Page 30 of One Mistake

She pursed her lips. “They dropped the charges against all of them.” Her eyes lowered and her voice came softer. “Except Ryder.” And much brighter, she added, “But it looks like he’s going to take a deal.”

I nodded, trying not to think of him in jail or worse. Closing my eyes as of my imagination would be stopped by a couple of eyelids. “What kind of deal?”

“I don’t know all the details. I think restitution. Maybe a couple months in jail.” I think. Maybe. These were not the absolutes I needed. I couldn’t stand the thought of him in jail. For whatever reason, the idea of Ryder behind bars with hardened criminals made my stomach turn. My throat was clogged with tears or anger or something almost too big to breathe around, anyway. Two breaths stood between me and a quick meltdown. And once I took those, there was nothing holding me together. I cried. And I wanted to roll up into a ball and pretend I hadn’t made a fool of myself, but then she wrapped me in a hug.

“They all suck, Reese.” She patted my back and stroked my hair and shushed me until I was finally cried out. Then she helped me wash off and reapply the mascara that had streaked down my face. She wouldn’t meet my eyes though. Not until she said, “You want to hear something…crazy?” I nodded because friends shared crazy stories. At least they did on TV. So yeah. We did, too. “I married Finn.”

My fingers curled into fists at my side. I needed to change the subject. “So, married, huh?”

Her skin flushed. “He’s amazing.” She filled in some generic details. Called him wonderful, sweet, more than she imagined. But swore she didn’t love him.

I stared at her. Checked for any sign she was kidding. She wasn’t. “Oh shit.” I needed details. “When?”

“It’s been eleven days today.” She sniffed and her voice crept to one of those ear-shattering heights. “My eleventh anniversary.” I’d never seen an honest to God panic attack before, but if that wasn’t what I was witnessing then I didn’t know what it was. She shook her hands out hard until her knuckles cracked, and she hopped. On one foot. In a circle. Her breaths were short and shallow. Like Lamaze breaths. “I married Finn Makenzie.” I nodded because I didn’t know what sound was going to make her worse. “And he’s getting kicked out of school. For good.”

Oh shit. That meant they all were. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No. I don’t know if I can be with someone who…got kicked out of the school my dad runs.” But that wasn’t what she meant. She meant someone who was kicked out of school. I half wondered if that made her a snob, but I got dumped by a guy who got kicked out of school so I couldn’t judge.

I took her by the shoulders. “Do you love him?”

“He deserves someone who is sure…” At least she wasn’t dancing around anymore.

“You’re allowed to doubt.” God knew I did. I didn’t just doubt. I hated. Vowed to hate Ryder for as long as I lived.

The tears in her eyes spilled over. “He wouldn’t doubt me.” He wouldn’t. Finn believed in everyone. It was kind of his thing. Kindness. Faith in people. And to die for looks.

But I wasn’t afflicted with such belief in people. And it didn’t take a genius to know he’d married her to legitimize himself. “Felicity…” I had to make her see he was only protecting himself. Was using her. Was not the person she thought. None of them were.

She held up her hand. “Please, don’t. I love Finn, and I know it seems like we only did this to…and it started that way. But I’ve never been so happy. I wake up every morning looking into that guy’s face.” She shook her head. “Even if it ends right now, I wouldn’t regret it.”

There was some courage in that statement. A definable determination. It gave me hope for them. She loved him. That would get them through. “It won’t end, Fliss. I can see you guys in fifty years sitting on a porch in front of a house with those little garden gnomes and flower boxes under the windows. You guys’ll make it.”

She grinned. Who didn’t like hearing how happy they were going to be for the rest of their lives. “You think so?”

“Of course, I do.” I hugged her. “I have news, too, kind of.” She cocked her head. “I’m going to enroll in the police academy in San Jose.”

“California?” Her voice did that pitchy high octave thing again.

I nodded. It was as far away from Ryder Kennedy and a university full of bad memories as I could get. “It isn’t going to work out for me here.”

Oh no. She frowned and her chin quivered. “But we just got to know each other.”

I would miss her and Avery. This video scandal brought us together. Maybe it wasn’t all bad. Well, worse for them than for me since Ryder hadn’t uploaded anything with us together so my naked ass wasn’t stored in anyone’s cloud. But they’d acted like we were all in it together even when some of the other victims called them traitors for sticking by Keaton and Finn.

“We can talk on the phone and write letters. And we can visit.” Even to me, the words sounded empty, like something people said, but never did. “We just have to make sure we make it a priority.”

“It’s all the way across the country.” She widened her eyes and puffed out her cheeks. The distance was my favorite part.

We both needed a hug. Fortunately, she knew how to make such a thing happen without also making it awkward. “I’ve never had friends like you and Avery. I’m not going to give you guys up. We’ll figure it out.”

She smiled. “You bet.”

And if it hadn’t fallen apart for us by then, it was coming. Faster than we could protect ourselves.

12

Ryder