Chapter 7 #2
The worst part isn’t the confusion or even the pain. It’s the growing certainty that whatever I did—whatever I can’t remember—it was bad enough to drive away the only woman I’ve ever loved.
And I still don’t know how to fix it.
* * *
The knock comes at four-thirty in the morning, sharp and insistent against my front door. I haven’t slept—haven’t even tried. I’ve been sitting on my couch for hours, staring at the cold fireplace, replaying every conversation, every moment from eight years ago, searching for the missing piece.
When I open the door, Sam stands on my porch, his face a mask I’ve never seen before. Dark circles under his eyes, jaw tight, hands clenched at his sides.
We stare at each other for a long moment. Then his fist connects with my jaw.
The punch snaps my head back, pain exploding across my face. I stumble, catching myself against the doorframe, tasting blood where my teeth cut my lip.
I don’t ask what it’s for. I just look at my best friend, my brother in everything but blood, and wait.
Sam flexes his fingers, shaking out his hand. “I need a beer.”
I step aside to let him in, touching my jaw gingerly. It’s going to bruise, but nothing’s broken. We walk to the kitchen in silence. I grab two beers from the fridge, pop them open, and follow Sam out to the porch.
The early morning air is crisp, autumn-cold, carrying the scent of dying leaves and wood smoke from someone’s chimney.
Max and Scout appear from wherever they’ve been sleeping, tails wagging tentatively as they sense the tension.
After a moment, they bolt off the porch and disappear into the woods, probably chasing some nocturnal creature back to its den.
Sam sits heavily in one of the Adirondack chairs, taking a long pull from his beer. I settle into the chair beside him, waiting, pressing the cold beer bottle to my jaw.. The silence stretches between us, thick with everything unsaid.
“Where did you find her?” I ask finally.
“The treehouse.” Sam’s voice is flat, emotionless. “She’d parked that death trap of hers behind the bushes.”
The old treehouse in the woods behind his house. The one we built when we were twelve, where we spent countless summer afternoons planning adventures and sharing secrets. Where Hazel used to join us sometimes, the only girl we ever let into our sacred space.
“She was just... sitting there,” Sam continues, staring out at the dark forest. “Like she was waiting for something. Or someone.” He takes another sip of beer. “She’d been crying.”
His words make me freeze. She was crying? Hazel was… I made her cry? I want to ask what she said, if she told him what I supposedly did, but I keep my mouth shut. Sam will tell me when he’s ready.
Minutes pass. The sky starts to lighten in the east, painting the mountains purple and gold. Somewhere in the distance, a hawk cries out, its call echoing off the peaks.
“How long was she there?” I ask quietly.
“Don’t know. Could have been hours.” Sam rolls the beer bottle between his palms. “She wouldn’t talk at first. Just sat there staring at the woods like she was seeing ghosts.”
I can picture it too clearly—Hazel curled up in the corner of our old hideout, tears on her cheeks, lost in memories I apparently caused but can’t remember.
“Did she... did she tell you what happened? What I did?”
Sam’s jaw tightens. “Some of it.” He looks at me sideways. “Did you know that Brittany was harassing Hazel eight years ago? A few months before she left?”
I turn to stare at him, genuinely surprised. “What?”
“Harassing her. Following her around. Making her life hell.” Sam finally looks at me, and there’s something in his eyes I don’t like. Disappointment. “Did you know?”
I try to think back, searching through memories that suddenly feel less clear than they did yesterday. There were things... incidents Hazel had mentioned. But they’d seemed so minor at the time, so easily explained away.
“Hazel mentioned a few things,” I say slowly, the memories coming back in pieces.
“She’d come to me upset, saying Brittany had done something to her.
But when I’d look into it...” I pause, remembering.
“Like her purse. She said Brittany had cut it up in the girls’ bathroom, destroyed it completely.
But when I saw the purse later, it was fine. Not a mark on it.”
Sam’s grip tightens on his beer bottle.
“And her car tires,” I continue, the memories becoming clearer. “She swore someone had slashed them in the school parking lot. She was so upset, crying. But when we went to look, they were perfect. Not even a scratch.”
