Should I just quit? Go home to my parents and beg forgiveness?

No.

I roll to my side, the damn seat belt connector digging into my ass. For the millionth time. I'm going to have a bruise on both sides of my butt tomorrow for sure. My knees ache from being bent and the top of my head is starting to feel rubbed raw from grinding up against the inside of the door. I tried lying back in the front seat at first, but that was even worse.

I have to tell Vera about Jared.

The wrecking-ball realization swings straight into my stomach, and I sit up, gasping. Shit. I shouldn't be avoiding her. She deserves to know.

As if the signs haven't been there the whole time for her to see. But I smother the thought. I'm only feeling nasty from lack of sleep. And even more from the nonstop replay of the scene in my head over and over the entire night. It's not her fault at all.

The sun's coming up when I pull into our apartment complex. A sweep of the parking lot doesn't show Jared's glaringly ostentatious yellow Hummer anywhere, so I park and head up. Maybe I'll make her breakfast to soften the blow. No, that's stupid. Nothing will soften the blow.

Still, a few hours later when I hear her stirring, I get a pot of coffee ready and start scrambling eggs.

When she emerges, her eyes are red and puffy and she's rolling a suitcase behind her and my stomach falls to the floor.

She knows.

"Hey." She tries to smile, but fails. Okay, maybe she doesn't know. Not sure she'd be trying to smile at me right now.

"What's, uh-" I pause to clear my throat. "What's wrong?"

"I'm going to stay with my mom for the week. Maybe two."

"Is..." Spit it out. "Is Jared going with you?"

"No." Her answer is short, forceful-and her eyes fill with tears.

"Vera, did he..." God, how do I ask if he told her what happened? "Did he say anything about yest-"

"We had the most amazing night last night," she cuts me off, sniffling. "Like... Sorry if this is too much information, but I've never had that kind of sex, ever. It was...rough-but I liked it. I never knew it could be like that...and he did all these things he's never done before...and I thought we crossed some line, that things were getting even better between us and we were opening up to each other and then he just rolled over afterward and stopped talking to me. He just stopped. He got what he wanted and then it was like I wasn't even there anymore."

She drops her suitcase and wraps her arms around her chest and is closing in on herself right before my eyes. I fly over to her, wrapping my own arms around her, holding her up. "It's okay, Vera."

"It's not." She's shaking against me, heartbreak in every tremble. "It's over."

She's so fragile in my arms, I definitely can't tell her about yesterday right now. "It doesn't feel okay right now," I say instead. "But it will be, I promise. You're better off without him."

I drive her to the airport because she's way too upset to take herself. I spend the entire drive promising myself I'll tell her the instant she gets back. I'll give her the week with her mom to get some distance from how hurt she is. I'll tell her when it won't break her the way it would right now.

And maybe I'll kill Jared while she's gone, so she never has to deal with him again.

I don't kill him during my next shift, though the desire to swing a hot iron at his face hasn't let up any. I glare at him, and this time he glares back. Again, I wonder if I should quit. But that gives him too much power. He doesn't get to scare me away.

But he licks his lips when we catch eyes the next time, and when I turn away, feeling his eyes on the back of my neck gives me the chills enough to send a bottle of liquor slipping through my hands, shattering at my feet.

"What's up with you today?" Zach asks, not unkindly. "You've spilled two drinks before this. It's worse than your first night on shift." He smiles so I know he's teasing, but I can't return it. Again, I strongly contemplate telling him about Jared, but I can't find the words.

So I just keep working.

One shift, then the next and the next. Slowly all the rage drains and anxiety slips in to fill its place. Every time he looks at me, he smiles now, like he enjoys the memory making me so sick.

Then Gage comes back to work.

I don't know why it shocks me, seeing him walk in right before the patio opens. It's not like I haven't been thinking of him daily. But it's been more of an abstract way, wondering how he is, how Katy is, whether or not I ever cross his mind... I've been too wrapped up in my own emotional roller coaster with Jared to pay attention to the calendar.

