10. Ryan #2
“Thank you.” Danny wipes beneath her eye again. She catches his wrist. “Stop collecting evidence.”
His face finally cracks. Not much. Just enough. And when he kisses her forehead and pulls back, his own eyes are fucking glassy. Becca sees it. Her whole face softens.
Danny looks away. “Nope.”
That gets a watery laugh out of her. She reaches up and turns his face back. “Hey.”
“I’m good.”
“Liar.”
“I’m happy for them. I really fucking am.” His eyes drop to the ultrasound picture still in her hand. “We just never…” He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to.
Becca’s thumb moves over his knuckles. “No.”
Danny swallows. “I would’ve liked that.”
Becca leans into him. “Me too.”
His arm goes around her. For a few seconds, they just sit there together. No jokes. No pretending. No trying to make it smaller.
Then Becca looks at me again. “We’re happy for you. I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
She looks back at the picture. “I can miss ours and still love yours.” My throat tightens. “Some days I’m really fucking good at doing both.” Danny kisses the side of her head. She breathes out. “Today might not be one of them.”
“You don’t have to stay.”
Danny gives her a look. “I was thinking we should go.”
“Good thought.” She hands the ultrasound picture back to me. Carefully. Then holds onto the corner for one extra second. “Can I see it again?”
“Anytime.”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
Danny stands and takes her hand. But before they leave, he looks at me, his eyes still a little red. “I’m fucking happy for you, man.”
I stand enough to grab his shoulder. He pulls me into a quick hug. Hard. Then lets go before either of us has to make that weird.
Becca comes around the table and hugs me too. “Don’t stop talking about it because of us.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.” She pulls away and points at me. “And if you tell anyone I cried outside the Edgewood dining hall, I’ll deny it.”
“You didn’t cry. Eye sweat.”
“Thank you.”
Danny holds out his hand. She takes it. And they walk toward the building together, not rushing, Danny’s arm going around her halfway there, Becca folding into his side. I watch them until they disappear through the doors.
When I sit back down, nobody talks for a minute.
Cat has her face tucked against Kaiden’s shoulder.
Penny is holding Xander’s hand in both of hers.
Iz stares toward the doors. I look at the ultrasound picture.
Yesterday, I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that could still go wrong.
Today, all I can think is that Danny would’ve given anything for the moment I got without even knowing how precious it was until I had it.
I slide the picture carefully back into my wallet.
Kaiden’s voice is quiet. “You good?”
“Yeah.” I look across the courtyard. Ally is still there. Still safe. Still pregnant. Still mine even when I can’t sit beside her. “Yeah,” I say again. “For right now, I fucking am.”
I look down at my phone. Back to the other fucking nightmare.
Arthur sent me another batch before first period.
Old society pages. Archived photographs.
Foundation records. Event programs. Anything his people could find on Victor’s dead wives that might tell us something the clean timelines don’t.
So far, it’s mostly told me rich people take a lot of pictures.
“I’m still getting nowhere with Marianne.” Kaiden looks over. “Nothing useful. She’s everywhere before the wedding. Still everywhere right after. Then it starts thinning out.”
“How fast?” Xander asks.
“Slow. Couple years.”
Penny holds out her hand. “Let me see.”
I pass her the phone. She scrolls through the folder. Hospital benefit. Political fundraiser. Whitmore. Foundation dinner. Marianne beside Victor in nearly every one.
Penny stops. “Whitmore. The spring benefit?”
Iz looks over. “The one where Danny and X got caught smoking behind the conservatory?”
Xander looks at him. “We didn’t get caught.”
Penny laughs. “Your mom saw you guys.”
Iz stares at her. “For four fucking years you’ve had this information?”
“I didn’t realize it was important.”
Penny pats Iz’s arm. “Darla knew too.” “My dad worked Whitmore that year,” she says.
Kaiden nods. “My mom was on the education committee.”
Xander looks at Kaiden. “Was that the roof night?”
Kaiden immediately grins.
Cat looks between them. “What roof night?”
“No roof night,” Kaiden says.
I laugh. “You spent half the benefit trying to convince me we could jump off the conservatory roof into the pool.”
“We could’ve. The pool was heated.”
Cat stares at him. “You wanted to jump off a roof?”
“I was fourteen.”
She considers that. “Actually, yeah. That tracks.”
I take my phone back. For a second, it’s just another old event. One of a hundred. Our parents dressed up. Us dressed up. Adults drinking and talking about shit we didn’t care about while we found increasingly creative ways to disappear.
Then I look at the photograph again. Actually look. Marianne’s smiling. Victor’s beside her. His hand rests against the small of her back. My thumb stops.
Kaiden catches it. “What?”
