Logan frowned, not comprehending at first. When it struck him what she was about to say, he panicked.
No. No, he wasn’t ready to hear this. Not from her, not after he’d just hurt her by revealing what he had about her friend.
He began to shake his head, his eyes begging her stay silent. But she reached out anyway and took his hand. It stalled his resistance as nothing else could. Her fingers were warm and stable and they made him want to fall to pieces.
“I forgive you,” she whispered.
His shoulders shuddered, and he dropped his chin to his chest. As his fingers began to shake in hers, she tightened her grip.
“I know you never meant to kill him. I know it was an accident. And I know how much you regret it. I forgive you for having any part in Trace’s death. It’s not your fault he’s gone, and I’m sorry I’m admitting it three years too late.”
Too late? She was still too early. Way too early. It had been his fault. Trace wouldn’t have fallen, wouldn’t have hit his head if Logan hadn’t punched him. He deserved a lifetime of hatred and disgust from her. He deserved eternal punishment and…and…
“I’m sorry I ever blamed you.”
When he tried to pull his hand away, a freaking embarrassing sob tore from his throat because she wouldn’t let him go. “Paige,” he gasped, pleaded. “Don’t…”
She shouldn’t be the first person to forgive him. It wasn’t right. She should keep blaming him.
But she stepped toward him and pressed her forehead to his. With the hand that wasn’t holding him prisoner, she reached up and wiped at his damp cheeks.
God, how horrifying. He hadn’t even realized he’d begun to bawl.
“As soon as you can forgive yourself, I think you’ll be ready to move on with your life completely. And I think you’ll be just fine.”
Unable to stop the tears, he interlaced his fingers through hers and held on for dear life, breathing her in. Their bodies barely grazed as she hugged him.
In those few precious moments, she was his entire universe, what grounded him and also what helped him float up with a freedom he couldn’t explain. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that, but it wasn’t nearly long enough. He wanted more time. He wanted to press closer to her and hug her. He wanted forever.
A brisk breeze swept in around them, but Paige’s small soft hand was warm in his. He didn’t think he’d ever be cold again.
He sniffed and tilted his face slightly away in a hopeless effort to hide the fact he was still crying. But in doing so, he only slid his cheek alongside hers. Their flesh brushed and one of his tears sealed their skin together, compressing it as someone would press a sentimental flower petal between the pages of a book.
He wanted to kiss her. His mouth watered as if he could already taste her and he licked his lips, tasting salt from his tears.
But he’d kissed her best friend, turned her father into an abusive alcoholic, started the wheels in motion to make her mother commit suicide, and he’d murdered her brother.
With a sigh, he stepped back. She let him go so he could scrub his face with both hands. When he looked at her, he realized she was right. He might not have quite forgiven himself yet, but he found he did want to move on with his life. Except who he wanted to move on with was unfeasible.
His lungs heaved for more air. After a sniff and another palm-brush across his eyes, he forced a brave smile. “Thank you. You’ll never know how much this means to me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
SHAKEN AND EMOTIONALLY DRAINED, Paige pushed into the back door of her childhood home. She paused half a second before looking around and stepping inside. When she didn’t see a dead parent sprawled on the floor in a puddle of his own blood, she breathed out a relieved breath and silently shut the door behind her.
She waited a beat, keeping her back to the exit, and watched the occasional flash of colored light spray into the kitchen from the living room where her father had left the television on.
In the few weeks she’d been home for Christmas break, she’d yet to talk to her dad aside from a greeting hello and to ask what he’d like to eat at mealtimes.
Relieved he hadn’t made a mess of the kitchen while she’d been out, she treaded quietly down the hall and peeked around the corner into the living room.
A half empty beer bottle clutched in one hand and cradled almost lovingly to his chest as a sleeping child might cuddle a teddy bear, her father lay passed out on the couch with his head tipped back and his mouth hanging open.
