Jude wrapped his hands behind his head, his jaw clenching. “Not the same ones, but a few just like them,” he said, his voice tight.

“When I first moved to the boys’ home,” he said, forcing each word. “About five years ago.”

“Why?” I leaned forward, trying to grab his hand.

He swung it away. “It was a welcome present.”

“Oh my god,” I breathed, wondering if the devastation in Jude’s past ever ran out. “And the scars?”

Jude’s eyes settled on me. They were black. “You don’t want to know.”

He was right, but also wrong. “Yes, I do,” I whispered.

“I don’t want to tell you,” he replied, his chest rising and falling.

“Okay,” I swallowed, accepting Jude had just as many internal scars as he wore on his skin. “I’m sorry, Jude.”

“I don’t want your pity,” he said, “and I don’t want to rehash my whole childhood while you do that girl psychoanalysis bullshit. I’m a cancer, Luce. I told you that from the very beginning. You don’t need to know the nasty details to accept that.”

“Yes, you do,” I said, going against every instinct screaming at me to go embrace him. “You need the details so you know how to cure it. Let me help you,” I said, reaching for him again.

“Dammit, Luce,” he said, pacing around the room. “I’m not one of your pet projects. I’m not some dog you can rescue from being euthanized. I don’t need to be saved and I sure as hell don’t want to be saved.” Pausing, he finally looked at me. “So stop trying so damn hard.”

I knew this was the point I should back off, but I couldn’t.

“No,” I said firmly.

He glared at me. “I don’t want to be saved.”

I bit my tongue to keep any signs of tears away. “Yes, you do.”

His eyes flamed. “No,” his voice shook, “I don’t.” Backing away from me, he hit the edge of my dresser, knocking over a storage box I’d pulled down from the attic yesterday.

It crashed to the floor, its contents spreading across the carpet. I was out of bed and collecting the items before he turned around.

Jude’s head fell back to glare at the ceiling before crouching down to help me. His eyes latched onto something in my hand, his face falling. Snatching the photo from my fingers, he rose, looking at the photo like it wasn’t real.

“How do you know this guy?”

A deep breath. “He was my brother.”

“Your brother was John Larson?” he said, not blinking.

Now I was crying. This morning had just become too much for the woman of steel to keep the tears at bay. I looked up at the picture between Jude’s fingers. My brother’s senior year football photo. Only seven months before he’d been murdered. Five years ago today.

“Yes,” I said, wiping my face.

The photo dropped from Jude’s hand, his face blanching. “And your dad’s first name is Wyatt?”

I nodded, grabbing the photo that had fallen to the floor.

Jude spun around, throwing his fist into the wall. It shattered through the drywall, as a cloud of white dust erupted. “How could you keep something like this from me?” he shouted, turning on me, his whole body trembling.

I was so confused, so upset, I didn’t know which one I felt more. “I told you my brother died,” I said, settling John’s picture in my lap. “Sorry if I didn’t provide the gory details.”

Pacing over to the window, Jude stared out it, his shoulders rising and falling with his breath. “Details would have been nice in this situation,” he said, his voice about to break.

“What the hell are you talking about, Jude?” I whispered. Everything was falling apart, unraveling around me, and I didn’t know what had pulled the thread.

“My full name is Jude Ryder Jamieson,” he said, turning to look at me.

That name hit me like a train. The impact was so sudden, so powerful, I couldn’t speak.

“My dad,” he said, gripping the window sill, “went to jail for shooting and killing a young man.”

I shook my head, whipping my hair back and forth. “Stop,” I said, choking on the word. Everything was spinning out of control and I wanted off this ride.

“My dad’s name is Henry Jamieson.” He paused, looking through the window like he was either going to escape out it or drive his fist through it. “My father murdered your brother.”

The picture I held slid from my hands, flipping face down on the carpet. I felt like sobbing, my body needed the release of sobbing, but I was too numb to move. I kept repeating to myself that this wasn’t real, it wasn’t possible. I had not fallen in love with the man whose father had killed my brother. God wasn’t that cruel.

“Your dad,” I began, not sure if I could get it out, “ruined my family.”

Jude pounded the window sill. “And your dad is the one to blame for setting in motion the whole damn string of events!” he shouted, turning around. “After working for one of your dad’s companies for ten years, my dad got randomly selected for a drug test, failed it, and big Mr. Wyatt Larson got the final call. He fired him.”

“Jude, he had coke and meth in him. He almost killed a man on the job site,” I said, remembering every word that was spoken, every image portrayed during the trial. My parents were too gone in their loss to reason that letting their thirteen-year-old daughter sit in on her brother’s murder trial wasn’t the best thing to allow, but I wouldn’t stay home. Hiding beneath a blanket when my brother’s murderer was being tried felt wrong. I had been there for him, even in death.

“Because my mom had just bailed!” he shouted, the sinews of his neck popping to the surface. “He was going through a rough patch, but he would have come out of it, and as a reward for a decade of service, your dad fired him. The bank foreclosed on the house two months later and we were homeless. He dropped me off at the boys’ home the same day he shot your brother.”

I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t. I was still waiting to wake up from this nightmare to Jude’s sleeping body draped over mine. “He murdered my brother,” I repeated, the words acrid and wrong in my mouth.

“It was supposed to be your dad!” he exploded, everything draining from him. His shoulders rolled forward, his head falling. “It was supposed to be your dad,” he said in a whisper.

“No,”—my tip trembled—“it was supposed to be me.”

Jude froze, looking down at me like I was his enemy. “What the hell do you mean?”

I scooted against the wall, needing its support. “Mom had asked me to take Dad’s lunch down to him that Sunday—he was working around the clock to get that project done on time—but I was being difficult and said I didn’t want to. The job-site was close to our home and I could have biked.” I closed my eyes as everything played back in my mind. “So John said he would, and that was the last time I saw him alive. That’s who your dad put three bullets into when he showed up at the worksite that day. It should have been me, waiting inside dad’s mobile office, twirling the chair, when Henry Jamieson—who was so high on meth he wasn’t able to make out who was in that chair—shot and killed my brother.” Everything inside me deflated. I was nothing but the shell of a balloon, falling to the ground. “It was supposed to be me.”

It was silent, but a silent that was so loud I wanted to cover my ears.

Finally, Jude walked past me, stopping right before he walked out. “I’m sorry it wasn’t,” he said, his voice low. “Because I really could have done without all this shit.”

Slamming the door behind him, his footsteps thundered down the stairs, out the door, and out of my life for good this time.

When the screen door slammed, I cried the flood of tears I’d held onto for five years.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I stood in front of the mirror, studying the girl reflecting back. She looked like me, but she wasn’t the same girl I remembered. Something had broken loose in the hours since Jude walked away, and it must have been vital to who I once was.