Page 14 of Without a Trace
“No.”
He nodded once. “She’s going to hate us.”
“All of us.”
Silence lingered for a minute, the sound of waves brushing the shore, the occasional crack of burning wood hanging between us.
“You think we made it worse?” I asked.
Alden gave a humorless laugh. “What, by pretending we were just her friends? By not telling her who we really are?”
“By letting me fall in love with her,” I said.
He looked at me, jaw tight. “You think you’re the only one?”
He didn’t have to explain. I knew what he meant.
“We all love her,” he said quietly. “That’s the fucking problem.”
There wasn’t anything to say.
He was right.
“You were the only one who left,” he added. “You could’ve stayed—Like the rest of us.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
I looked at him. “Because I would’ve ruined her.”
“She’s not something to ruin, Trace.”
“She’s not something I deserve, either.”
I rubbed my wrist, hoping it would quiet the buzz under my skin. It never did—not since her.
Alden didn’t argue.
Just stared into the fire as if it would answer for us.
“She’s going to figure it out soon,” I said. “The lies. The past. Me.”
“Yeah.”
I flicked ash into the sand. “And when she does?”
“We lose her.”
I crushed the cigarette into the ground.
And for the first time in a long time, I wondered if maybe we deserved to.
Interlude
Red light.
It pulsed behind my eyelids, slow and rhythmic, like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to me.
