When I drive up to the animal clinic, Sarah isn’t waiting outside as usual. The light in the clinic is still on, so she’s probably not done yet.

As I turn off the ignition, relief fills my chest. She’s not done yet. This is going to buy me a few more minutes.

I still don’t know what to do with that girl. I should’ve stayed to soothe her after what I did to her in the kitchen. That would’ve been the right thing to do.

But I couldn’t stay another second around her. I’d explode, and she’d get caught in the blaze.

As I enter the clinic, a bell rings, and Brian raises his eyes to see me. “Hi, Luca.”

I like Brian. He’s a good kid. And I happen to need some distraction right now. Because as soon as my mind is idle, images of Sarah in the throes of an orgasm fill my imagination. If I’m not careful, I could end up with an obvious boner tenting my jeans when Sarah walks out here.

“Hey, Brian. Is Sarah going to be done soon?”

“She was done ten minutes ago. Then Mrs. Ellis came in here, and now they’re talking inside.”

“Mrs. Ellis?” I frown. “You mean Donna?”

“Yeah. Sarah’s mom.”

“Does she drop by often?”

“Not really.” Brian pauses. “I keep a log of all patients and visitors if you’re interested.”

“I’m interested,” I say quickly.

Brian rifles through his files and hands me a notebook. As I look through the list, Donna bursts out of the exam room.

She makes it halfway to the front door before she notices me in her periphery. I almost laugh when she does a double take. Her eyes fill with anger and hate.

“You!” Donna marches up to my nose, pointing a bony finger at me.

I raise an eyebrow at her. I have no idea what her problem is today.

“I’ve got my eyes on you,” she says as she sticks out two fingers, then points at her own eyes and my face.

“Okay,” I say calmly. I know she’s trying to ruffle my feathers. It’s not going to work.

Just like I expected, Donna’s face reddens with wrath. She narrows her eyes at me before she huffs and dramatically turns around. The bell above the door rings as Donna walks out of the clinic.

* * *

When Sarah finally comes out into the waiting area, she looks sober. She doesn’t say “hi” to me when she sees me; she avoids my gaze instead. We walk in silence out of the clinic and get into my black 1986 Mazda RX7.

I was dreading the moment we have to talk again because I didn’t know how to face her, but this silence is even worse than her usual deluge of questions. Even though Sarah’s quiet, the drive home doesn’t feel as relaxing and peaceful as it usually does.

This is excruciatingly uncomfortable. I can’t stand watching her like this, just staring blankly out the car window as the town rushes by.

“Something on your mind?” I ask.

“No.”

If she’s trying to punish me for my one-word answers, it’s working. I’m all kinds of concerned for her now. “Did your mom say something to upset you?”

Sarah pauses before she says, “No.”

“Or was it Martin?” I ask, recalling the name I saw on Brian’s notebook. Peter’s told me about a Martin once. Sarah’s ex-boyfriend.

Sarah turns to look at me, but she says nothing.

“What?” I ask.

“Are you still spying on me?”

“Huh? No. Brian showed me his list of patients and visitors.”

“Oh.” I could be wrong, but she sounds kind of disappointed. “I liked it when you were stalking me. It was hot.”

I groan. I swear, she makes me want to jam my dick in her mouth sometimes. The things she says . . .

“Were you jealous, when you saw that Martin had seen me? I don’t remember telling you about him. I wasn’t even aware you knew about him.”

“No,” I answer simply, ignoring the blazing heat spreading in my chest. Honestly, I don’t know either why I remember about Martin—it’s probably been years since Peter last mentioned him—and I can’t explain it.

Maybe I am jealous.

No. Not jealous.

Possessive.

Something primal within me believes Sarah’s mine, and I don’t share what’s mine.

Problem is, I know logically that Sarah’s decidedly not mine.

“Did my brother tell you about Martin?” Sarah asks. Now that I’ve got her going, it seems she’s not stopping.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I don’t remember,” I answer, honestly this time. We’re almost home, and soon I can hide away from her questions.

“You know . . . My brother told me not to come home to see him because it wasn’t that serious and the doctors said he was going to be okay in no time.” Her voice cracks and she grows quiet. She takes a deep breath. “He told me not to worry. Told me everything was fine.”

“Sorry,” I say as my chest pangs with pain for her.

I tried to persuade Peter to change his mind about not letting Sarah see him, but he wouldn’t budge. He was so stubborn. He’d set his mind to a plan and he was going to carry it out, no matter what.

I can’t completely blame him, though. There were . . . let’s say extenuating circumstances.

“I don’t need apologies,” Sarah says quietly. “Peter left me a stupid apology letter. He said he didn’t want me to see him all sick and weak. He said he didn’t want me to remember him that way.”

I open my mouth to say “sorry” again, but I stop myself. I’d better shut it before I blurt out the real reason why Peter didn’t want Sarah to be with him in his last moments.

* * *

At dinner, Sarah retracts her own words from earlier in the day. “My mom did say something, actually, when she came to the clinic today,” she says.

I wait for her to continue.

“I have a question, Luca.” Sarah leans over the table and stares intensely at me. “My mom wanted me to ask you where you go in the middle of the night.”

I stab a piece of potato. Leave it to Donna to try to sabotage everything.

Luckily, I have a go-to answer. “I go for a run.”

