I held my breath. Her words seemed more honest than ever before. She kept speaking, her voice filled with urgency. “Please open the door, Tristan. Please let me back in. Come back to me.”

My hands fell from the door, and I rubbed my fingers against one another over and over again. “I could’ve killed him.”

“You wouldn’t have,” she said.

“Go away, Elizabeth,” I said. “Please, just leave me alone.”

“Please.” She begged for me to open the door. “I’m not leaving until I see you. I’m not leaving until you let me hold you.”

“Jesus!” I shouted, ripping the door wide open. “Go away.” My soul was wrung with a sudden, wild homesickness as I stared into her eyes. My stare faltered off toward the ground, unable to look at the one thing that made heaven almost seem real in my mind. “And then stay gone, Elizabeth.” I would just hurt you. You deserve more than me.

“You…you don’t mean that,” she said, her voice cracking. I couldn’t look at her anymore.

“I do,” I said. “You can’t save me.” I closed the door and locked the shed once more. She pounded against it, screaming my name, begging for an explanation, begging for answers to all the unknown questions, but I stopped listening.

I stared at my hands, seeing the blood, unsure if it was Tanner’s or my own, feeling it against my fingers, under my nails, everywhere. It was as if the walls were bleeding, and I couldn’t see a way out.

I wanted him to know I was sorry. I wanted him to know I shouldn’t have snapped. I wanted it all to be a dream. I wanted to wake up and have my family back. I wanted to wake up and never know how much hearts could truly break.

But mostly, I wanted to let Elizabeth know that I loved her. Every second. Every minute. Every hour. Every day.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

When I found the strength to leave the shed many hours later, I opened the door to find a shivering Elizabeth on the ground, wrapped in her winter coat. “You should’ve gone home,” I said, my voice low.

She shrugged.

I bent down and lifted her into my arms. She wrapped her arms around me and clung to my body.

“What did he say to you?” she whispered against my chest.

“It doesn’t matter.”

She held me tighter as I carried her into her house. “It does matter. It matters a lot.”

I placed her in bed and turned to leave her room. She asked me to stay with her, but I knew I couldn’t. My mind wasn’t in a good place. Before I left her house, I stopped in her bathroom to clean the blood from my hands. As the water ran hot, I scrubbed my hands together aggressively, trying to get all the blood off. I couldn’t stop. I kept scrubbing, adding more soap, even after all of the blood was gone.

“Tristan,” Elizabeth said, breaking me from the trance I was in. She turned off the faucet, took a towel, and wrapped my fingers in the cloth. “What did he say to you?”

I leaned forward, placing my forehead against hers. I breathed in her scent, trying my best to not fall apart. She was the only thing still holding me together. “He said I killed them. He said it was my fault that Jamie and Charlie were dead, and he said I would end up doing the same to you.” My voice cracked. “He was right. I killed them. I should’ve been there…I should’ve been able to save them.”

“No,” she said in a commanding tone. “Tristan. You didn’t. What happened, whatever happened to Jamie and Charlie was an accident. It wasn’t your fault.”

I nodded. “It was. It was my fault. I blamed my mom, but she…she loved them. It wasn’t her. It was me. It’s always been me…” Each word was harder to get out than the one before it. Breathing was becoming a chore. “I have to go.” I stepped away from her, but she blocked the exit. “Elizabeth, move.”

“No.”

“Lizzie—”

“When I fell apart, when I hit rock bottom, you held me. When I lost it, you stayed. So take my hand and come to bed.”

She led me to her bedroom, and for the first time, she unmade the right side of her bed for me to get under the sheets. I wrapped my arms around her as her head lay against my chest. “I ruined your birthday,” I said softly as sleep grew heavy on my eyelids.

“It’s not your fault,” she replied. Over and over again, she said those words. “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.” As my heartbeats slowed to a normal pace, as my fingers caressed her skin, as I began to fall asleep, a part of me started to believe her.

For a few hours that night, I remembered what it felt like to not be alone. For a few hours, I stopped blaming myself.

Chapter Thirty-One

Elizabeth

I tiptoed to the kitchen around six in the morning, leaving Tristan resting. The whole house was silent, but I could smell the scent of freshly brewed coffee filling the rooms.

“You’re a morning person too?” Mike asked, smiling my way with a mug of coffee in his hand. He seemed like such a friendly guy, and just seeing his smiling face made me feel awful for how I’d treated him and Mama the night before.

He pulled out another mug and poured a cup of coffee for me. “Sugar? Cream?”

“Black,” I replied, taking the mug from him.

“Ah, something we have in common. I like to say your mom drinks her sugar and cream with a dash of coffee, but for me the darker the better.” He sat down on the stool at the island and I sat beside him.