I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do, what to think. I just drive.
There is a weight bearing down on me that is forcing me to question everything. I am torn between my best friend and the boy I am falling in love with. I am torn between protecting Holden and telling Jaden the truth. He and Dani deserve to know what truly happened that night back in August. They need to know why their parents were killed.
But Holden . . .
I don’t know what sort of trouble he could get into. I don’t know what would happen if the truth was revealed. I imagine there would be a new investigation into the accident, but then what? I keep telling myself that Holden was at fault. Holden is the one who fell asleep at the wheel. But it was an accident. An accident that happened partly because he’d been working so hard to secure a future for himself. And now I’m the person who has to decide whether or not to take that future away from him. When I looked into his eyes, it almost seemed like the guilt that’s been eating him this last year is punishment enough. And will it even help the Hunters to have someone to blame?
There is no one I can talk to about this, no one to ask for advice who isn’t already connected to the Hunters, no one to turn to. I don’t want to chase after Holden, mostly because I can’t look at him right now, and I can’t call Will. Mom already has too much going on in her head to bombard her with this, and usually I feel pretty comfortable confiding in Uncle Matt, but I obviously can’t tell him about Holden and the Hunter crash—he’s a cop! I don’t want to keep this secret to myself; how am I supposed to figure out how to deal with it? I only have two options: Keep the secret a secret, or tell it. Both of them are going to hurt someone.
Stifling a groan, I hunch over the steering wheel, gripping it tightly with both hands and blinking fast to hold back the tears. I wish Holden hadn’t told me the truth. I wish I didn’t now know what I do, because I don’t know how I’m supposed to face him tomorrow after this. And how am I going to face up to Jaden? To Dani? How do I face them when I know something as important as this?
I don’t know where I’m going, but I don’t want to be in Windsor, so I drive and drive and drive without planning any particular route. I head along Main Street and westbound out of the town, driving just below the speed limit while I focus on controlling my breathing. There are a lot of other cars out on the roads right now, but I try to imagine that they’re not here. That the road is empty apart from myself. I try to imagine myself as Holden, driving out of town to clear his head the same way I am now, and try to understand how quickly everything in your life can change.
Wiping away my tears, I take the exit and merge onto the interstate. It’s busier here. More cars around, more lights. I keep on driving, following the interstate north toward Fort Collins. I don’t know where I’m going or if I’ll stop. I just drive, watching the glow of the streetlights.
Standing in the hallway, knocking gently on the dorm room door, I find myself shivering. It’s growing colder outside and these dorms aren’t exactly the warmest in the hallways. I’m not wearing a jacket, because I left the house so fast that I didn’t have time to grab one. I didn’t have time to even brush my hair either, but right now, I don’t care that I’m in an awful state. I don’t care that there are streaks of mascara running down my cheeks. I don’t care that I’ve had to throw my hair up into a tangled bun atop my head. I stand with my arms wrapped around me, hugging my body tight while I wait patiently for the door to open. I hope he is here.
It feels as though an hour has passed by the time I hear the door unlock, and then, slowly, it cracks open a few inches. Darren peers through the tiny gap at me. “Kenz?” he says. I’m pretty sure I’m the last person he would expect to see tonight, but nonetheless, he swings the door open wider. It’s not all that late, but he looks half asleep as he stands there in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong?”
“I need to talk to someone,” I sniff. I can’t remember the last time I was in Darren’s dorm. It feels like forever ago since we were dating. Time has passed, things have changed, but right now he is the only person I know who is entirely neutral to the situation I have found myself in. He is the only person I can talk to about this, because although Darren is too clingy and too protective, there was a time when he knew how to comfort me. He always listened, he always offered advice, and he does give tight, reassuring hugs. He doesn’t know the Hunters. Holden isn’t his friend. And he keeps saying he still wants to be there for me, so here’s his chance to prove it.
“Come in,” he says quickly, stepping back and ushering me inside. As I walk into the small, cramped dorm room, his brown eyes remain fixed on me. He looks concerned, and when he closes the door again behind us and locks it, he follows me across the cluttered floor. I’m relieved that his roommate isn’t here, and I sit down on the edge of his unmade bed and anxiously fumble with my hands. “Is this about Jaden Hunter?”
I look up at Darren. “What?”
“It was him, right? He was the guy you still had feelings for?” he asks quietly, lowering himself down onto the bed next me. He stares back at me, intensely. The dimple in his left cheek doesn’t show when he isn’t smiling, and I used to hate when it wasn’t on display.
I heave a slow sigh and shoot Darren an awkward, apologetic glance. I guess he figured it out over the weekend when he saw me and Jaden together at Walgreens. I suppose it was obvious. “Yeah. He’s the one,” I murmur. There is no point in denying it now.
Darren nods once and then tilts his head down, looking up at me from beneath his eyelashes. “So is this about him?” he asks carefully, his voice gentle and caring. “You know I don’t like seeing you cry, Kenz. Just say the word and I’ll beat his ass.”
“No, Darren,” I say, placing my hand over the top of his enclosed fist. Slowly, he flexes his hand beneath mine, and I glance around the room. The pressure of my headache keeps on building, so I move my hand from Darren’s and press my fingers to my temple instead, gently trying to massage the pain away. “Do you remember what happened to Jaden’s parents?” I ask him, my eyes fixed on an empty beer bottle that’s been dumped on the floor. I stare at it in an effort to keep myself steady, because the ground is beginning to sway beneath me again. “That crash last summer?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Darren nod. “What about it?”
A small hiccup escapes. I think I have cried the entire drive to Fort Collins, and now there are no tears left. All I can do is sniff and try to swallow the painful lump in my throat. I can’t keep Holden’s revelation to myself. I need advice, and Darren is the only person who can give it to me right now. Taking a deep breath, I force my eyes away from the beer bottle and back up to look at Darren. “It didn’t happen the way the police said it happened,” I tell him, and as soon as I say it out loud, my stomach twists. How did all of this happen? Why Holden?
