“Hmm,” was the only sound she made in response.

“What does that mean?” I asked between sniffles, because I was starting to get annoyed.

“Nothing. I’m on your side.”

Why had she felt the need to clarify that? “Which actually means you’re on my side but . . .”

She reached over to grab my hand. “I’m on your side but . . . what if Tyler was telling the truth? I wouldn’t put it past your mom to orchestrate this whole thing and leave Tyler in the dark. I’ve seen her handiwork before.”

Shay hadn’t been there. She didn’t get it. I shook my head. “I know what my mother’s capable of. I also know that the things she told me were true. Why would she lie now?”

“To hurt you more? Since she was already plunging in the knife, she decided to twist it a little? Is it at all possible he didn’t know?” she asked gently.

“How could he not? Wasn’t it common sense?”

“That he didn’t immediately link you, somebody he’d never met, to the owner of a company he worked for? Because you guys are the only people in all of Texas named Huntington?”

I was starting to get a little angry. “He knew I used to be rich and my last name.”

“You were asking him to connect a lot of dots with no numbers attached to them,” she said, pausing. “You were introduced to him through Frederica, who has a different last name than your parents.”

“So again, we’re back to I should just forgive him in case I’ve forgotten whether or not I specifically said my parents’ or my sisters’ names?”

Why did some part of me want her to say yes?

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she told me. “I’m saying you may not have all the facts and that I think you should find out whether or not he actually betrayed you before you write him off. Make a decision based on facts, not on feelings. And whatever you decide, I’m behind you a hundred percent.”

She got up and grabbed sheets, a pillow, and a blanket for me. She also offered me some clothes to change into. I thought I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but I passed out as soon as I lay down.

The next morning Shay woke me up with a cup of coffee.

“Good morning.”

“Morning,” I mumbled, reaching for the mug. It was Christmas Eve and I felt the opposite of festive.

“I’m going to my mom’s today and tomorrow. You are coming with me.”

No way. “I don’t want to crash your family celebration again. I don’t want to bring everybody down, either.” When I saw that she was going to protest, I said, “To be honest, I don’t really want to be around that much happiness right now. I think it would be good for me to have a break and think.”

She kept telling me to come with her, and I kept declining. Eventually, when it was time for her to go, she hugged me and made me promise that I’d call her if I changed my mind.

I wouldn’t.

I found an old and slightly stale box of Lucky Charms in her pantry, and it was what I had for my Christmas Eve dinner.

Thinking about Tyler was the last thing I wanted to do, but with absolute silence and nothing else to distract me, I found it difficult not to.

Was this why he pulled away after he kissed me? The night we found out Pigeon would be okay? Because he wasn’t a total sociopath and felt guilty for using me to get his promotion? I remembered the night he’d gotten it, when he talked about how he’d done things he hadn’t wanted to in order to get it. Did that include me?

Maybe he’d fallen for me by accident. That he’d only meant to keep me around and had caught feelings for me, despite himself. Did that change things for me?

Wasn’t this very situation the “things” that we had to talk about? It was what made the most sense. That he had to confess his involvement in my mom’s scheme before we could move forward.

But . . . what if Shay was right? And Tyler wasn’t to blame for this? What if he’d been used by my parents just like I had?

It wasn’t like I had been blameless in this mess. I’d spent a long time covering up things I didn’t want him to know. Did I even have the right to be mad at him if he did lie? He’d forgiven me so easily for lying to him. Shouldn’t I do the same?

At the time I’d confessed my past misdeeds, he’d said that desperation could drive people to do crazy things. Was that why he’d done it? Had desperation driven him to do something crazy?

But as I thought about it between my third and fourth bowls of cereal, and maybe I was rationalizing, the two situations felt different to me. He hadn’t told me harmless white lies. He had been using me. Tricking me to get a promotion. He’d been another person in my life trying to manipulate me to get what they wanted.

I’d never meant to hurt anyone. And Tyler had set out to hurt me.

It definitely wasn’t the same.

But knowing that didn’t stop the hollow ache inside me that missed him.

Shay got back after celebrating the holidays with her family and found me pretty much the same as she’d left me. Sitting on the couch, intermittently crying, eating cereal, and watching television.

Over the next week or so she did her best to cheer me up, but I wouldn’t leave the apartment. There was nothing outside worth getting dressed for. She sometimes watched TV with me; sometimes Delia came over and they were just there for me, like I needed them to be.

Each morning I woke up, I hoped things would get a little easier. But they didn’t. I worried constantly about Pigeon, and I almost texted Tyler a dozen different times just to make sure she was okay. To make sure that he was okay. Even though I was furious with him, even though he’d hurt me, I missed him fiercely. Not knowing how either one of them was doing was painful. My heart literally ached for both of them.

Delia and Shay begged me to come out with them on New Year’s Eve, because given how the calendar had fallen this year, in two days’ time we’d be back at work. They figured it would be my last chance to celebrate and forget my troubles, but I declined. I was in no mood to party and my two best friends deserved to have a good time.

There was a knock at Shay’s door just before midnight and I wondered if they were drunk and had forgotten their keys. And why they were home before the ball dropped.

I got up to answer it and was shocked by who was standing out in the hallway.

It was Violet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Before I could say anything, she came into the apartment and sat down on the couch. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to find you?”

Not understanding what was going on, I shut the door and followed her to the sofa. I sat facing her. “No?”

“You haven’t been answering your phone. You weren’t at your apartment. You haven’t been there in over a week.”

“Did you talk to—” I wanted to ask her if she had spoken to Tyler and how he sounded, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

She must have been able to interpret my meaning from my expression, because she said, “He sounds miserable.”

Gulping, I nodded. I didn’t know whether that information made me feel better or worse. I landed on worse. I didn’t want him to be in pain. Even if I was mad at him.