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The officer cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for this, Miss Hamilton. Try to get some rest and we’ll see you tomorrow.”
Try to get some rest? I almost laughed.
“We’re going to get out of here, but I need to get your crutches, okay?” Jase said as he pulled back, cupping my face. My eyes locked with his. Concern tightened the lines around his mouth, thinning his lips. He looked as pale as I felt. “You going to be okay while I go get them?”
I hadn’t realized that I’d come down here without them. Closing my eyes, I took several deep breaths as I tried to pull myself together. “Okay. I’ll . . . I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
When I nodded, he started to get up, but I gripped his wrists. “Where are we going?”
“We can go back to the house up here or my parents—”
I didn’t want to be around people and I especially didn’t want to run into Erik. “I have a key to Cam’s apartment. It’s . . . it’s in my purse. Can we go there?”
“Yeah, baby, we can go anywhere you want.” He glanced over my shoulder. “I’ll be—”
My grip on his wrists tightened. “Don’t tell Cam. Please. If you do, he’ll come home and it will ruin the trip. Please don’t tell him.”
“I won’t tell him,” he promised, kissing my cheek. “And don’t worry about that. Okay? Just don’t worry about anything.”
Relieved that this wouldn’t interfere with Cam’s plans, I relaxed a little. Jase left to find one of the officers so he could go upstairs and get my stuff. As I waited for him, I kept my gaze trained on the scuffed tile. I could feel the stares on me, and I wanted to shrink into the blanket and disappear.
When Jase returned, it wasn’t soon enough. Holding my purse, he helped me up and guided me outside. I barely felt the cool air as we made our way past the police cruisers that were parked along the curb and into the parking lot.
The ride to University Heights was silent. Jase held my hand, but I barely felt his grip. I was numb inside and out, and I wondered when I’d start feeling things again. Immediately after I’d injured my knee the first time, it had been like this. Empty. In a daze. The out-of-it feeling had lasted for days, but this was on such a deep, different level.
Cam’s apartment was dark when we stepped inside. Jase stepped around me, easily finding the switch to the overhead light. I imagined the apartment was like a third home to him.
He stopped a few feet from me and turned, thrusting both of his hands through his hair. “Tess, baby . . .” He shook his head, as if he had no idea what to say. And what does one say in a situation like this?
I took a deep breath, feeling weak in my knees. “I’ve . . . I’ve never seen a dead person before.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“And she was dead.” I stopped, swallowing. That was a stupid, unnecessary clarification, but I needed to say it out loud. “She killed herself. Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know.” He started toward me, a look of pain clouding his eyes.
The back of my throat burned. “She told me last night that she was happy that she broke up with Erik. That she had her whole life to look forward to.” I drew in a breath that got caught. “She was okay today. I don’t understand.”
“I know.” He stopped in front of me, and when he spoke again, his voice was low. “You may never understand.”
I didn’t want to believe that. Something had to have happened to make her do what she did, because I didn’t want this to be something I never understood and had to live with. I wasn’t moving, but somehow I stumbled. The crutches fell to the floor, thudding softly off the carpet. Jase caught my elbow and led me over to the couch.
“You doing okay?” He sat beside me, placing a warm hand against my cool cheek.
I nodded as I closed my eyes, leaning into his touch. The words—they sort of just came out of me. “Maybe I should’ve said something earlier to her about Erik—about what I’d been through with Jeremy. I could’ve helped her. Maybe paid more attention—”
“Stop,” he said, cupping my cheeks with both hands as he pressed his forehead against mine. “There was absolutely nothing you could’ve done to have made any of this different. Do you understand that?”
I wasn’t sure. I had been silent from the start with her and Erik, and Debbie had stayed silent over what had happened. Silence, no matter which way you look at it, destroyed lives.
He made a deep, torn sound. “If she wanted to kill herself, she would’ve done it no matter what anyone did or said, Tess.”
Kill herself.
Something didn’t ring true about that, made it hard to believe that she would’ve actually hung herself. Denial was riding me pretty strongly, but there was something in the back of my head that screamed she wouldn’t have done this.
