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“What?” I scoffed, but I was curious where this was headed.
Pointing a finger at me, he stared at me, incredulous. “I remember…it was right around that time you had a stalker, and that girl—”
“Stop.” I snapped.
I didn’t want to remember that night. Just thinking about it nearly made my breath hitch.
His eyes narrowed. “Why? What happened?”
I had never told him. I had never toldanyone, and for years the guilt of that night had eaten away at my sanity.
“That girl…she was young.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.
Gavin must have mistaken my hesitation as something else, because he powered through it.
“No shit, that’s what made it so funny.” He laughed, but I didn’t follow, so he sobered, waiting for me to finish.
“I knew she liked me, and I knew she was borderline following me…but one night she actually followed me into the library.”
Gavin’s brows dipped. “So?”
I rubbed my face. “I was with Lydia…”
Understanding bloomed on my friend’s face, his eyebrows arching and his mouth going slack.
“She saw you.”
I nodded, even as shame threatened to bury me.
“I have no idea how she knew. I mean, it was freaky because I realized the extent of her following me was actually pretty serious, but the look on her face when she saw me with Lydia…” Shaking my head, I tried to get the memory out of my head. But it wouldn’t budge; it was branded on my conscience. “She was destroyed, and after that, I never saw her again. I think…”
This was the part I could never say out loud, one of my deepest fears.
“You think what?” Gavin asked.
Sighing, I sipped my beer once more before explaining. “It’s just…sometimes I wonder if she hurt herself because of me. I mean, she just disappeared. I even started hanging around town more often, just to see if I’d catch sight of her, but I never have. I just couldn’t live with myself if she did—you know what I mean?”
Gavin’s face shuttered, his head ducking. He knew what I was talking about.
He knew why my fears were controlling me.
He understood, because it wasn’t the first time someone would have gotten hurt because of my actions.
“Davis, man… You can’t live your life like this. You need closure.”
I knew I did. I had considered it, but I had no idea what her name was, or where she lived.
I knew she had worked at the diner in some capacity, but they always had kids in and out of there during different seasons, and it wasn’t long enough to really grasp what she’d done there. Otherwise, there was nothing. I had no idea who she was.
“It’s weird that she knew you’d be there. I mean, even if she had followed you, hadn’t you been at the library for a while that day?”
“Yeah, I had. Lydia met me after I had installed a few light fixtures. I’d been there since closing. She came around eight thirty, we had dinner, then the girl showed up somewhere after Lydia and I started—” I hesitated again, unable to form the words.
“Fucking?”
I nodded.
My best friend shook his head, draining the rest of his beer.
