“I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I’m so sorry I ruined him for you.”
I stopped.
“He was already ruined, Grace. He did this. Not you.”
“He said you’d hate me. He said he’d carry it, and I wouldn’t have to be the secret anymore.”
“I’m so sorry I ruined him for you.”
Something inside me cracked wide open.
She was sixteen.
She had lost a mother and a father she never got to claim.
And now, she’d also lost a brother who bought her a home with borrowed courage.
“Move over,” I said quietly.
Grace looked up, her eyes swollen and terrified.
Something inside me cracked wide open.
“What?”
“Move over. On the step.”
I sat down beside her.
For a long moment neither of us spoke.
The house held its breath around us, the way it had held David’s for weeks.
“He was a coward,” I whispered. “But he loved you. He loved us both, in the wrong order.”