If she tried to talk to him the way she’d just spoken to Logan Xander—if she tried to tell him she forgave him for abandoning her these last three years—she knew he wouldn’t thank her the humble, honored way Logan had thanked her. He’d probably deny ever leaving her, saying something along the lines that she was the one who’d left and gone to college.
Shaking her head, Paige took a throw blanket off the back of the rocking chair and gently draped it over him.
“Good night, Dad,” she murmured. “Merry Christmas Eve.” Or Christmas Tree Night as Logan would call it.
When he didn’t even alter the tenor of his snore, she found the remote and turned off the television.
After changing into some warm pajamas, she crawled into bed and thought of Logan Xander. And Kayla.
She knew exactly why Kayla hadn’t told her the truth. And she knew why Kayla had acted as if she’d been doing her own penance these past three years. It was the very reason Logan had been doing the exact same thing.
Guilt.
But had Kayla grown closer to Paige only because of her guilt? Or had Kayla truly come to care about her?
Squeezing her eyes shut, Paige refused to think about that. She felt sore and tired. Drained.
She’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel any anger, or blame, or betrayal where her best friend was concerned. She did. But she was so weary of those emotions and didn’t want to think about them. She’d deal with them later.
Falling asleep with a numb kind of emptiness inside her, Paige dreamed of Logan and how she’d held him after she’d forgiven him at the Christmas Tree farm. But in the dream, she didn’t stop with a hug. She kissed him. And he kissed her back. Then Trace came along and caught them. With a roar, he launched himself at Logan, and the two started to fight.
She woke on a guilty gasp, curled in the same tight fetal position as she’d been when she’d conked out. Sunlight streamed through her window, telling her it was morning. Christmas.
She dragged herself from bed, shuffled through the house, past her dad still unconscious on the couch, and into the kitchen.
It was always a test for her, a challenge she felt compelled to pass, whenever she entered this room. She’d never forget the morning she’d found her mother in here and she’d never like crossing this floor—new tile or not—so she did it as often as possible, on purpose, to show herself she could.
Paige opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs, trying to think of happier times when she’d seen her mom hum as she cooked instead of seeing the phantom image of her dead body. She was scraping the last of the scrambled eggs she fixed onto a second plate when her father stumbled in, bleary eyes blood shot and face unshaven.
Forcing a smile, she called, “You’re just in time. Breakfast is ready.”
“Already got my breakfast,” he answered in a guttural voice as he opened the refrigerator.
When he came up with a beer, Paige clenched her teeth but refused to show her irritation.
“How about you not drink today,” she suggested with an encouraging grin. “It’s Christmas.”
“How about you get off my back,” he sneered, raising an eyebrow in challenge as he looked her in the eye and intentionally popped off the cap. “It’s Christmas.” Then he tipped his head back and took a long guzzle.
Sighing quietly as she forfeited the fight, Paige set down the spatula she’d been holding. She’d learned a lot about herself and a lot about
grieving in the past couple months. Her group at Granton had healed her in ways she hadn’t even known she’d been hurt. And she just wanted her father to experience a little bit of the same ease from his own suffering.
If she didn’t at least try to reach him, no one else would, so she set her shoulders firmly. “Dad, I know this is the first year we’ve had to go through the holidays without Mom but—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” His voice was harsh and commanding, leaving her no room to respond without outright pushing. He flung a single glare at her and turned away to leave the kitchen.
She followed him. “Well, I do. You are the only family I have left, Paul Zukowski. And I can’t just give up on you the way you’ve given up on yourself.”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” he roared. He swung around with his bottle pointed at her.
She must have miscalculated how close she’d moved to him, though. Instead of pointing, he cracked her in the cheekbone hard with the side of the glass. The bottle shattered from the force of his swing, and Paige was pitched to the floor, momentarily blinded as pain streaked across her jaw.