I remember more now. Hazel coming to me after school, shaking with anger, telling me Brittany had cornered her by her locker and said horrible things about her family, her clothes, her worth as a person.
But when I’d confronted Brittany about it, she’d seemed genuinely confused, hurt that I’d even suggest such a thing.
“There were maybe five or six incidents like that,” I say, feeling defensive.
“But there was never any proof. And Hazel was always so jealous when it came to Brittany, even though I told her over and over that nothing was happening between us. I thought maybe...” I stop, not wanting to finish the sentence.
“You thought maybe what?” Sam’s voice is dangerous now, low and controlled.
“I thought maybe she was exaggerating,” I admit, the words tasting bitter. “She was so insecure about Brittany, and every time I tried to investigate these claims, everything would be fine. I started to think maybe her jealousy was making her see things that weren’t there.”
Sam looks at me for a long moment, then shakes his head, disappointment clear on his face. “Jesus, Luke. You and Brittany—”
“There was no relationship with Brittany,” I say quickly, feeling the need to make that clear. “She killed all the feelings I had for her the minute she walked away from me after my parents died and I lost everything. She didn’t want anything to do with the poor orphan kid.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Sam says, his voice tight and controlled.
We sit in silence. The sun is higher now, painting the sky pink and orange. A chipmunk scurries across the porch, cheeks bulging with acorns, preparing for winter.
“Can’t you see what Brittany was doing?” Sam asks finally. “She was gaslighting my sister. Making her look crazy. Destroying things and then fixing them before anyone else could see. Following her around, whispering threats where no one could hear. Making Hazel doubt her own sanity.”
The words hit with the impact of a sledgehammer. “I didn’t know—”
“Because you didn’t believe her.” Sam’s voice is quiet but cutting.
“Your girlfriend came to you for help, told you someone was tormenting her, and you decided she was making it up. Brittney and her friends did more than what she told you. They locked her in the school’s supply closet during the graduation party.
The one where we thought she just skipped. ”
I want to defend myself, to explain that it wasn’t that simple, but the words die in my throat. Because maybe it was that simple. Maybe I failed her in the most basic way possible.
“She never told me that,” I say, my body feeling ice cold.
“Would you have believed her if she had?” Sam asks. “Or would you have found a way to explain that away too?”
I don’t have an answer for that. The silence stretches between us, heavy with my growing understanding of how badly I’d let Hazel down.
Sam leans forward, his elbows on his knees, studying my face. “Luke, did you cheat on my sister?”
For the first time since he punched me, anger flares hot in my chest. “I would never.” The words come out sharp, final. “Never, Sam. Not with Brittany, not with anyone.”
Sam shifts uncomfortably in his chair, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to believe anymore, Luke. My sister says she saw you. You say it never happened.”
The words hit me like ice water. Saw me what? When? With who?
“Saw me what?” I demand, leaning forward. “Sam, what did she see?”
“That’s between you and her,” Sam says, but his voice is softer now. Tired. “I can’t be in the middle of this anymore, Luke. I can’t choose between my best friend and my sister.”
“I’m not asking you to choose—”
“Yes, you are.” Sam stands up, setting his empty beer bottle on the porch railing.
“By asking me to tell you her secrets instead of talking to her yourself, you’re asking me to choose.
” He looks down at me, and for the first time since we were kids, I feel like he’s the older brother.
“She’s my sister, Luke. She’ll always be my sister.
But you...” He trails off, shaking his head.
“But I what?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Sam says quietly. “My sister says she saw you do something that broke her heart. You say you never did anything wrong. One of you is lying, and I don’t know which one.”
The accusation hangs in the air between us like a blade. Sam starts walking toward the porch steps, then stops.
“For what it’s worth,” he says without turning around, “I hope it’s her. I hope she’s wrong about whatever she thinks she saw. Because if she’s not...” He finally looks back at me. “If she’s not, then I don’t know who you are anymore.”
He disappears into the woods, leaving me alone with my confusion and the growing certainty that whatever I did—or didn’t do—eight years ago, it was enough to destroy everything I cared about.