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My hands fall to my side. “Because I need to know, and I want to hear it from you.”

He keeps his head down, his eyes locked to the ground. I’m worried he’s going to clam up again, close off, but he parts his lips. “It was an accident. That’s all you need to know.”

My breath shallows, and I lose the ability to breathe. “Or was it Maison?” I ask softly.

He closes his eyes, as if reliving every single second of what really went on. He gives me a pleading look, not wanting me to press this.

Finding my nerve, I keep going. “Did Maison drug her? Is that how she really died?” I’m pretty sure my heart has stopped beating now. I know the truth just by his reaction. Every dark flicker from both of them over the past month. Their tells were in their eyes the whole time.

He stands with his shoulders slumped over, still close to me, and bites his bottom lip with so much sorrow in his eyes. What he says next shocks me to the core. “He doesn’t know… He thinks I killed her in the car accident, and that’s how she died. I let him think that; I let everyone think that. I created the narrative.”

He doesn’t know?

“But…”

His lips twist, and I can only imagine tears pouring out of him by how much pain he’s in. The realization of it sickens me—Maison drugged her. He gave her a lethal dosage of something to control her, and it killed her.

He’s capable of killing someone. And Micah took on that pain and sorrow, sparing him from that realization. Everything is clicking into place.

Micah looks at me now, his eyes dark with all that sadness. “It would kill him if he knew the truth. He’s not a bad guy, London; he just did a terrible thing. It’s easier for everyone to think it was me, and I deserve it for betraying him to begin with by even being with her at that moment. But she was so messed up when I found her, I couldn’t… I shouldn’t have even been with her.”

The image of him with her stains my mind. “You fucked her when she was like that?” I can’t help the level of disgust in my voice. What kind of guys have I fallen for?

He dips his chin and keeps speaking, despite the look of horror on my face. Obviously, he feels good about finally getting this out. “I was sleeping with her for weeks. She drank a lot. She came to find me after she broke up with him and threw herself at me. She died right after we… I didn’t know. I didn’t know until….” His voice catches and I place my fingers over his mouth for a moment, stopping him from saying it. I can’t hear it. I don’t want to picture him with her, or Maison, for that matter.

“What about the accident?” I ask him.

I watch the bob in his throat. “I faked the accident. I didn’t know what else to do. My dad’s lawyer and I talked about it after they found all the shit in her system and started investigating me for murder. When I admitted everything, my dad found the shit in his room. Maison messed around with drugs a bit, here and there, but I never touched the fucking stuff. It was either me going to prison or him. My dad couldn’t imagine his golden boy being in prison, so he paid a lot of fucking money to make it go away. He pulled in some major debts over it.

Ezra—his dad fucked over an entire family for it.

I shake my head, my body trembling. “I thought it was you. I was certain it was you.”

His eyes glaze over. “You wanted the fucking truth, sweetheart, well there it is. Now go back to him, and don’t tell him what I just told you. Promise me, London.”

My hands squeeze into fists and the world collapses in on me. He has no right to ask that of me. I try to speak again, but I choke on my words. I try to scream, but all I do is suck in air as chills run through my spine as I fall to the ground.

What is happening to me?

“London?”

Micah’s voice is soft, calling for me.

I can’t breathe.

The world blurs.

His soft hands are on me, shaking me. “London… London. You’re having a panic attack, and you just fainted. Breathe.”

I slowly regain my focus, but my chest rises and falls at a rapid rate. I can’t control it. Micah is crouched down in front of me, his eyes wide.

He looks like Maison. Is it Maison? I close my eyes, and let my head hang heavy as Micah grabs me and lifts me, wrapping his arms around me.

My body is limp in his, like I’m intoxicated. My senses dull. He cradles me in his arms and I’m floating, like I’m not really in my body and am watching this all unfold as someone else. It’s all too much, this whole island. It’s all just a dream. One fucked up hallucination.

He cradles my head into his chest as he walks. My eyes shut tight, his heartbeat against my ear. The rhythmic beating of his chest calms me, so I focus on that as I slowly come back into myself.

Eventually, I let out a moan, and he rubs his fingers against my forehead.