my knees. “Why didn't you just tell me the truth?”

“The truth?” She twisted her mouth into the same mocking jeer I remembered from the first day of school. “Why bother? You don't believe it even when I do tell it.”

Sucker punch. I jerked up with a flinch. “What…what the hell does that mean?”

Julie flung up her hands. “It means you believe what you want to believe. Poor Dan, he has all this guilt and thinks he's so bad,” she mocked. “I fell in love with you, but that isn't good enough.”

I stared at her, wished I could believe her.

Abruptly, Julie's fury faded to disappointment. “Oh God.” She folded her arms around her middle. “What do I have to do to convince you? I know what you did. I've always known. And still, I hung out with you. I forgave you. That's why I gave you that medal for Christmas. I wanted to be with you so much. I even told my father I didn't want to see him again. Why can't you believe it?”

She's right, you ass. Think about it. She's done a lot for you. What have you done for her?

My hand flitted to the chain around my neck. I loved her, I wanted to scream at Kenny. But his question burned in my head. What
had
I ever done to show it? She'd pull away from me, but I pushed her, demanded to know why. And all this time, she was trying to protect me from her father. I went back over it all, back to the first day when I squinted, concussed and bleeding, into denim blue eyes. I'd gotten into her face, dredged up a ton of old pain, forced her to confront the ugliest truth about herself, embarrassed her in front of the entire student body, and even though I didn't know about her actions behind the scenes, she'd turned her back on her father for me. I pulled shaking hands through my hair, wishing I could rip it out by the roots as the realization, the
certainty
that I'd done nothing that deserved forgiveness or love or the truth about everything hit me like a steel boot to the head.

“Because,” I murmured. “Because you can never forget. Every time you look at me, all you will ever see is the boy you hate, the boy who killed your brother. How can you really forgive me if you can't ever forget?”

She blew out a long, loud breath and collapsed beside me on the bench, stared up at the granite sculpture. “Are you kidding me? That's what this is about? You really buy into that forgive-and-forget crap?”

I laughed once because it was hopeless and I knew it, and if I didn't laugh, I'd throw myself into the surf and let the tide take me.

She made a sound of disgust. “You're right. I can't forget. I thought loving you in spite of that was enough.”

She said that now, but what about a year from now? We stared at each other for a long moment, both afraid to say out loud what we knew to be true. It would always be there, like the scars on my chest. What I did tied us together only to keep us apart. An unbreakable bond. An unforgivable sin.

She sobbed, a hollow, sad sound. “I hope someday you'll believe me.” With that, she stood and ran, and I let her go, listening to the scream inside my head as she ran, the low-slung sun turning her hair a flaming gold. She faded, moving farther away, stretching that bond until I was sure it would tear me in half.

I let out a groan, a guttural sound scraping from the depths of the soul I'd blackened the day I clicked Send. With my hands fisted and my eyes focused on the only light my life had seen in five years, a sudden white-hot pain between my shoulders sent me to my knees.

A pair of boots moved into my peripheral vision, and while I gasped on the ground, a hand grabbed my hair, forced my head back. What was left of my air whooshed out when I recognized the demented face haloed by the setting sun.

Jack Murphy had finally found me.