Page 57 of All Your Pucking Secrets

The young blonde toys with a charm on the bracelet around her wrist, her expression anxious. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” I take a slow breath to get my pulse under control. “Can I help you?”

“Um.” Her eyes flick away and then back to me. “Are you Echo?”

“Yes.” Something about the way she asks makes me suspicious. I study her more closely. Flawless golden complexion, eyes the color of a summer sky, and a build not unlike my own, although she’s a little taller. She’s familiar, but I can’t put my finger on where from.

“I thought so.” She rests her hand on the back of the seat beside me. “Can I join you?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. I can’t help feeling as if I’m supposed to know who she is.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize you,” I tell her apologetically. “Have we met?”

She angles her chair toward me and sets an espresso cup on the table. “I’m Soraya Kinsey. Tyler’s sister.”

A sudden coldness permeates me. I should have realized. Her coloring is so similar to his, except that her eyes are bright where his are cool, and she has more of a tan—presumably from spending time outside. He likely spends all of his spare hours indoors at the rink.

“I didn’t realize,” I say.

I’ve seen Soraya Kinsey in the past, but she was a freshman when I was a senior, so we rarely crossed paths. And because Tyler wanted to keep me away from his friends and family, we never said more than a hello to each other in the school corridors.

“Can we talk?” she asks, her fingers finding their way back to her charm bracelet again, in what must be a nervous habit.

I quickly catalog what I know about her, and what can easily be seen. She must only be in her first year of college, making her eighteen or nineteen. Her body language says she’s anxious, and nothing about it is aggressive, but I still worry she intends on harassing me the way so many others did before I left Charlesville.

“Why?” I ask. “Tyler and I aren’t friends, and if you’re here to rehash the past, then I’m not interested.”

Soraya’s hand stills, and she stiffens. “The past? Are you talking about the charges against Eric Weston?”

I stack my hands one on top of the other, hoping she won’t notice that they’re trembling. My insides are turbulent, and suddenly, I’m glad I only had one mug of coffee. It’s less to throw up.

I make an effort to relax my tight jaw. “I haven’t heard that name said out loud in a long time.”

She claps her hand to her mouth, her eyes horrified. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s fine,” I assure her. I need to be able to get through life without being triggered anytime someone mentions the name ‘Eric’.

“No, it’s not.” She presses her lips together, her eyes shining with emotions I can’t pinpoint. “I should have been more careful.”

“It is what it is.”

She nods and blows out a breath. “For what it’s worth, I believe that the jury was right to convict him. He did what you said, and I would never try to make life harder for you because you were brave enough to stand up and expect a monster to face the consequences of his actions.”

I stare at her with my lips parted as tears fill my eyes. With effort, I force myself to swallow a lump of emotion.

Very few people ever believed me, or at least were willing to say so to my face, and I’m unprepared for the wave of emotion that crashes over me. My throat tightens and I raise a hand to my chest, feeling the pounding of my heart beneath the skin.

“You believe me?” I whisper.

“Yes.” Her tone is fierce, and she reaches for my hand but then stops. “Tyler does, too.”

I reel back, her words striking me like a slap to my face. “He certainly didn’t give that impression at the time.”

Maybe he believes me now. Based on his actions over the past few days, I’d even venture to guess that he does. But if he believed me back then, why wouldn’t he have called off his friends, or even just taken a minute to ask if I was all right?

I wasn’t.

It took a long time for me to be anywhere near all right.

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