Crouched on her hands and knees among the broken glass, she trembled for a good second before sitting up and hesitantly lifting her hand to her face. When her fingers came away wet and sticky—and red, she gaped at them before looking up at her father.
He stared back, obviously dumbfounded. Then he shook his head, bunched his jaw with rage, and yelled, “Damn it, now! Why were you standing so close?”
Too flustered to answer, Paige moved her mouth without actually speaking. But the action shot white-hot heat through her jaw, so she winced and cupped her cheek to keep it still.
After running his hands through his hair and looking wild and undecided about what to do, her dad belted out a couple more curses and staggered from the room.
Paige remained on the floor, sitting only a few feet from where her mother had last lay. When a drop of blood splattered to the tile, her teeth began to chatter.
Pushing clumsily upright, she tripped toward the counter and grabbed a paper towel. She hurried to her room, shut the door silently, and collapsed onto her bed. The mirror next to her closet beckoned her, but she refused to look, couldn’t bear to see how bad it was.
The injury throbbed through her head, making one side of her face feel swollen and inflamed.
She blinked repeatedly. At least her vision wasn’t harmed.
When her cell phone rang, she jumped, quickly checking the ID. She hoped maybe Bailey or Tess was calling to wish her a Merry Christmas. She needed a dose of Granton like she couldn’t believe. But when she saw Kayla’s name, she closed her eyes and sniffed.
She couldn’t talk to Kayla right now. Kayla would know something was wrong and come racing over. And not only did Paige not want Kayla losing her affection for Paul, but she didn’t want to go through the confrontation over what she’d just learned. And she knew the next time she saw her friend, she’d have to confront her. Otherwise, she’d never be able to forgive her.
When the phone stopped ringing and dinged, telling her the caller had left a message, Paige finally cried.
She wanted to go back to Granton, the only place she really felt like herself. But the dorms wouldn’t open again until after the new year. She’d have to wait at least ten more days before she could leave.
For some reason, she thought about Logan Xander, wondering what he did by himself on holidays without his family. Did he feel as alone right now as she did? At least his father hadn’t physically struck him.
Her brain wandered to the night before. She’d hugged him, actually wrapped her arms around him and felt safe and content in his warm, solid embrace.
The way he’d whispered “thank you” into her ear haunted her as much as it invigorated. Despite how horribly wrong her attempt to reconnect with her father had gone, at least she’d been able to reach Logan and give him a certain peace of mind.
But what would Trace think about all this warmth she was feeling for his arch-enemy? For the guy who’d kissed Kayla?
God, she couldn’t think. She just wanted to stop thinking forever. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to fall asleep, where she didn’t dream at all.
A splitting headache woke her from her midmorning nap. Finding the courage to face a mirror, she stumbled into the bathroom and checked the damage. The paper towel she’d pressed to the cut while she’d fallen asleep had dried to her skin. Dampening a washcloth, she dabbed the area until she was able to peel the tissue away.
Thankfully, the cut wasn’t all that deep; it had just bled a lot. Only a thin slice marred her skin. Well, a thin slice along with a healthy, bright red bruise and puffy cheek.
She cleaned it as best as she could, sucking in a sharp breath whenever she tried to scrub away the dried blood. Her entire body throbbed by the time she finished. After taking two capsules of painkillers, she returned to the kitchen to find her scrambled eggs gone and the pan she’d cooked them in washed and put away. Her father was nowhere on the property.
Realizing how truly sorry he must’ve been to actually clean up her mess, she sat at the table and cried some more, wondering how in God’s name she was going to make it through another ten days like this.
She couldn’t go to Kayla without stirring up a huge fight she wasn’t ready to have. She couldn’t call Tess or Bailey because they knew nothing about her home life and she wanted to keep it that way. She couldn’t call home, since she was home.
She couldn’t turn to anyone.
So she just kept on and suffered through. Her father stayed scarce for the most part, staying out of her way. She only saw traces of his comings and goings and heard him walking through the house late at night when she was in her room, trying to sleep.
