“Please don’t lie to me,” I asked softly, not looking at her.

“I knew,” she whispered.

My heart broke all over again. Because I hadn’t known. I was the idiot who still prayed while everyone around me was making plans, putting shit in motion. Everyone was preparing for grief, while I was still deep in denial. I exhaled sharply, my face still buried in my hands.

“She asked me to do something for you and Lev. We worked on it over winter break. It was a secret. I promised her I’d always take care of you, Knight, and I meant it.”

“You knew it was coming,” I repeated. “You knew she was dying. You knew, and you still let me come to you, to Boon, knowing I might not have a mother when I came back. And as it happens, I don’t. She’s in a coma. I’ll never speak to her again.”

I didn’t know if the betrayal was really that big, or if the tragedy itself enhanced it. Either way, I knew one thing for sure: between finding out I’d be an orphan in the next few days, and that my girlfriend had known about it and hadn’t told me, I was angry, in self-destructive mode, and not in the right headspace to be lovey-dovey.

Only this time, I bottled it in.

I couldn’t call her ass out and lose her. She’d made a bullshit move—no doubt in my mind. She couldn’t fuck someone else and keep something like this from me in the same year. Only, apparently, she could. I wasn’t going to fight with her, because I knew I’d lose control.

I couldn’t do that anymore. Not after our little dub-con in the shower. No way, José.

I stood up, smiling tightly.

“Knight?”

“Sorry, baby. Nerves.”

“You’re scaring me.”

Wait till you read my mind. That’ll send you running to the hills in a heartbeat.

Actually, drunk Knight wasn’t the only asshole inside of me. These days sober Knight was a miserable piece of work, too.

“Don’t be scared, Moonshine. I’m just trying to cope as best I can. Drop me at home?”

She frowned at me, still hugging her knees to her chest. “What? Why?”

“Homework.”

“You expect me to believe that?” She raised an eyebrow.

Sometimes I still couldn’t believe she was talking. And at times like this, wished she wasn’t.

“You can sit and watch if you’d like,” I tried to give my lie wings.

“Sure.” She followed through, standing up.

Wrong answer, bae. I needed to be alone, and I needed to be alone right now.

“Although…” I laced my arm through hers as we walked up the stairs back to the promenade, knowing how wrong everything about the situation was. “I’d only get distracted and try to put my dick in you.”

It all sounded off. The proposition. My excuse. My smiles. Every single thing about it. But I could see she knew I was trying really hard not to be a dick. And being a dick was a knee-jerk reaction.

“It’s okay,” she finally relented, looking around, like there was some hidden camera she wasn’t aware of capturing this debacle. “I was going to drive Lev to the hospital so he and Dean could have…a talk.”

I practically sighed in relief. I needed a binge like Tom Brady needed a personality transplant. Urgently.

“Right.” Because you knew about this talk before I did, is what I left out.

“Are you sure everything is okay?” Luna stopped in front of her car.

This was my chance to come clean. To tell her I was mad at her for not telling me this. To blow shit up. But wearing my heart on my sleeve never did me any good. Last time I tried it, I’d pushed her away.

So I just offered her another one of the many smiles that never reached my heart, and kept her close.

“Never been so sure in my life, baby.”

Texas area code?

I let the call go to voicemail, shifting in my chair in the endless, depressing hospital corridor. In front of me, Lev had curled into his father’s arms, long-limbed and lanky-framed, moans tearing through his body like a demon trying to claw its way out of him. Bailey was by their side, rocking back and forth as reality hit them in the face with full force. Much too young. Much too soon.

Edie, Dad, and Racer sat next to me, and we touched each other absentmindedly, grateful we still could. Dad’s arm was thrown over Edie’s shoulders. Edie held Racer close to her chest, and he clutched my hand in a death grip.

The entire cul-de-sac was in attendance. The Spencers. The Followhills. The Rexroths. Everyone had crammed into the waiting room of the hospital, supporting the Coles.

Everyone but Knight.

My guess as to his whereabouts was as good as anyone else’s here. When I confessed to him that I’d known about Rosie’s situation, I’d expected him to raise hell. Rightly so. I’d kept something fundamental from him. It was true that Rosie had sworn me to secrecy, but I could still understand his sense of betrayal.

I twisted in my seat as I remembered how his eyes had glossed over at my admission, his irises becoming two dark rivers of blood. Yet, instead of confronting me, yelling at me, breaking stuff, busting knuckles—the things Knight did to cope—he’d mustered a smile. An eerily disturbing smile that had made my heart beat like a wild beast’s for all the wrong reasons. And while I wanted to respect his wishes to be alone, I also feared I’d completely blown it by letting him be by himself when he was hurting so much.

My phone buzzed in my hand. Another call from Texas. What in the hell?

I was waiting for Knight to show a sign of life. I’d left him dozens of messages. But answering phone calls was never on my agenda, let alone unidentified ones. People knew not to call me because I don’t—didn’t—speak. In my mind, my talking was still enabled by random spurts of confidence, rather than being a regular occurrence. Many people in this room still hadn’t heard my voice.

It seemed surreal to consider casually taking a call and starting to talk as if the last eighteen years hadn’t happened.

When the third call from Texas lit up my screen, I excused myself and walked over to the outside area, sliding the door shut behind me.

I pressed the phone to my ear, but didn’t say anything.

“Hello?” I heard a desperate, female voice.

It sounded like she was running. Her panting blasted in my ear, and there was background noise of wheels squeaking, an elevator pinging, and cell phones ringing.

“Hello? Is there anybody there? Moonshine?”

Moonshine? Why would she call me…?

Knight.

“Who is this?” I retorted.

My whole body broke out in hives at the thought he was in trouble. A bad feeling settled in my stomach like a brick. I paced from side to side in the little garden.

“His mother.”

I stopped pacing. Stared at the glass door. My fingers were going numb.

“His birth mother, I mean.” She sounded far away now. Her running came to a stop.

“Where is he?” I demanded.

I didn’t have time to be shocked. Knight’s mother knew him? Was in touch with him? Everything about this screamed surreal and bizarre. My head spun. I stumbled down, forcing myself to sit on a wooden bench behind me. I was shaking like a leaf, unsure if it was from the cold, the adrenaline, or both.