He stops by the bar, making my heart race, and asks for a beer.

"How's Katy?" I ask, handing one to him.

"Pretty much how you'd expect," he says. "But I think she's starting to come down from the worst of the shock. Thank you, again, for everything that night."

"I wish I could've done more," I say. "And if there's anything now...?"

"Thanks," he says, with a genuine warmth in his eyes that makes longing explode painfully between my ribs. "But we're okay. She's getting there."

Relief fills me, that she's not in worse shape than she is-and his expression isn't haunted anymore, like it was the night everything happened. But he makes his way to the stage after that and doesn't speak to me again the rest of the night. I watch him leave when he's finished singing, and he doesn't look back.

The rest of the week is the same. Gage barely speaks with me, though he's exceptionally, annoyingly polite when he does. And every time I see Jared, he's staring back at me, a sly little smile across his lips, like he knows something I don't.

Did I lead him on in some way? Did I realize, subconsciously, why he hired me, that there was something more expected in return?

And why won't he stop leering at me?

I talk with Vera every few days on the phone, but she speaks in monotones and, I realize eventually, so do I. She doesn't pick up on it, probably lost in her heartbreak (which, ugh, is enough to bring back a simmer of rage), but every day I don't tell her what happened, the truth gnaws away at me.

Then she asks if Jared's mentioned her at all and I'd rather swallow my own tongue than give her the answer she wants-or the one she doesn't.

"I'm not speaking with him," is all I say, knowing she'll think it's on her behalf and hating myself for deceiving her. I need to tell her what he did, but I can't form the words. I hate myself more for this than anything.

My appetite hits the road somewhere around the middle of the week, pretty much at the same time food begins turning into sawdust in my mouth. My pants fit a little looser around the waist, which might be the silver lining for some girls, but I've always enjoyed having curves. So, nope, no silver lining for me.

By the start of the next week, I can't seem to remember a good reason for washing my hair. What's the point? My brother's dead. My parents aren't speaking with me. I have no life outside of work-and that's not going to change, especially when I tell Vera what happened. She'll probably never want to see me again. So who cares about my stupid hair? Plus, maybe if it gets gross and ratted, Jared will stop staring at me.

Oh. Gage. That's right. When he arrives, I realize too late that he might be a good reason to put effort into my appearance.

But when he sees me now, he does a double-take. Not the kind of attention I want, but it's something at least. Right?

Right?

No.

It's not right.

But I can't find the drive to do anything about it.

I don't bother with my hair the next day, either.

A week and a half after leaving, Vera texts that she'll be back tomorrow. I wonder if I should dread her return, because it means I have to tell her, but I can't drum up the energy to feel much of anything.

Guess I should tidy up the apartment.

Instead I nap until I have to leave for work. And endure another Jared-staring shift. And I go back to sleep as soon as I'm home again.

The next morning, I wake up early (fine, to be honest, it's just before noon-but even this is earlier than I want to get up) to a pounding at the front door. I tiptoe through the living room to peek through the peephole, terrified it's Jared. Or Vera, whom I'm suddenly very much not ready to see.

But it isn't either of them.

It's Gage.

CHAPTER FIFTY.

The sight of Gage at my door jars me so completely that the fog I've been living in clears substantially, and I put a hand to my hair, my greasy, disgusting hair, and moan in embarrassment.

"Just a second," I call through the door, and then dash to the bathroom. I throw on my robe and wrap my hair in a towel. I'd rather him see me like this than in clothing with my hair visible. I answer the door to him standing there with his hands in his pockets, his hair its usual disheveled state (read: sexy), and I could kick myself for not brushing my teeth while I was in the bathroom. I turn my face a little away from his. "Hey."

"Hey. Can I come in?" He's having trouble meeting my gaze, his eyes darting over my shoulder-to the complete disaster of the apartment. Shit.

"Uh..." I step aside, waving him in. "It's kind of a mess, sorry."

