Page 46 of Gathered Sparkle

I start to type, then stop, then start again.Fuck,this isn’t a conversation you do over text. It’s not a confession you do through a door either, butshit, it’s all I’ve got. All I can give her right now.

“I’ll tell you.” My throat tightens, the words catching like glass in my chest. “But… I don’t know if you’ll still want me back in your life after you know.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Ace. No matter what.”

I close my eyes, the ache in my chest easing just enough to let me take another breath. I press my head even harder against the wood, trying to will the words out.

“I woke up in a hospital. Everything was a blur. My body hurt, my head felt like it had been smashed into a thousand pieces. My skull was fractured in two places, and the seat belt cracked the ribs on my right side. My dad was there, sitting by the bed, and I remember thinking it was strange. He never sat still for anyone, let alone me. He told me I’d been out fora long time. A coma. He said there was a trial, that I’d been convicted for murdering someone while speeding.Vehicular manslaughter.Five years.” Her sharp intake of breath comes from the other side of the door. “Five years,” I repeat, swallowing the lump in my throat. “They said I was lucky. If I’d been older, it would’ve been more. But since I was still a teenager, they went easy on me.Easy.” I huff a bitter laugh.

There’s a faint rustle, the sound of her shifting against the door, and it grounds me enough to keep going.

She’s still here.

“My dad…” I pause, the bitterness rising in my throat. “He was furious. At me, at you, at the world. He hated me for being so stupid, for getting myself locked up, for bringing attention to him and the things he was doing. He didn’t care that I was grieving or broken. All he cared about was that I’d fucked uphislife.” I rub a hand over my face. “And I couldn’t care less about his anger. Shortly after, when I was better, they sent me to juvie.”

“But how?” she asks, disbelief in her voice. “How is it possible that nobody ever told you it was Rosalee who died and not me?”

“Everything in court was done while I was still in a coma.” A breath shudders out of me. “My dad handled it. I was underage, so he had control of everything. The only documents I ever saw had onlyMs. Evanswritten on them. I figured it was you… because if you were still alive, you would’ve come to see me. Even if it was only to yell at me for ruining your life.”

A sharp sob escapes her, and she may as well have ripped what was left of my heart out of my chest.

I can’t stand her being so hurt.

“They told me you died, too,” she whispers. “My foster parents… they told me you both died. And when I went to your dad to ask where your ashes were, he ran me off. Told me I was the reason he’d lost his son.”

“He didn’t lose me.” A bitter laugh escapes me, full of years of resentment. “He cut me off. Didn’t talk to me or visit me after I got sent to juvie. He was the one who let go of me. But yeah… probably you made him lose the son he wanted.”

“I can’t believe it,” she mutters. “Fuck them. All of them. But especially my foster parents. To think I had to live with them for almost two more years. That they liedall this time.”

“They probably thought they were protecting you. They always wanted you to stay away from me. And they had even more reason to after. They probably didn’t want you to have a boyfriend that’s in jail. One that killed your sister.” I let out a shaky breath that turns into a sob. “I’msofucking sorry, Nova.”

“We’re both to blame, Ace. This isn’t only on you.”

“It was my idea.”

“It was my dare,” she counters. “Wedid this.”

Silence settles between us, and it feels alive, breathing, stretching, pressing against my chest until I can barely stand it.

“You said you are different. What happened?”

Her question is a hook, snagging on all the parts of me I’ve been trying to ignore, but then a memory pulls me under.

The cell reeks of sweat, piss, and despair. It’s stifling, oppressive, like the air’s trying to crush me along with the weight in my chest. I sit on the edge of the metal cot, head in my hands, willing myself to disappear.

I deserve every miserable second of this.

The sound of boots echoes down the hallway, getting closer. The hairs on the back of my neck rise, but I don’t lift my head. It’s probably him again, Holloway. The guy who decided from day one that I was easy prey. Quiet, scrawny, broken. His favorite.

But then I hear the voice of a guard, the jingle of keys, the scrape of the cell door, and my muscles coil, ready for whatever is coming.

The guards are just as brutal as the other inmates.

The bedframe creaks as someone sits across from me, but the tension in my chest doesn’t ease.

“Hey,” comes a calm voice, like the guy isn’t surrounded by steel bars and razor wire. “I’m Oscar.”

My head jerks up at that, and I freeze.

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