When Kayla called the day after Christmas, Paige finally answered and made up some lie about how she and her dad had gone for a drive around the county, talking about old times. Kayla had oohed and ahhed as if it was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard. Then she’d invited Paige to come with her to meet her boyfriend.
It seemed so easy to act as if she didn’t know anything about Kayla’s involvement in Trace’s death, so Paige pretended ignorance. Confronting her didn’t seem so important anymore. She said nothing about it and came up with a convincing lie for her cut cheek. When she met with Kayla to meet Archer, she said she’d tripped over a laundry basket in the dark when she’d been going to the bathroom one night.
Kayla had no reason to suspect a lie, so she rolled her eyes and threw an arm around Paige’s shoulder. “You can be the most graceful person I know sometimes. But put a laundry basket in your path at night, and you’re a total klutz, sweetie.”
Paige forced a laugh and bumped her hip against Kayla’s. “Yeah, you gotta watch out for those night-stalking laundry baskets. Now where’s this guy I’m supposed to meet?”
As the two girls neared the front entrance of the restaurant where they had agreed to hook up with Kayla’s boyfriend, the door opened to reveal a short, stocky blond with a goatee.
Face lighting with pleasure, Kayla pointed. “He’s right there.”
Archer Bloom was nothing at all like Trace. He was laid-back and calm with a polite, almost dry attitude. But he knew how to make her best friend glow.
Paige studied them snuggled together in the booth across from her and tried to feel happy for Kayla. But the pangs of bitter blame kept lapping at her ankles and occasionally she wanted to snarl and demand that her best friend never get over her brother, not after what she’d done to him. Not after whom she’d kissed.
Heat boiled into her belly as she tried to picture Logan and Kayla kissing. A part of her knew she wasn’t feeling indignant on Trace’s behalf. She was straight-up jealous. Kayla knew what those amazing lips felt like. And Paige never would.
That was in no way fair.
Closing her eyes, she shoved the blame, and anger, and jealousy back down deep inside her and tried to act as
if nothing was wrong. Thank goodness Kayla was so wrapped up in her boyfriend she didn’t notice, because Paige knew she wouldn’t be able to come up with a good lie about what was wrong if Kayla had noticed.
Again, she survived.
The days passed until New Year’s Eve. The approaching first anniversary of her mother’s death wasn’t any easier to deal with than the first anniversary of Trace’s death. But when Kayla invited Paige to spend New Year’s Eve together, Paige almost felt sick from the déjà vu. She agreed, though, because it was a good—okay, her only—reason to get out of the house for a while.
The party was awful, thrown by a bunch of Trace’s old friends. The people who didn’t shy away from her tried to give her their best regards as if he’d just died yesterday. Kayla seemed too busy with Archer to notice Paige’s discomfort, so Paige took off about an hour before the ball dropped.
It was fifteen minutes after eleven when she slipped into the front door, not brave enough to face the back entrance tonight. But when she stepped inside, the sight of her father sprawled on his stomach on the living room floor, face planted in the carpet, almost made her throw up.
She yelped out a horrified screamed and jumped backward, bumping into the wall of the foyer. But as soon as she yelped, the mass on the floor lurched. She screamed again, not expecting him to be alive.
Paul rolled onto his back with a curse. “What the hell are you yapping about?” He groaned and clutched his head as he struggled to sit up.
Her hand pressed solid against her thumping chest, Paige closed her eyes. “What’re you doing on the floor?” she demanded right back, her fear urging on her angry tone. “I thought you were dead.”
He scowled at her. “What? You thought I offed myself or something?”
Glaring right back, she hissed, “Well, isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the past three years? Drinking yourself to death?”
He opened his mouth to snap something back but stopped in the last second. His gaze settled on the bright purple bruise on her cheek just under her left eye, and he cringed. With a whispered curse, he collapsed backward and rested his spine against the couch as he cradled his head in his hands.