Once he's stepped through, I scamper ahead of him, grabbing anything within my reach. Beer bottles. Takeout boxes. Two bras randomly tossed on furniture. By the heat in my cheeks I'd say my face is about the shade of a tomato when I turn toward him again. "Can I get you a drink?"

He shakes his head. "Sorry if I interrupted your shower."

"It's okay-I hadn't taken it yet."

"Why's your hair in a towel?'

"What?"

"If you haven't showered yet, why's your hair in a towel?" His mouth, that gorgeous mouth, quirks in amusement.

Oh. God.

"Uh..." It's like my brain's forgotten how to think. Which may actually be the case after the past week and a half.

He lets me off the hook. "Go take your shower. I want to take you somewhere-if you'll come."

"Where?"

"You'll have to trust me." His face doesn't give anything away, but it doesn't actually matter.

"I trust you," I say, the truth flowing effortlessly from my mouth.

Except after my shower, dressed and in his car miles away from the apartment, I realize where he's taking me, and I panic. "What are you doing, Gage? I don't want to come here."

But he doesn't turn his car around. "I don't know what's been going on with you these past weeks, but I do know you're hurting. And I know that at the root of everything is what happened to Jason. Maybe it's not my place to push you into visiting him, but I'm doing it anyway because I don't think you'll let anyone else get close enough to do it. Something has to give, Cassidy. You're a mess."

And then we're here. At the cemetery where my brother is buried.

Jason is here.

No.

Jason is not here, not really.

I am afraid to get out of Gage's car. I'm afraid to even blink, the moment feels so fragile. Or maybe it's me. Maybe I'm fragile. Maybe if I blink, I'll break.

I stare out the windshield, at the empty parking lot and at the depressingly plain funeral home across from it. I can recall every detail of its awful, floral-print and musty-scented interior, though I'm trying my hardest not to. I refuse to look any lower than that. Not to the black, rusting gate around the property and not to the graves spread along the ground beyond it. "How did you know where to come?"

He hesitates before answering. From my peripheral, I see him turn his face toward me, but I can't meet his gaze. "I looked up his obituary."

"Oh."

He grabs my hand. "It read like he lived a really full life right up until the end. Also like he was loved, deeply, by his family."

"That's what I was going for." My mom couldn't write it, she was a zombie. My dad, too angry. It came down to me and after writing the two short paragraphs, the brief, brief lines meant to describe who my brother was, I felt like I'd run a marathon. With a sword in my gut.

"You have a way with words."

"Thanks." But I can't drum any warmth into my tone. I'm too nervous, suddenly, to see my brother's headstone. Not like I haven't seen it before. But it's been more than half a year. I don't want to do this, I almost say. Instead I slip out of the door, leaving Gage in his car, and walk, step-by-shaking-step, to where my brother's body lies.

The air is sticky with humidity and I'm sweating before I've made it twenty steps. Something about the weather feels appropriate. Like I should come on a day like today-or in the dead of freezing cold winter. But then spring would be nice, too, I guess, with everything in bloom. And fall, with the changing colors of the season.

Guess there's always a good time to visit a graveyard.

Or, perhaps, every season is equally bad.

His headstone is square and granite and comes up to my hip. It's just as shocking to see as it was the first time, though by now, grass has grown over what was once a rectangular mound of fresh dirt at its base.

Almost as shocking is the arrangement of flowers resting beside the grave. Daisies and tulips. My mom's favorites. And next to them is a picture sealed in a plastic frame. One of my family last Thanksgiving; I recognize the photograph from our house, where it used to sit in a wooden frame.

It's the last picture we took as a family.

My parents have been here, or, at least my mom has.

Recently.

I think...I think maybe I had it easier than my parents after Jason died. I was away at school for the first six months. I threw myself into classes and had the eternal distraction of a college town. But my parents have been here. Home. Surrounded by him wherever they look...

The realization shifts a few things inside of me, but I tuck it away for now, and return my focus to Jason.