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“Consider us even.” He motioned to the bottle of water in my hands.
“Okay, second question.” Because this conversation was getting stranger by the second, and I had too many questions. Questions I knew Max wouldn’t answer yet, maybe never.
“What do you think would happen if Michael and Sabrina found out… about me and Nix?”
His expression hardened, his eyes simmering with something that made dread sluice down my spine. “If you love him, really love him, Harleigh… don’t do it. Don’t tell them. Not yet.”
“But if they find out?” Because it would come out eventually.
He inhaled a sharp breath. “If I were you,” he warned. “I’d hope like hell they don’t.”
I didn’t go back to the house, I couldn’t.
The second it had come into view, I’d frozen. Max must have noticed my hesitation, whatever emotion simmered in my eyes, because he took one look at my expression and told me he’d cover for me so long as I didn’t disappear.
Disappear.
There was a thought.
I’d spent years feeling invisible. Around The Row, walking the halls at school, even in my trailer. I’d been the girl few people saw or cared about. It was different here. People watched. They watched, they judged, and they gossiped.
Was this what it had been like for my mom when she’d fallen in love with the wrong man?
A man she could never have.
I’d never get to ask her now. I’d never have the chance to truly understand what it was like for her back then. To ask her why she’d never let Michael see me.
Part of me got it. Understood why she hadn’t let him into my life. But I wasn’t a child now. I could make my own decisions.
I let my fingers drift over the branches of the low hanging trees. I hadn’t wandered far, the estate still visible in the distance. But I couldn’t go back there yet. Not until I’d calmed down. I felt unstable, my thoughts erratic and disordered.
Mom.
Michael.
Sabrina.
Max.
Nate.
Nix.
Mom.
Michael.
Nix.
Sabrina.
Nix.
Michael.
Nix.
Nix.
