Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ERIN
“ E rin… Erin. Oh my god, you're awake!” Liza almost suffocates me when she notices my eyes are open.
“Where’s Luke?” I look around the room, and although my vision is blurry, I can’t see the shape of him.
“He went home to shower; he’s been here by your side the whole time. Erin, I’m so sorry.” I see the guilt on her face, and I’m confused.
“What happened?”
“You were attacking Koben, and I was scared you were gonna…I pulled you away, and you lost your balance. You feel down the stairs?—”
“My baby.” I press my hand to my stomach.
“Is fine. Your baby is fine. Luke’s been driving the staff crazy, making sure they monitor its heartbeat every few hours. And they gave you a scan two days ago.”
“ Two days ago!? How long have I been out?” My vision is a little less blurry, but the throbbing in my head is much worse.
“Three, maybe four days. I should get a doctor.” She goes to leave.
“No…” I reach out my arm to stop her.
“While we’re alone, I need you to tell me what happened the day Matthew died.”
I watch as her skin turns pale.
“What are you talking about?” She tries to look confused, but I know her too well.
“That test I found in the bathroom…it wasn’t yours, it was mine. I knew I was pregnant before Matthew died, didn’t I? Why would you tell me it was yours? Why couldn’t I remember?
What happened to your baby, Liza, and why were you protecting Koben? He was yelling at you. You wouldn’t let someone treat you that way.” None of what I’m piecing together makes sense.
“Okay, I need to tell you this before Luke gets back, and it’s not gonna be easy to hear.” Liza looks to the door to ensure we’re completely alone before her eyes fix on me.
“I killed him. I killed Matthew, didn’t I?” My vision goes blurry again, but this time it’s from tears, not the pain in my head.
“I found you in your kitchen, covered in blood. I put you in the shower, and I saw what he’d done to you.
Why didn’t you ever tell me?” She squeezes my hand in frustration, and it starts to throb to the same rhythm as my head.
“Once I got you out of the shower, you were panicking, and I promised you I’d fix it.
I took the clothes you’d been wearing and bagged them up.
I put Matthew’s rifle back in the cabinet, and I scrubbed your kitchen down to every inch.
You were in some kind of trance, and knowing that the boys would be home soon, I had to do something about the car,” she explains, and slowly I remember it all.
“I took the bag of clothes and drove off in your car, so I could clean it up the best I could.”
“I shot him. I killed Matthew.” I can feel myself starting to freak out.
“He fucking deserved it!” Liza growls at me. “I saw your back, Erin. That wasn’t a one-time thing. I’d had some suspicions that he had some kind of hold on you, but you always seemed so happy.”
“How could I forget doing something like that?” I shake my head.
“I Googled it when I noticed you acting strange. It's a condition some people get after a severe trauma; a form of amnesia,” she explains.
“So I just forgot?” Part of me wishes I could forget again.
“I don’t know when it happened, exactly.
I left you to clean up the car, and it took way longer than I expected.
When I came back, Mary was there, and everyone was panicking, trying to find Matthew.
I thought you were going along with it to throw off suspicion.
I was impressed at how calm you were because, let's be honest, at school, drama was never your subject.” She makes a valid point, but it’s not well-timed.
“Then, as time went on and I got to spend more time alone with you, I realized that it wasn’t an act.”
I can’t imagine how she must have felt going through all that alone.
“I saw the mess you were in when I walked into that kitchen; you were numb. Dead inside, I didn’t want you going back to that place again. So, I did everything I could to ensure you stayed in that state of innocence.”
I look at my best friend in shock.
“Don’t look at me like that, you’d have done the same for me.” She smiles as if all this didn’t push the boundaries of friendship.
“You pretended to be pregnant?” I’m still confused.
“That one was a curveball, but it explained what drove you, on that particular day, to snap. You were protecting your baby. I couldn't come up with an explanation for the test in the trash, so I just told you it was mine.”
“But I saw your sonogram photo.” I can feel my head starting to hurt now. I’m starting to question what reality is.
“You can pick up those fakes online easily.”
“And Koben, why did you tell me he was the father?” There's still so much more she needs to explain.
“By then, Kobenn was already in on the whole thing.”
“Wait… Koben knows?” I panic, because he’s Matthew's best friend.
“I panicked the day it happened. I wasn’t thinking straight, and I did what you said and put the gun back in the cabinet.
I realized that was a mistake pretty soon after, and I needed to get into the house so I could take it away and destroy it.
But a rifle isn’t exactly the kind of thing you can sneak out in your purse.
I needed you to be out or asleep, and Koben…
” She pauses and screws her eyes up tight.
“Koben’s a little bit in love with you,” she tells me like she’s said too much.
“Did you know that for the first few nights after Matthew died, he slept in his truck halfway up the track so he could be close to the house? He was scared that whoever killed Matthew was coming after you.”
