Fran, Richard and Jilly led me to the bakery where Jilly had a couch in her back office. Ella stirred slightly in my arms, but she was still out of it.

Fran had her phone to her ear. "I'm calling Derek right now to let him know he and Susan need to get home."

The majorly tense scene at the park, the cool, questioning angry stares and confrontations, had turned to concern when Ella collapsed in my arms. Nothing had been spoken or clarified, but something told me the mystery witness was the girl in my arms, the girl who had stolen my heart so thoroughly that I could think of nothing else but her. Everything else seemed small and unimportant now. My only worry was Ella and how she would absorb the reality that I'd been keeping my identity from her all this time. I was an idiot. If I lost her, I had only myself to blame.

I stepped up on the curb. The movement caused Ella to lift her head. She looked around, seemingly puzzled by her surroundings. "Where are you taking me?"

"I've been told to carry you to the couch at the back of the bakery."

"No," she said sharply. "No, take me home." She wriggled in my arms. "Put me down. I can walk. I want to go home."

Fran and Richard circled in front of me as I lowered Ella's feet to the ground.

"Ella, honey," Fran said, "we need to get you inside. You've had a bit of a shock."

"A bit of a shock?" Ella swayed as she held onto my arm, but she stayed upright as she looked around at all the faces. The only person she didn't make direct eye contact with was me. I had blown it. She was the first good thing to happen to me in a long time, and I'd fucking blown it.

Fran lifted her phone. "I've called your parents. They are on their way."

"Good. They have some explaining to do. You all have some explaining to do." She turned her eyes to me for the first time, and I knew damn well I was included in that. "Take me home, Fynn. Please."

It was stupid and probably more than a little crazy to be thrilled that Ella held tightly to my arm as I walked her along the sidewalk to the van. Still lightheaded from fainting, she obviously needed physical support, and anyone could have provided it.

"Where's Boone," she asked, her voice still shaky. "Call Boone."

I glanced around and found my dog already sitting outside the van. In the chaos, he must have thought I’d left without him.

I gave Ella a hand up into the van. All I could think was that I was going to lose her and it was going to hurt like fucking hell.

Boone climbed right into her lap. Before I could tell him to go to the back, Ella wrapped her arms around him and hugged the dog to her. She buried her face against him. Lucky fucking dog didn't have to do anything but be himself and he was adored.

The crowd at the park stood like clustered statues, talking to each other and apparently so stunned, they couldn't move their feet. They stared at the van as I pulled away from the curb.

We weren't half a block when Ella lifted her face from Boone's fur and looked over at me. "Why, Fynn? Why would you keep this secret from me? Why the hell did you come to Butterfield?"

I shook my head. "Not sure why I came. Part of me came to confront the people who had wrongly accused my dad of being a drunk or a suicidal maniac. I know that motive was there in the back of my head. I hurt too, you know? That accident sent my life into a tailspin. My dad never recuperated, and the shitty things this town said about him only pushed him further into depression. So yeah, I probably first turned my van this direction so I could drive into town and see the faces of the people who led my dad to take his own life."

Ella had no response. She just watched me with those expressive blue eyes and passed no judgment. She was hurting as badly as me, it seemed.

"Once I rolled into town, I got this horrible sense of tragedy. I saw that everyone here had suffered enough loss for a fucking lifetime. I decided I didn't need to face anyone. I planned to just climb into my van and keep driving. Then I walked into the store for some food and water, and this girl stepped out from behind the tower of Twinkies and she took my breath away. I wanted to erase some of my own pain, and I decided right then that Butterfield was the place to start."

We pulled up to her house. Ella still hadn't said a word. I braced myself for her to tell me to go to hell or leave or fuck off or something that I deserved.

She sat quietly in the front seat, stroking Boone's fur. "You should come inside. I think you're going to want to hear what I have to say. I was there. I was the eye witness."

Her words sent a tremor through me. After all this time, I was going to hear what happened the day my dad drove the bus off a cliff and killed twelve sixth graders. And I was going to hear it right from the lips of the girl I loved.