Danny pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes again as they began to sting, and he took a slow breath before continuing. “They took me to a station and put me in a cell, and no one would tell me what happened. No one would tell me.” He shook his head slowly. “A few hours later, they came in and said I had made bail. I walked out to the vestibule, and Gram was there.”

He dropped his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. “And she just crumpled in my arms and started wailing. And then I knew.”

Danny heard her move beside him, and before he could open his eyes, she was crawling onto his lap, wrapping her arms around him as she buried her face into his neck.

He snaked his arms around her waist and pulled her against his body. Even though he knew the worst was yet to come, she felt so good in his arms that he couldn’t stop himself. He needed this right now. He needed her.

He heard a tiny muffled sob, and Danny closed his eyes as he pressed his lips against her shoulder. He wished the story ended there. He wished he deserved the sympathy she was showing him right now. Danny tightened his arms and held her closer, wanting to soak up every last second of what he was surely about to lose.

“I don’t understand,” she mumbled into the crook of his neck. “So now this guy is pressing charges against you? How can he do that? Why isn’t he in trouble for what he did to Bryan?”

Leah, please don’t hate me.

“He’s not the one pressing charges,” he whispered against her shoulder.

She sat up and looked at him, her brow pulled together and her face streaked with tears. She looked so troubled and so saddened and so beautiful that he would have rather torn his arm off than say his next words.

He reached up and brushed at the tear stains on her face. “When we went through the window, an artery in his neck was severed. They took him to the hospital that night, but they couldn’t stop the bleeding in time.”

Her brow smoothed out, but she shook her head. “What…what do you mean?”

Danny looked up at her, wiping the other cheek with the pad of this thumb.

“Did he…?” She trailed off, and Danny nodded.

Something like panic overtook her expression as she said, “So you’re…?”

“I’m being charged with manslaughter.”

Leah stared down at him, and he watched the rapid rise and fall of her chest as her breathing grew ragged, that same panicked look on her face.

He looked at her dark hair falling over her shoulders, those beautiful, expressive eyes, her delicate nose, the lips that could steal his breath and make him feel alive at the same time. He wanted to memorize everything about her while he still could.

And then, without warning, she threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around him so tightly, he could feel her muscles trembling with the effort.

His heart stopped in his chest before it picked up double time.

Every time he had envisioned this moment, it always ended with some variation of her leaving, some version of her being horrified, afraid, disgusted.

But never once had he imagined this.

“Leah.” He sighed as he cradled her in his arms, and another sob broke from her lips, stifled by the front of his shirt.

“But you didn’t mean to do it,” she said through her tears. “It was an accident. Just tell them it was an accident.”

Danny closed his eyes as he rubbed his hand up and down her back. She was defending him. And in a way, it was almost more painful than it would have been if she told him to go to hell.

“It doesn’t work that way, sweet girl,” he whispered.

She nodded against his chest before she sniffled. “So there’s no way? There’s no way this will be okay?”

Danny slid his hand up under her hair, massaging her neck gently. “The best I can hope for is that the judge will take into consideration what happened with Bryan, that I have no priors…and maybe he’ll be understanding of the situation.”

“The judge? What about the jury?”

“It’s not going to trial,” he said. “I’m copping a plea. It’s better that way.”

“How?” she asked, wiping her nose with her sleeve as she sat up to look at him.

“It should lessen the sentence,” he said softly.

It was quiet for several seconds before she whispered, “How long?”

He ran his fingers through the back of her hair. “A couple of years, probably.”

She closed her eyes as her chin trembled violently, and he used his hand behind her neck to pull her back down to him.

“I’m so sorry, Leah,” he whispered as she buried her face in his shirt.

“Don’t apologize,” she said, her voice breaking before she sniffled and hiccupped against his chest, and he held her, running his hands over her back, her arms, her hair, anywhere he could reach.

After several minutes she spoke again, her voice softly breaking the silence. “How much more time do you have?”

“I don’t know. A lot of stuff got held up in the beginning because of everything with Bryan and his involvement in all this. It’s all paper pushing at this point. The court date for my sentencing hasn’t been set, but my lawyer says it will be sometime this year.”

She nodded against him.

“And I’ll understand, Leah. I swear to you, I’ll understand.”

“Understand what?” she whispered.

“If this changes how you feel about me.”

She sat up, looking down at him, and he stared back up at her. “I’ll understand,” he promised.

And he would. He wouldn’t hate her for walking away. He wouldn’t even hate her if she thought he was a monster, because the truth was, he’d never felt like more of a monster than he did in this moment, watching her hurt for him.

She stared at him until her eyes welled with tears again.

“This is a lot to take in,” she said as they spilled over her lower lashes.

“I know,” he whispered, wiping them away with his thumbs.

“I just…I need to think. There’s so much…” She trailed off and shook her head, and he nodded.

“I know. It’s okay.”

She looked down at him, and he smiled at her, hoping she couldn’t see the sadness behind it.

Leah brought her hand to his cheek, and he leaned into her touch.

“I just…I want you to know that no matter what happens, I know you, Danny,” she said. “I know who you really are.”

He stared up at her, and the vice-like pain in his chest began to soften for the first time since he had entered her apartment. There was nothing she could have said in that moment more perfect than the words she’d just spoken.

Because no matter what she decided after this, even if she chose to walk away and never look back, in a way, she had just absolved him.

She had looked straight through all the horror and the ugliness, and she still saw him.

And when she laid her head back down on his chest, he rested his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes, wondering if there would ever be a man on this planet who was worthy of her.

Leah sat at her desk, spinning a paper clip between her fingers.

She just wanted this day to be over.

Every Tuesday she ran the After-School Help program, or ASH, as the students called it. From two to four thirty, students could come to receive extra help in whatever classes they were struggling with, although most often it was overrun with athletes just looking for a quiet place to do their homework before practice began.

By the time the bell rang after Leah’s last class, it had already felt like the longest day she’d ever experienced, so the two and a half hours she still had to endure before she could go home seemed insurmountable.

She thought work would provide her with a much needed distraction, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t focus on anything except what had happened the day before. She could see everything so vividly—the scene he described, his face as he told her—and she’d spent most of the day on the verge of tears because of it.