“Koben was Matthew’s best friend.”
“And Luke was his brother. That's not enough to stop these kinds of men from wanting you, and girl, you need to tell me your secret because you get them obsessed.”
“So how did we get to Koben, knowing what had happened?” I try navigating through this information overload.
“After a few nights of me watching him watching the house, I decided to confront him. I treated him like I thought he was a suspect. He admitted that he knew what was happening; he’d known for some time that Matthew was abusing you, and he was trying to find a way to get you out.
I knew I could trust him, so I asked him for help. His name was the first name I thought of when you asked me who’d got me pregnant, and I knew if I needed him to, he’d back my story. Erin, he’d do anything for you. We both would.”
“So why were you fighting? Why was he screaming at you when we got to his house?”
“Because I’d fucked up. I was done with staying at home, pretending to be pregnant, and not having fun.
You were happy and settled with Luke, and I didn’t think it would hurt to go to the lake house for a few beers.
The problem is, it never ends that way at a River boy party.
I ended up getting wasted, and I called Koben to pick me up.
He took me back to his to sober me up, and he was mad at me the next morning because he knew there was a chance you’d find out.
I’d slipped up, and he was only mad because he cares so much about you. ”
“Liza, you couldn't have kept that lie up forever. I was gonna find out eventually.”
“Why do you think I’ve been avoiding you?
I knew I was gonna have to lie again; tell you I'd lost the baby, something horrid, and I knew how much it would upset you. The lies I told to protect you were snowballing out of control, and I was scared that if they unraveled, it would trigger you to remember.”
“This is all so fucked up.” I’m grateful for everything they did, but it doesn’t protect me from the fact that I’m a killer.
“I have to tell Luke.” I feel that same sick feeling in my gut when I’d thought I’d lose him before, only this time I know I can’t be forgiven.
“No, you can’t tell Luke. He was Matthew’s brother. You can’t fully trust that he won’t want justice.” She shakes her head.
“I can’t be with him and lie about something like this, and Luke knows about the abuse; he knows everything. I believe he’ll understand.”
“You can’t bet everything on the hope that he might understand, Erin. Think of your baby. Do you want to give birth to it in jail?” I can see how scared she is for me, and I shouldn’t doubt Luke after all we’ve been through, but this is a lot to ask him to forgive.
“If you want to be happy, then you take this to your grave,” she warns me.
“Erin?” I look up when I hear Luke’s voice, and he drops the bags he’s carrying to the floor and rushes toward me.
“You're awake! No one fuckin’ called.” His hands touch me all over, like he needs to test he’s not imagining that I’m awake.
“Why didn’t you call?” He looks harshly at Liza.
“I literally just woke up. Don’t be mad.” I cling to him, and when I finally pull away, Liza smiles as she stands up from the chair.
“I’ll leave you guys alone,” she whispers.
“Tell Koben I said thanks,” I call after her, unsure if I’ll ever find a way to thank her for what she’s done for me.
“What the hell have you got to thank him for?” Luke fluffs up my pillow. He smells like home. Not the one I lived in with Matthew, but the one we’ve made our own since he’s been gone, and I want so much to go back there and carry on living our lives.
“Luke, I need to tell you something.” I know what Liza said, and I know telling him the truth puts her and Koben at risk. But I also know Luke, and I have faith that he loves me enough to understand.
“Luke, can you just stop fussing?” I tell him when he starts straightening out the sheet on top of me.
“I’ve been helpless for days.” He takes my hand in his and strokes his thumb over my knuckles
“When I hit my head, some memories came back to me. Memories of the day that Matthew died.” I hear the heart monitor that's attached to me start to beep faster. “I love you,” I tell him before I potentially ruin everything.
“I love you, too. Always have, always gonna.” He glances down at my hand, and I suddenly notice the bright, shiny diamond that's glistening on my finger.
“I figured since you were in a coma, you couldn’t say no.” He offers me that crooked smile, and it shatters me.
“Luke, I want more than anything to be your wife, but before I say yes, you need to kn–.”
“Darlin’, are you seriously gonna ruin this moment by choosing now to tell me you shot my brother in the head?” He takes my hand and raises it to his lips while I stare at him in shock. “Just say yes,” he whispers.
I touch my other hand to the bandage on my head, wondering how hard I hit it.
“You know? But how? How long have you?—?”
“About a month. Baby, you do a lot of talkin’ in your sleep. Now, are you gonna let me show you how it should feel to be someone's wife, or are you gonna break my heart?”
“You're not mad at me?”
“We’ve been over this. What do I have to do to prove that all I want is you?” he laughs at me as if I’m the crazy one.
“Not a damn thing.” I lean in to kiss him, and when he pulls away, I growl because I miss his lips already.
“So is that a yes?” he asks.
“Absolutely.” I drag his lips onto mine and, this time, I don’t let him get away.