That stopped me dead. Cass hadn’t just left me. She’d left me for Tyler and she’d gone back to California. To what? His parents’? Why wouldn’t she have just stayed with him? None of that mattered right now; I felt like I was going to be sick again at the thought of losing Cassidy for good this time, and once again to my cousin. “You’re sure?”

“What?”

“Jesse, are you sure that’s what she said?”

“Yeah, now what the hell’s going on?”

I couldn’t answer at first, I just sat there staring at nothing. “It’s just what she told you; Cassidy—Cassi’s gone.” God, she was really gone. I wanted to fly to California and beg her to come back here with me, but she’d made her choice, and honestly, I’d had Cassidy leave me too many times for me to believe she’d come back to me again. A part of me hoped she wouldn’t, because I knew in the end she’d just end up leaving again. Just like Tyler said she would, and I’d be in the same f**kin’ heartbroken spot I was always in.

“Well, why did she go?” Jesse no longer looked confused; he was glaring accusingly.

“I don’t know,” I called over my shoulder as I turned to leave, “she told you more than me.”

Before I got all the way out the door my phone started ringing, and I almost threw it across the parking lot when I saw Tyler’s name.

“What?! Christ, Ty, I swear if you called me to throw all this in my face, we are done. Forever, you got that?”

“I’m not, and I don’t have a lot of time, man, Cassi’s gonna come back from the bathroom and getting food and she’s gonna be pissed if she knows I called you.” He let out a hard, fast breath and started mumbling to himself, “I can’t believe I’m about to do this for you. I can’t f**kin’ believe it . . .” Then with a deep breath in he said quickly and quietly, “Look, Gage, by the way you answered the phone, you’ve already figured out she’s gone. So I don’t have to tell you that part, but I don’t want you to think she just left you. My dad called me early this morning to tell me Cassi’s house burned to the ground, and as far as everyone can tell, her mom and Jeff were in the house still.”

“Shit,” I hissed under my breath. But if that happened, why didn’t she wake me? Yeah, there were still a couple weeks of school left before graduation, but I would’ve dropped everything to have been there for her.

“Yeah, look, Cassi isn’t torn up about it, but she needs to be in California right now. I didn’t know until I was on my way that she wasn’t going to wake you, and I’ve tried to talk to her about it but every time I do she starts to slip away. You know what I’m talking about when I say that, right?”

I did. Her mask. My least favorite thing in the world. “Yeah, I know.”

“Bro, as much as I hate it . . . swear to God I hate you two together more than almost anything, but I hate seeing Cassi like this more. It was worse when we got back from the ranch last year, like a hundred times worse, but right now she’s so focused on numbing herself because of what happened last night that she’s able to hide a lot of what she’s feeling right now.” He paused for an intense few heartbeats before continuing more slowly. “Even with that, she’s miserable. She’s wearing one of your shirts, Gage, and every five minutes like clockwork she smells the collar; I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it. I’m sure her leaving without saying a word killed you, that’s why I called—”

“She left a note,” I interrupted, and pulled the small piece of paper out of my back pocket to read it to Tyler.

“God, Cassi, that made it so much worse than it had to be,” Tyler mumbled, more to himself than anything. “Listen, I was already thinking this, and after hearing what she wrote, that’s classic Cassi. I know what she’s doing, Gage. She’s scared; this is what she does when she runs away. She’s not running from your relationship, and I don’t know if she would have even left period if I hadn’t called about her mom’s house. So just focus on that; she’s not running from you, she’s running from her past and fears, ’kay?”

“I don’t know, that’s not what it feels like.” I climbed into my truck and rested my head against the hand that was gripping the steering wheel. “You called it, Ty, you said I would do something like this to her.”

“Gage, I was just trying to scare you off. I know you wouldn’t touch her. I was pissed that you had her and . . . I don’t know, I wanted you to think you would lose her.”

“And now I have.”

“You haven’t. Look, last night, I was all for making you feel like shit even though I know you had no idea that was Cassi standing behind you. I know you wouldn’t hurt her; you’re probably the only guy I would ever trust with her,” he admitted reluctantly. “So believe me when I say I’m not trying to make you feel bad about this next part. You know what happened to her; you don’t know the extent, but you know. Imagine having her past, then seeing your past come out of the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.”

My breath came out in a huff and I clenched the steering wheel harder.

“Cassi knows you’d never intentionally hurt her; I can see her struggling with what she knows and what she saw for that split second. I think she’s running away just while she tries to work through that, Gage. I saw the way you were beating yourself up before she asked me to leave the room, which means she saw it too. I know Cassi better than anyone. I have no doubt that what’s going through her mind is that her struggle to get through this is hurting you more. She probably thinks running away is what you want her to do.”