“She marries him. Keeps showing up. Then less. Then barely at all.”
Cat looks at the pictures. “So what changed?”
“That’s what I can’t fucking find.”
Xander hasn’t said anything. I glance at him. He’s staring at Marianne. Not Victor. Marianne. Penny notices too. Her fingers find his.
Xander’s jaw tightens. “People don’t notice it while it’s happening.
” Nobody speaks. He keeps looking at the picture.
“They notice after. Then suddenly everybody remembers shit. She stopped coming around. Stopped answering. Stopped doing something she always did.” Penny leans into him.
Xander finally looks at me. “Stop looking at pictures. Ask the people in them.”
Kaiden nods. “Our parents.”
“Exactly.”
“My mom will remember,” Penny says.
“So will mine,” Kaiden says.
Iz nods toward my phone. “My dad’s probably already asking around.”
“Arthur’s asking questions he can use,” I say. “I’m talking about the shit nobody thought mattered enough to remember.”
Penny takes the phone again. She scrolls. Stops. Goes backward. Then forward. Her brows pull together. “There’s something about these later ones.”
I lean closer. “What?”
A voice behind us cuts through the conversation. “Move.”
Iz doesn’t look up. “No.”
Kaiden exhales through his nose. Cat looks toward the voice. I already know. Bella stands at the end of the bench with two girls behind her. Iz has one leg stretched far enough across the walkway to be irritating. She could go around. He could move. Neither is going to happen.
Bella looks down at his leg. Then at him. “Move, Isaac.”
He keeps his attention on Penny’s phone. “Go around, Isabella.”
“Move your fucking leg.”
“No.”
“Are you so desperate for attention you’ve resorted to becoming furniture?”
That gets his eyes up. “No. I just enjoy watching you discover the universe doesn’t rearrange itself because you wrinkle your nose at it.”
Bella smiles. Cold. “Cute. Did your therapist teach you that?” Iz’s expression doesn’t move. Penny’s does. Bella sees it. Of course she fucking does. “Or was that your mother?”
Iz stands. Fast. The two girls behind Bella take a step back. Bella doesn’t. Not even an inch. Iz looks down at her. “You want my attention that badly, spoiled bitch, you could’ve just asked.”
Bella laughs. “You mistake disgust for interest a lot. Probably explains your romantic history.”
Penny goes still. There it is. Iz’s eyes turn flat. “Probably explains yours too.”
“Mine’s considerably more interesting.”
“I know. Half the school got the press release.”
Cat mutters, “Jesus.”
Bella’s eyes flash. “At least people show up for mine.”
Iz steps closer. “So that’s the metric? How many people watch?” Bella’s smile slips. Barely. He sees it. “Is that why you need an audience for everything, Isabella? Because if nobody’s watching, you’re not sure you exist?”
Her face goes cold. “Careful. You might accidentally say something intelligent and ruin your reputation.”
“I’m devastated.”
“You should be. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to interesting.”
Iz laughs once. No humor. “You know what’s interesting? That you spend your whole fucking life acting untouchable when anybody with the right last name can make you perform on command.”
Kaiden straightens. Penny’s head snaps toward Iz.
Bella doesn’t move. Not at first. Then her chin lifts. “Say that again.”
“You heard me.”
“No.” Her voice is terrifyingly calm. “Say it again, Isaac.”
He takes another step. “Why? Hit too close?”
“You really want to find out?”
“I’ve been waiting years for you to do something that wasn’t for an audience.”
Her palm cracks across his face. Hard enough to turn his head. Cat inhales. Nobody else moves. Iz stays like that for a second. Then slowly turns back. His cheek is red. Bella’s breathing harder now.
Iz smiles. Dark. Wrong. “Better?”
“I barely started.”
“Then stop fucking disappointing me.” She shoves him. He comes right back. “Hit me.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
Her fingers knot in the front of his shirt. Iz looks down at them. Then at her. “You always grab men you hate this much?”
“I’m deciding where to bury you.”
“Your backyard. Then you can keep watching me through the window.”
“I’d put you somewhere your family couldn’t find the body.” His smile disappears. Bella smiles. Her turn. “Maybe then your mother could finally stop spending her life fixing whatever the fuck is wrong with you.”
Penny says her name. “Bella.”
Bella doesn’t look at her. “You think playing everyone’s fucked-up little savior makes you good?”
“I’ve never claimed to be good.”
“You don’t have to.” She smiles. “You need everyone else to do it for you.” Iz goes very still. “You need people bleeding. Crying. Breaking. Because if everybody around you gets healthy, what the fuck are you for?” Something changes in his face. Bella smiles wider. “There he is.”
Iz’s voice drops. “At least people come to me because they trust me.”
“They come to you because you make yourself useful.“