Darren is silent while he takes a moment to consider what I’m telling him. He cocks his head to one side, ready to listen carefully. “What do you mean?”
Holden doesn’t want me to tell anyone, but I just have to. And at least it’s only Darren I’m telling, not Jaden. Yet. Running my hands back through my hair and heaving an agonized sigh, I attempt to piece together everything that Holden has told me. In my head, the facts are all over the place, so I spend a minute trying to realign them again. The longer I take, the more confused Darren becomes. “Jaden’s parents didn’t swerve to avoid an animal,” I finally say, my voice weak and nothing more than a croaked whisper. “They swerved to avoid Holden.”
“What?” Darren physically recoils from me for a moment. “Was Holden on the road?”
“He fell asleep and he must have forced them off the road or something,” I splutter, my words fast. Right now, I am helpless. There is nothing I can do to change what happened that night, no matter how much I wish I could. If Holden hadn’t been on that road then Bradley and Kate Hunter would still . . . No. I can’t bring myself to imagine it. I can’t think that way, not unless I want to end up enraged at Holden. The last thing he needs right now is for me to be angry at him. Shaking away the thought of it, I fix my attention back on Darren, throwing my head forward and burying my face into my hands. “He’s kept this a secret for over a year! He only just told me! Now what am I supposed to do?”
“Let me get this straight,” Darren says, and he places his hand on my shoulder. The mattress creaks as he scoots closer to me until his leg is against mine. “Your best friend caused the car crash that killed your new boyfriend’s parents?”
“Yes . . . And the worst part is that Jaden doesn’t know.”
“That’s fucked up,” Darren says. He doesn’t even so much as flinch at the thought of Jaden being my boyfriend, even though he isn’t officially. Instead, he only frowns and tightens his grip on my shoulder. After the lengths he has been going to lately to win me back, I thought he would have been more annoyed, but he doesn’t seem to be. In a way, I am thankful. Now isn’t the time to argue about our failed relationship. “Is that why you’re crying?” he asks. “Because he doesn’t know?”
“Because I’m going to have to be the one to tell him.” Dread fills me and there’s a pang in my chest that constricts my breathing. How am I going to tell Jaden and Dani? How am I supposed to say it? I thought telling Jaden about Mom and Grace would be the hardest thing I ever did, but apparently not. Now I have to tell the boy I’m falling for that my best friend may have been the reason his parents are no longer alive. The nausea returns again. My knees feel week, my head is spinning. “It feels like the Hunters have finally gotten over it, are finally moving on, are finally happy again,” I murmur. “And now I have to crush them all over again.”
Darren begins to massage my shoulder now in what I can only assume is an attempt to comfort me, though it’s far from soothing. “Shouldn’t Holden be the one to tell them?”
“Yes, but he won’t,” I answer. I look to the ceiling and run my hands through my hair, exasperated. Goddamn Holden. “And I can’t keep this a secret, so it’s going to have to be me who breaks the news. I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“You don’t have to tell them, Kenz,” Darren says. Scratching at the back of his neck, he uses my shoulder for support as he pushes himself up. He walks across the cluttered floor and swipes a near-empty bottle of water off his desk, then watches me closely over the rim as he takes a long swig. “If you tell Jaden, aren’t you hurting both him and Holden? Like you said, the Hunters have moved on.” He tosses the empty bottle toward the overflowing trash can, but it misses and lands on the floor with a bounce. “Why bring it up again?”
“Are you serious?” I blink at Darren several times while I try to gauge if he’s kidding or not, and when I realize he is being serious, I shake my head at him in horror. “Imagine if Jaden found out I had kept this from him! He would never forgive me.”
“If you weren’t with him, then you wouldn’t feel obliged to tell him,” Darren mutters under his breath. He turns his back to me and fishes around inside his dresser drawer until he pulls out a pair of black sweats. I watch in silence as he slips them on, then he heaves a deep sigh and sits back down on the bed next to me. The light hits the crook in his nose, drawing my attention to it. I used to find a lot of things about Darren attractive, like that damn dimple in his left cheek that is slowly beginning to appear as the corners of his lips curve into a small, gentle smile. His soft brown eyes meet mine and a silence forms around us. We are sitting so close together that it is easy for him to lift his hand and press the pad of his thumb to my chin. He tilts my head only slightly, forcing my gaze to meet his. “You know, Kenz,” he murmurs quietly, leaning in toward my face, “you wouldn’t be in this situation at all if you were still with me.”
“Darren!” Instinctively, I smack his hand away and retreat from him. A new sense of fury washes over me and my cheeks burn hot with sudden rage. I am already emotional enough as it is. How dare Darren make this about us? “This isn’t the damn time for this!”
There’s a flash of hurt in Darren’s eyes at my abrupt rejection, but he seems to quickly get over it, because it turns to anger as he rises to his feet. “Fine,” he retorts. He strides across the small dorm, unlocking the door and swinging it wide open. He spins around and fixes me with a firm, challenging look. “Leave, Kenz.”
“Fine!” I yell. Breathing heavily, I stand up and enclose my fist around Mom’s car keys so tightly that it’ll leave an imprint in my skin. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have expected Darren to help. My palms feel sweaty as I reach the door, barging past him into the hallway. I turn around one last time, and despite my swollen eyes, the swirls of mascara on my cheeks and my dry, chapped lips, I am brave enough to look Darren straight in the eye. “For the record,” I tell him, “your advice sucked.”
“Then don’t come looking for it again,” he states monotonously. Without letting another second pass, he steps back and slams the door shut, leaving me standing in the cold hallway by myself.