Chapter 26
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
MILES
The second I open the front door, I know something is off.
The air feels different—heavy. Two seconds earlier, I was buzzing, practically vibrating with anticipation. I couldn’t wait to pull Miranda into my arms and kiss her until we both forgot the past forty-eight hours apart.
But the second I step over the threshold, that feeling dies.
The air in the house is suffocating, thick enough to set every nerve in my body on high alert. Something is wrong.
I drop my bags where I stand and walk quickly toward the living room. I skid to a stop when I see her.
Miranda sits curled on the sofa, her body slumped, her eyes glassy and bloodshot as she stares into the far corner. She’s zoned out as silent tears track down her cheeks, steady and unbroken.
She doesn’t even hear me come in.
My stomach drops. I’ve never seen her like this. I’ve seen her upset, but never like this. It’s scaring me.
I hurry toward her and lower myself onto the coffee table in front of her. I reach for her hands—cold, limp, trembling—and wrap mine around them.
“Miranda,” I say softly, “what’s wrong?”
The moment my voice cuts through the fog around her, she blinks, like she’s waking from a nightmare. She drags the sleeve of her sweatshirt across her face, smearing the tears but not stopping them.
Her voice is so small I almost miss it.
“I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “For what? Miranda, look at me. What happened? Is everyone okay?”
I can hear the panic creeping into my voice, but I don’t care. My heart is racing because something inside the woman I love has broken.
Seconds stretch—long, tense, unbearable. It feels like hours go by before she finally speaks.
“Miranda,” I plead, “please tell me what happened. What’s wrong?”
She swallows, her shoulders collapsing inward. “It’s all my fault,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I never wanted this to come out.”
My chest goes tight.
“What? What came out?” I ask, my voice sharp with panic.
She releases a long, defeated sigh and hands me her phone. Her fingers are trembling. I take it gently from her and look down at the screen.
A grid of TikTok videos fills the page—dozens of them—all about the same thing. The same name.
Her name.
My brows knit together. I scroll, and my stomach lurches when I see a girl staring back at me. A girl who looks exactly like Miranda—only younger. Softer. More vulnerable.
I lift my eyes to hers, silently asking for an explanation.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Just watch,” she says, her hollow voice defeated.
I inhale deeply and press play.
A news report from years ago flashes across the screen. The headline reads: High School Basketball Scandal: Coach Clive Clearwater Under Investigation. The footage cuts to a montage—an old gym, game clips, interviews.
They introduce a basketball prodigy named Miranda Sinclair.
They talk about her childhood—how she came from “the wrong side of the tracks,” from a poor neighborhood in LA, but because she was a once-in-a-generation talent, she earned a full scholarship to an elite private school.
Then the tone shifts. They mention her relationship with her coach, who is twenty years older.
My heartbeat stutters.
A clip plays.
Young Miranda stands on the courthouse steps, surrounded by microphones. Her voice is wavering but determined as she tells reporters they’re in love, that nothing wrong happened, that she chose him.
My pulse starts hammering.
My skin goes cold.
I continue watching, trying to make sense of something that feels surreal—horrifying. The report twists the narrative, subtly placing blame on a teenage girl while softening the monstrous actions of the man.
They zoom in on her face, the face I know, the freckles I trace with my fingers, the strawberry-blond hair she still tucks behind her ear when she’s nervous.
Those big, innocent green eyes stare into the camera, terrified but brave, completely unaware of the world twisting her story into something she’d spend years trying to outrun.
That girl grew up into the woman sitting before me. The woman I love.
And my heart breaks—not from betrayal, but from the weight she has clearly carried alone for far, far too long.
My lip starts to tremble, and my eyes fill with tears I refuse to let fall. I swallow the thick lump in my throat, forcing my emotions back. My heart is breaking for her—splintering apart—but I won’t make this moment about me. She needs strength right now.
I breathe slowly. Blink hard. Steady myself.
“I want to hear it in your words,” I say gently. “I want to hear what happened from you.”
If I’m going to help her—really help her—I need the truth. All of it. Not some twisted news clip. Not a sensationalized headline. Her truth.
Miranda leans back into the sofa, folding herself small, hugging her knees to her chest. Her face crumples, but she doesn’t look away.
“Well”—she sniffs, voice thin and raw—“I never knew my dad. I knew he was a junkie of some sort, but I didn’t know who. I don’t even think my mom did.”
She takes a shaky breath.
“Have you heard of those tent cities in LA? The ones where all the people society tries to ignore end up living—the meth addicts, the homeless, the prostitutes?”
I nod quietly, fighting the urge to reach for her too soon. She needs space to get this out.
“Well… that was where I lived as a child.”
Her words hit like a punch to the ribs, but I school my features and nod again, silently urging her to continue. She’s trembling. I can practically feel the weight of every memory pressing against her bones.
“I mean… it honestly wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been,” she says softly. “I was pretty protected. My mom was respected, for the most part. And everyone left me alone.”
Her voice grows even smaller, like she’s folding into the memory.
“I didn’t know any different. That was just… life.”
She swallows, and I see her jaw tighten—like she’s preparing herself to peel open wounds she has kept sealed for years.
I’ve always known Miranda carried a dark past. I felt it in the way she flinched at certain topics and in the way her eyes shuttered when conversations drifted too close to things she didn’t want to remember.
I knew it was bad—knew it was something she had buried deep enough that she hoped no one would ever unearth it.
But hearing the truth from her lips…
Hearing how she grew up, what she survived—
I can barely reconcile it with the woman in front of me.
How did someone so sweet, so soft, so loyal and loving… come from that?
How did she climb out of a childhood like that and still become her?
As she speaks, pieces start fitting together in ways that make my chest ache. The guardedness. The panic I’ve caught flashing through her eyes. The way she always assumes she’s the problem, or too much, or undeserving. The way she never believed happiness was meant for her.
None of it makes her broken.
But it tells me exactly how much she had to survive.
I force myself to stay still, to stay calm, to let her get it all out. I want her truth—all of it—not just the newspaper version or the whispers online. I want the version she’s never trusted anyone with before.
Because once she tells me everything…
I’m going to tear down the damn earth to make it right.