Page 40 of No Dirty Secrets

“I’m not going to stop, Cassie.” He wipes his cheek. “I’m going to make him pay for what he did.”

I’m powerless to stop him. Nor can I change his mind. And I’m tired of standing in my room in only a towel with him, so I shrug.

“Okay. But you need to go.” I point to the door.

He sniffles. “Alright. I’m gonna sleep in the guest room.”

“No.” I’m so angry that my teeth are grinding together in the back of my mouth. “I didn’t mean leave the room. I want you to leave the house. I don’t want you here right now either.”

Joel stares at me in shock, his mouth hanging open.

“What?” he stutters. “What are you talking about?”

“Cassie wouldn’t want you here either. Not when you’re talking about going after someone over an accident. I want you to leave, Joel. I’ll call you when I’m back in Birch Harbor. But until then, I don’t want to see you.”

My words are a faint echo of the same ones I said to Cole. The only difference is that with Joel, I don’t mean for them to be permanent.

One day, I’ll be able to forgive him for the words he says when he’s filled with grief.

By the crushed expression on his face, I know that Joel doesn’t want to go. But I am not backing down. I am legitimately tired of dealing with people and I want to be alone. After everything that has happened in the last few hours, I deserve it.

“Go.” I point to the door.

He glances down at the new tattoo on my arm and back up to my eyes, but he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, thankfully he leaves. A few seconds after he steps into the hall, I hear the front door slam, and I am finally alone.

Alone to process my emotions, the grief, the realization that everything about the last few weeks hasn’t meant anything.

“You’re fine,” I tell myself. “You can do this.” The familiar mantra, one that I haven’t had to use since I met Cole, fills the air around me.

I put on my most comfortable pajamas I packed and do what I should have done two weeks before. I finish packing all of Cassie’s things. Then I keep going and pack my bags. I clean the entire house and make sure that there are no personal items left behind. The real estate agent will be able to sell the house with all the furnishings, so there is absolutely no reason for me to be in town anymore.

When I finally crawl into bed a few hours later, the sun is starting to rise. For the first time since I met Cole, I don’t knock on the wall. And he doesn’t either.

That final nail in the coffin is all I need to let go of everything in New York and head home. At least until the doorbell rings as soon as I close my eyes.

“What the actual eff?” I groan, mumble, and think about staying in bed. Instead, I roll out and head to the front door.

As soon as I open it, Laurence sprints around my legs, screeching at the top of his lungs. “Bathroom! Pee! Pee!”

I watch as Sori flushes, and Emmett runs a hand through his hair.

“We were going for a walk,” Sori explains. “And Laurence decided that he didn’t want to turn around and use the bathroom at our house.”

“That, and she wanted to spy on you,” Emmett adds. “Which I was only too happy to feed into, since I’m sure Cole would love me to give him payback for all the times he’s acted as a cock block at our place.” He looks around the room like he is expecting to see Cole pop out at any second.

“Emmett.” Sori slaps him playfully on the chest. “You can’t say that. We love him. He’s your cousin.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we love him alright. Except when he’s knocking on our door during nap time and I haven’t gotten any in a week.” He rolls his eyes and they both wait for me to open the door all the way to invite them in.

I seriously think about not doing that. About closing the door in their faces and just going back to bed. But their son is in the house somewhere, hopefully the bathroom, and I am pretty sure that I’ll be arrested for kidnapping if I do that. Silently, I leave the door open and head back to the couch. I know for a fact there is no way they’ll just collect their son and leave.

Sori looks at my tattoo once we are all in the living room, listening to Laurence sing in the bathroom about getting to pee. She is staring openly, and her mouth falls open as she takes in all the detail.

“I can’t believe he did all that in just a few hours.”

I look at my left arm, still amazed that I’d gone through with the tattoo at all. It is definitely beautiful, just like Cassie was, and it is delicate, too. The daisies and sunflowers at the top blend into a variety of flowers that can be found in Maine. There are adder’s mouth orchids, hooked agrimony, liverwort, thimbleweed, nightcaps, merrybells, and chamomile blooms entwined everywhere, fading into nothing.

“Tom did amazing,” I tell her. “These were all Cassie’s favorite flowers. She didn’t have just one. She had a hundred, but there’s no way I could fit them all on my arm in that space.”

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