Sarah visibly deflates with relief, her muscles relaxing. “Sorry, I should’ve known not to listen to my mom.” She pauses. “Did you know my dad only lived here in Ashbourne because my mom wouldn’t let him leave the state? She was making things difficult with the custody arrangements.”

I nod.

“I can’t stop thinking . . . If Dad had taken us out of Ashbourne . . . and moved us to the city . . . I wonder if it would’ve changed things. Maybe Peter could’ve gone to a bigger hospital and gotten better treatments from better doctors. At the very least, I would’ve been there for him.” Sarah’s eyes fill with genuine regret. “I can’t help but blame my mom for it.”

For the first time since we met each other again, she’s opening up about Peter’s death. The sorrow etched on her beautiful face makes me want to take her pain away somehow.

I really wish Peter had made different choices too, but there’s nothing either one of us can do to change the past.

“I miss him,” Sarah says, lifting her gaze up.

“I miss him, too.” I see the same grief I’m holding on to, reflected by Sarah’s big, innocent eyes. My chest tightens at the sight.

“You know, I think you’re right when you said I was using risky sex to deal with my problems,” Sarah says, surprising me with her honesty. “What I told you about the time I had sex with some random guy at a park . . . I’d just hung up on my mom. We had a heated argument over the phone.” Sarah lets out a big exhale and gives me a tired expression. “She told me she was disowning me.”

I chuckle. “Funny. Last time I checked, disowning someone meant cutting ties, not showing up unannounced at their workplace.”

“Ugh. Tell me about it.” Sarah rolls her eyes. “That was the second time she did it, too. And it still upset me. The first time was because I chose to live with Dad after the divorce.”

“I wonder why you wouldn’t want to live with her. She sounds like a pleasant woman.”

Sarah laughs, a melodic sound that brightens up the whole kitchen for a while until it dies down.

“My dad tried to shake my mom off for years and didn’t ever manage to do it.” Sarah says, “He was court-ordered to pay her mortgage and utilities.

“She used to do all kinds of crazy stunts to drive the utility bills up. Once, she went away for a vacation during winter, but not before opening all the windows and cranking up the heat.”

“Yeah, Peter told me about that.”

“Did he tell you about how she made our dad give her the family car in exchange for keeping the clinic?”

“Yeah, that’s why you live in the clinic.”

“Yeah. She also tried to have my dad’s dog put down at the vet’s office in Dewhurst. Luckily, the vet there recognized the dog and my mom’s last name, so he excused himself and called my dad. He never kept a pet after that dog died.”

“Lucky Rex. He was a good dog.” Peter and I used to spend hours painting together, and Rex would be at his feet the whole time, except for mealtimes and toilet breaks.

“Oh, right. You met Rex.” She smiles wryly. “The only thing my mom didn’t do was accuse my dad of sexual abuse against me. She knew I wasn’t going to let her use me like that.”

“It must’ve been hard to grow up with all that conflict in the house.”

“I don’t know . . . I’ve always felt like it was all my fault.” Sarah sighs. “I was the reason they had to stay together.

“My mom got pregnant with Peter when she was only eighteen, so they got married. Just as they were about to separate for the first time, they learned about the second pregnancy.

“If it weren’t for Peter and me, they probably would’ve broken up and forgotten about each other after a few years.”

My chest tightens for the little girl Sarah used to be. For a split second, I catch a glimpse of her younger self in her expressive eyes, all confused and lonely.

Sarah blinks and wills herself to smile. “Hey, don’t look so gloomy. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”

“Right. You’re a strong young woman, Sarah.”

Her eyes brighten at my words, even if only for a moment. “My dad told me not to pay attention to what people think of me, but it’s always nice to hear a compliment. My dad said he only married my mom because everybody had told him it was the right thing to do and he was a deadbeat asshole if he didn’t do it. He said it was a mistake, though. ‘Everybody’ was wrong. He should’ve listened to himself.”

“That sounds like something Peter would say, too.”

I’m not surprised. Peter resembled his dad a lot. They also used to spend a ton of time working together at the clinic.

“Oh, by the way, the reason my mom ‘disowned’ me? It was because she found out about us—as in, you and me. She told me I was going to get pregnant and ruin my life. I was so mad at you.”

“At me?” I frown, holding the piece of microwaved frozen steak I just cut off in the air. What do I have to do with that mess?

“Yeah. You must’ve told someone who blabbed all over town. Now, I know you didn’t understand how fragile 18-year-old girls’ reputations were, but—”

“Hang on. I didn’t tell anyone. Why would I?”

“I don’t know.” Sarah shrugs. “I didn’t tell anyone.”

Realization hits me.

“I know who it was,” I say. “It must’ve been my neighbor. There was this hair salon next to my tattoo parlor. They must’ve heard something, or saw something.”

“Ah, mystery solved,” Sarah says. “In any case, it felt devastating for a while. I was eighteen, remember? Everything was life-and-death. But after a while, I started wondering why I didn’t get my mom to disown me sooner. Without her in my life, I was much happier.” Sarah takes a deep breath, and her lips curl up to form a smile.

My heart skips a beat at the sight. I should stay away from this girl.

But how can I, when she’s pouring her heart out and I told her I wanted to help her get over her grief? It’s not just small talk and flirting tonight.

Sarah turns to gaze at me across the table. “Tell me your secrets, Luca. It’s your turn.”