They let me go. They have no proof. No solid evidence. No fingerprints, no pictures, no concrete data on what went wrong.

I knew they wouldn’t.

The sunlight in the parking lot is blinding, so bright I can’t see. It burns away not just my sight, but the torrent of feelings ripping through my insides like a scythe slicing through grain.

I have to shade my face from the light.

Why can’t I cut off my heart from my brain?

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

A shadowed figure stands leaning against a pickup truck. I know who it is before I see his face. I know the rust spots on the truck before the sun spots fade for me to see them.

I hear the jingling of keys being tossed but can’t see them until they land at my feet.

“Stay away from her and I won’t come after you again,” Blake says, his face still too shadowed for me to see it.

I bend to pick up my keys. “Why should I believe that?”

“Because I’m as glad he’s dead as you are.” I step close enough to see his face, empty of the anger that’s been a constant since I met him. Without his sister here under threat, his face is relaxed. Or maybe it’s because he’s finally getting what he wants. I know what that feels like.

I stuff my keys in my pocket. “You’re so sure it was me?”

He shrugs. “I don’t really care. As long as she’s rid of you, that’s all the matters.”

“I didn’t hurt her.” I don’t care about the rest, but I care about that. It matters to me.

“Maybe not.” He pulls a manila envelope out of his pocket and puts a pile of papers on the hood of my truck. “Sign here.” He points a pen at me.

I step forward. “What is it?”

“Divorce papers.”

It shouldn’t bother me. It’s a piece of paper. No more than the marriage ever was anyway.

The grin half tilting his lips, I want to smack it off his face.

But my desire for revenge, the one where I would’ve fought for more, made threats, bargained for money—it’s gone. The only thing I can think is how I can make this easier for her.

I take his pen and scribble my name where his finger points.

“Excellent.” He stuffs the papers back in the envelope. “Well, it’s almost been nice knowing you.”

“Wait.” My need for revenge may be dulled, but my need for answers is not. “Did your mother really die in childbirth?”

He turns, the sun hitting his face for the first time. “Did he really rape your sister?”

“I have police reports to prove it. Someone killed her to keep the case from going to trial.”

His reaction is the opposite of so many. No questions, no denials, no anger. “I want to see those reports, but not here. Call my office. We’ll meet and talk more.”

“I thought you wanted me gone.”

“I want to know what you know.”

I nod, not excited, but interested. If you could call my state of indifference interest. “I have no phone.” I stop him. “I’ll come by your office tomorrow.”

He nods and leaves.

I’m left staring at my truck, not knowing where to go.

There’s only one place to go.

All my stuff is on the front seat of my truck, every piece of clothing I had in her house. She moved me out.

It doesn’t mean I’m able to leave her alone.

Maybe it’s over. Maybe I’ll never speak to her again, but I can’t pretend it never happened or that I’m the same.

I go back to the one place I can return to: her beach.

* * *

I call off work the next morning. I was supposed to restart in the NICU.

No way that’s happening now.

His room is empty of his stuff. Layla must have packed up his things. His truck is gone too. But his sheets . . . she didn’t clean his sheets.

He gave me the truth, the real truth, not just the bad things from the past, but the truth about my present. The truth of what I was missing, the truth of what it meant to have someone understand and know me. To understand another person and know him on a level I never knew anyone.

Except—I don’t know if I really knew anything. I avoid his room, but in the evening, I eat leftovers from the dinner he made two days ago. I watch the sunset on the terrace with a bottle of wine for company.

Maybe I didn’t know him. Maybe everything he told me was a lie. But the things he made me feel and believe of myself and find in myself—those were so real. I am more real now than I ever was before my father died.

The possibility that those things, the new things I’ve learned about myself, are a lie too . . . it hurts like having a piece of me cut off. I can’t think it. I cling to those things—the new things that have to be true. They are true. I know they’re true.

But what else did he lie about . . .

He turned my world upside down. But I don’t want it turned right side up again.

I down another glass of wine and refill my glass until the bottle is empty.

The sound of my doorbell drifts in from the kitchen.

It rings again and again, becoming a muted constant. Whoever it is will eventually give up and go away. I’m not talking to anyone today.

“Penny?” A timid voice comes from the stairs to the beach.

I make no sound. If it’s who I think it is, maybe if I don’t say anything, she’ll think I’m not here and go away.

Her footsteps come up the stairs though, and when they reach the deck, she says easily, “Can I have a glass?”

I can hardly see Amisha’s face, but her gentle voice isn’t as annoying as I thought it might be. “There’s no wine left.” I hold up the empty bottle.

She walks past me. “But I know where there’s more inside.” She disappears through the door, and a moment later sits next to me with another bottle and a second glass. She doesn’t say a word, just opens the bottle and pours herself some.

Her silence annoys me. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you could use some company.”

