I looked up in surprise.

Jared raked his fingers through his hair. “No. You don’t do that! You don’t show up here looking like you got jumped in an alley and refuse to tell me anything and then thank me. I don’t want your thanks.”

I didn’t have any fight left in me. Besides, he was right. I drew in a breath.

“Stop.” He held up a hand. “I don’t want an apology, either. I just want…”

I knew what he wanted—the truth. But that wasn’t an option.

“I just want to know you’re okay.”

Oh.

He stared at me, at all my bruises and cuts. “I’m trying so hard to understand what’s going on. Just tell me, please…are you okay? Are you really okay?”

“Yes,” I said. And I was, in the way he meant.

Beyond that, who could say?

He sighed. The air settled around us.

“I’ll leave if you want me to,” I said. It was more of a question.

“You think I want you to leave? God, Alexis.” Jared shook his head and looked at me. “Just hang on for a minute, all right?”

He disappeared, and I heard the sound of liquid pouring into a glass. Then drinking and the clatter of the glass being set on the counter.

A second later, he came in, rubbing the back of his neck, and sat down. The room filled with silence again. We didn’t talk, because we had nothing to say. I laid my head on my arm and closed my eyes.

I heard movement, and I felt Jared’s weight press on the sofa cushion next to mine.

I leaned into him and felt his arms wrap around me. It was a friendly gesture, although I could feel the tension in his muscles.

“Jared?” I said, looking up at him.

“What?”

I felt the weight of my unspoken apology like an overfilled water balloon. But he didn’t want to hear it, and I wasn’t in a position to impose. So instead I said, “What happened tonight…”

How could I explain it?

Suddenly, my whole life seemed like a never-ending succession of things I couldn’t explain.

And in that moment, it hit me:

Enough. Enough secrets. Enough of living this way.

It was time to conquer my fear—and take care of Lydia for good.

I stared up into his eyes. “I can’t tell you what it was, but it’s not going to happen again.”

“Well…” He looked around helplessly. “Good, I guess. Because seeing you like this—I mean, I thought somebody had attacked you.”

“No,” I said.

“I’m serious, Alexis. I saw you standing there, and I wanted to kill whoever did this to you.” His whispery voice held the smoky scent of whatever he’d drunk in the kitchen. His eyes were soft and deep and brown, like the saddest puppy in the world. His jaw was tight with worry. Under my arm, his was solid and unmoving. He was like a suit of armor around me.

Nothing could get past him.

“I wish you could trust me,” he said, his lips brushing against my hair.

I sat there, in shock from the heat of his breath, wrapped in warm flannel and soft cotton and strong arms.

And in that moment, it all seemed so pointless. All of the lonely, empty nights. Isolating myself at school and at home. Always holding Jared at arm’s length—and why? Because I thought Carter might take me back?

Even if he weren’t dating Zoe, he would never come back to me. “Do you even know how to trust?” he’d asked me the day of Lydia’s funeral—our last day. The day he’d broken up with me.

Everything I’d been doing for the past two and a half months was about being afraid. It wasn’t living. It was just…hiding. Hiding from ghosts. From my family. From people at school. From the reality that Carter had moved on and left me behind.

From Jared.

Suddenly, desperately, I needed to stop hiding. I needed to do something real and new and meaningful.

“Jared…” I said.

He turned to me, perfectly attentive and gentle. “Yes?”

The small cuckoo clock on the dustless mantel began to tweet.

Midnight.

“Happy new year,” I whispered.

Then I kissed him.

Our kiss was like a stormy night—the end of something and the beginning of something else—hungry, almost frantic. After a minute, I pulled back, and we stared at each other, my heart pounding all the way up to my ears.

Tears fought to escape my eyes. I pushed my fingers through Jared’s hair and turned my face into his chest. For a few minutes, I let myself be tangled up against him, listening to the distant buzz of the dryer as it finished tumbling my clothes, trying to comprehend what I’d just done.

What I’d started.

Jared didn’t speak or move. After a minute, our breathing aligned. I must have drifted off, because the next thing I heard was Jared’s voice.

“Alexis.” His whisper was quiet and intimately close to my ear. “What time do you need to get home?”

“One,” I said.

“Okay. It’s only twelve thirty.”

“Good,” I said, sleepily turning toward him.

“I’m so glad you came here tonight.” His hand absently stroked my hair. “I’ve been…I don’t think ‘hoping’ is the right word. But I’ve been…waiting.”

“Really?” I said, even though I knew it.

“You don’t have to be sad or scared anymore.” He pulled me closer. “You’re safe with me.”

I could have said, That’s nice or You’re sweet or some other generic thing.

But then he leaned down and started a line of light kisses across the back of my neck, and I didn’t have to say anything at all.

The next morning, I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling.

I’d slept in Jared’s T-shirt. It was warm and soft against my skin.

Yeah, so he wasn’t Carter. But he was decent and kind, and there was something else about him—some secret undercurrent of intensity that I couldn’t imagine Carter ever having.

Jared had walked me to my car the night before. “You’re not going to wake up in the morning and regret this, are you?” he’d asked, leaning down and resting his elbows on the window ledge.

“No,” I said. “Are you?”

His eyes crinkled. “Are you kidding me?” Then he’d kissed me in a way that made me believe him. Thinking about it, nestled under my comforter, I felt myself starting to smile.

A few minutes later I got up and went to the bathroom, where I carefully covered the bruise on my chin and combed my hair over the cut on my forehead. Then I went out to the kitchen, where Mom was making pancakes.

“Happy new year,” she said, giving me a hug. “Let’s make it a good one, okay?”

“Sure,” I said, pouring a glass of orange juice.

“Do you have any resolutions?”

I took a swig of juice and thought of what I’d promised myself I would do that day. “Just one.”

I DROVE SLOWLY THROUGH the west part of Surrey, my stomach doing unhappy backflips. At first I wasn’t sure I’d remember where to turn off the main road. But when I passed a mini-mall with a burned-out, boarded-up beauty salon in the middle, the odd twinge in my abdomen turned into a spasm.

Who was I trying to fool? Like I’d ever forget this route as long as I lived.

A few more turns led me to Lydia’s house. What had been a mild air of homeownerly neglect back in October had matured to a very real sense of impending collapse by January. The garage door was dented like someone had driven right into it. One of the porch steps was missing altogether, and flies swarmed over the mountain of trash bags just outside the front door.

I remembered that the doorbell didn’t work, and knocked gently. I counted to fifty-Mississippi, but just as I was about to leave, the door opened a few inches to reveal a haggard face defined by sharp gray shadows.

“Mrs. Small?” I asked.

She stared dead-eyed at me, as if I hadn’t spoken at all.

“I’m…I was a friend of Lydia’s,” I said.

The door opened, and Mrs. Small backed away to let me inside. She wore a long nightgown, tattered at the hem, with a knee-length robe over it. The ties of the robe fell limply down to the floor.