Page 108 of Dare To Live

I shake my head. “The only friends I have here are you and Miles. You don’t have to stay with me.”

“Garrett is here, and I disagree. Miles said this would hit you harder than him.”

My best friend knows me so well, but it doesn’t mean his fiancé does. Ivan is an outsider. He wasn’t here all those years ago. How can he understand what we went through?

“I never fitted in here. From the first second I stepped into this place, it was nothing but a nightmare.”

What chance was I given? Evan set his game in motion long before I’d stepped through these doors. I’d become one of his pawns, caught up in lies and manipulation. A game none of us knew we were playing until it was too late.

I scan the faces of the chatting people. A few have glanced my way, but so far, no one has come over. They were all here for years, long before I arrived. These walls hold happy memories for most of them. I can count on one hand how many pleasant recollections of this school I have.

My focus turns inward, thoughts filled with the first moment I’d seen my Eli in the cafeteria.

He stands in the doorway dressed all in black. A beautiful dark angel with messy hair, tattoos, and piercings. Earbuds in, he ignored the world around him and fiddled with his phone. And then his head lifted, and those striking green eyes locked onto mine with hate I had come to know intimately.

“Do I scare you, Princess?”

A shiver wracks my body. It’s been ten fucking years, but it feels as though I never left this place.

An empty table catches my eye. Everyone is skirting around it, avoiding it, and in my head, I see two boys staring back at me. Kellan, the humor glittering in his gray eyes a stark contrast to the stormy expression Eli wears.

Get your shit together, Gray. You have to stay focused on the here and now and not ghosts from the past. Don’t let them sink their claws into you too deep.

“Arabella?”

The voice snaps me out of my thoughts. “Bret.”

He gives me a tentative smile. “Hi. It’s good to see you.”

I try to summon up some enthusiasm, forcing a smile. “It’s … good to see you too.”

“You don’t have to pretend to be happy to see me.”

“No. No, I am.”

“I just wanted to apologize for everything I put you through back when we were eighteen.” His tone is sincere. “The things I did and said. How I teased you. It was wrong and hurtful. Our actions can leave scars on others. It took me a while to figure that out.”

My hand trembles as I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Are you asking for my forgiveness?”

Bret shakes his head. “No. I just wanted to say I was sorry.”

“Okay.” I breathe the one word out.

Can I forgive him and the others for what they put me through?

If I’m honest with myself, I don’t think I can ever forgive any of them.

Bret gives me one last smile, then walks away to join another group. Shoulders hunched, I wrap one arm around my middle, feeling like an island in the middle of the ocean. All the old feelings of loneliness resurface.

Why did I let Ivan talk me into coming for the week?

His hand covers mine on the table. “Breathe, Bella. Talk to me.”

“And tell you what?” I turn my head to meet his watchful stare. “That all I see around me are bad memories and ghosts?”

“The rest of your year have moved on with their lives. Why don’t you talk to them with Miles?”

“They weren’t….” I push out a breath, everything within me tight with tension. “They weren’t as close to what happened as Miles and I was. They didn’t see what we saw.”

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