“Layla called you.”

“You’re not surprised, are you?”

I turn to pour myself another glass of wine. Instead she puts a bottle of water in my hand. “Here, have this first.”

I accept it and drink, acknowledging I already have a headache brewing.

She watches the last swatches of pink fading on the horizon. “Do you miss him?”

My response is reflex. “Yes. And spare me your judgment.”

Her voice stays quiet. “I won’t judge. We can’t help who we fall for. It just happens.”

“I guess.” I don’t know if it was something I could help, or if it was something I was ripe for. My brain is too fuzzy with alcohol to think. Maybe I only miss him for the sex. Maybe the only reason why my chest feels like a crater where my heart used to be is because . . . “He was awesome in bed.”

She smiles. “That’s good. You deserve some hot sex.”

“It was. Very hot.” The wine bubbles in my head, and I can’t stop my giggle. She giggles too. “I mean seriously, Amisha. This guy. Fuck.” I pound a fist on the chair. “He was an asshole, but when he touched me he was like a god.”

She laughs. “I’m not sure I’d go for the asshole part but the rest of it sounds good.”

“I friggin’ worshiped him.” I punctuate my words with a stamp of my foot. “I did every. Single. Thing he said. Why did I do that?”

“Sounds like he knew how to make it good.”

“Christ, yes.” My lip quivers. It was so much more than that. “It wasn’t just good. It was . . .” I try to breathe evenly, but it stutters.

“How was it?”

I have to close my eyes. “It was like he knew me. Like he could see inside me. Like what he wanted was the same as what I wanted. It was . . .”

“Sounds like it was more than just sex.”

I bury my fingers in my hair. “Even when I swore it was just hardcore banging it was like . . . Oh my God.” I muffle my words in my hands. “How did he do that?”

“Do what?”

“He would ask me if I wanted things, things that I didn’t know I wanted. And it was torture and it was horrible but . . .”

“But . . . ?”

“It was exactly what I wanted.”

She takes a long sip of her wine. “Better you than me. I wouldn’t like that.”

“But it was how he was with me. Like he saw through my fakeness and didn’t believe it. Like he only wanted the real me.”

“Did you want the real you?”

I close my eyes. “I didn’t. But I do.”

She pats my hand. “Sounds like he was confusing.”

“Dizzying.” That’s what I’m going for, with the wine, trying to be as dizzy as he made me. It hasn’t worked. “I don’t want to be stuck anymore.”

“You don’t have to be. I didn’t like him, but he definitely kicked you out of your grief funk.”

I snort. More like killed my reason for grieving. “You could say that.”

“Layla said there was some bad stuff he told you.” Her expression is so open, so honest, non-judgmental.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“You weren’t ready to. It’s okay.” Her smile is soft. “Any chance you might be ready now?”

“What he told me was really awful stuff you probably don’t want to hear.”

She lays her head back on the chair. “I’m going to be a doctor, Penny. If I can’t handle it, I should learn how. Tell me.”

So I do. From the start of when he threatened me, through the evidence, including the stuff about my mother from Blake, ending with the detective suspecting Logan of my father’s death.

By the end she’s turned her chair toward me, and rather than disgusted, she’s riveted. “Holy shit, your family’s a soap opera.”

I laugh a little and then a lot.

She hugs me. “He told you so much.”

I sit back and hold her hands. “You’re not upset? Do you believe me?”

“How could I not believe you? It’s too convoluted a story not to be true.”

“No one else believes us.” I don’t miss the us and neither does she.

“You need to talk to Blake. Like sit down and have a rational conversation with him.”

“He’s been so angry.”

She shakes her head. “Not if you tell him everything. He wants to know the truth you haven’t told him.”

“He hasn’t told me the truth either!”

“So you should start. Then he’ll follow. You both grew up so used to lies, you don’t know how to tell each other the truth.”

I voice the fear that’s been niggling in my throat. “Do you think they put Logan in prison?”

“No. Layla told me they let him go.”

I expect to feel . . . something. Relief. Outrage. Upset. I thought my reaction would tell me what I haven’t figured out yet. But all I feel is the same hole, the same sadness of missing him. If he was released, why isn’t he home with me?

Do I want him home with me?

“We should sleep. Do you want me to stay with you?” Her face is so bright, full of fake excitement. She’s trying to cheer me up. “You’ve got that nice big bed. We could have a sleepover.”

But I have other sleeping plans. I need to be alone. “I’ll be okay.”

She hugs me again on the way out the door. “You’re going to figure this out.”

“Thanks for listening. And for believing me. Layla didn’t.”

“She’s been too involved in researching him. She’s coming around. Call me tomorrow?”

“I will.”

I close the door behind her. I feel better, relieved. A little less confused.

But it doesn’t stop me from going to his room, curling up in his sheets, and falling asleep wrapped in the smell of him.