Chapter 4
Briar
The cemetery was pretty at this time of year.
Spring was just around the corner; the flowers were ready to bloom at any moment, the trees were starting to show their leaves, and winter was clearly on its way out.
Tiffany’s gravestone loomed high above fresh green grass, her picture etched into the stone in the upper right corner. Her wide smile, so familiar, shone from the stone, dazzling even in death. A picture of a young girl, frozen in time.
I wiped at the corner of my eye. My other hand loosely clasped my brother’s wrist. His head was bowed, his eyes on the grass, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze.
Not because they’d see his sorrow, but because they’d see his rage.
Fury held Mason in its grasp, and the only thing keeping him here was my loose hold on his arm.
Diana stood with her aunt and uncle, both of whom were weeping. I forced my gaze to the ground at my feet. The word hypocrites danced on my tongue, and I had to bite it back every time I saw them.
Mason moved his arm, his hand clasping mine, squeezing gently. He knew I struggled as much as he did, just not for the same reason.
He felt guilty about her death. I felt nothing but anger about everything that had happened. That he would always feel that way because she’d left us when there were still so many unanswered questions, and we may never know the answers.
The brief, solemn ceremony was over quickly. We laid flowers, and then we walked quickly to my car.
I heard Tiffany’s dad call after us, but I kept walking. “Don’t do it, Mase,” I warned. “Let it go.”
“He knows not to start this shit,” he muttered darkly beside me. “Not today.”
“And you know better too.” We got to my car, and I opened the passenger door. “In. Don’t fight me.”
His top lip curled up in what I might once have called a smile; now it was just a bitter sneer, and I knew Joe Preacher had caught up with us.
“I called after you,” he said bluntly from behind me.
“I ignored you,” Mason said just as brusquely.
“How dare you—”
I pushed my brother into the car and closed the door with a loud slam, cutting off Diana’s dad.
“Not today, Joe.” I walked around the car. “Fight about it another day.”
I slipped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and left them behind. I’d apologize to Diana later for stranding her with them. But my brother was my main priority, just as their daughter should have been theirs.
“It’s supposed to get easier,” Mason said as he pulled a hip flask from inside his black jacket.
“Where the heck did you get that?” I demanded.
“Chill. I’m a grown man, you’re not my mom, and you’re not my wife.”
“I am your sister, and it’s ten in the morning, Mason.”
“That makes it five in Paris or something, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not the point. Getting drunk doesn’t bring her back.”
“Sometimes I feel like she isn’t gone. Don’t you?”
“Like a ghost,” I murmured. “She was so obsessed with you, she’d absolutely haunt your ass.”
He almost choked on his whiskey. He looked over his shoulder as if checking she was in the back seat. “There’s a threat that will keep me up at night,” he said, trying to lighten the mood of the morning.
I tried to hide my smile. “We should probably not joke about it, especially today.”
“Yeah.” His frown deepened. “But still . . . the idea of her watching me, like, in the shower . . .”
“She probably already did that when she was alive,” I told him with a sigh. “She was a handful on her best day.”
He nodded. “Yeah, she could be.” He took another sip. “Still sucks she’s gone.”
“Will always suck,” I agreed.
“I told you not to go there.” He didn’t look at me, and I didn’t get defensive. “I specifically said, ‘Briar, my only sister whom I love with every fiber of my being, don’t go to that shithole of a school and try to get revenge. No good will come of it.’ Remember? Remember when I said that?”
“I remember. And I remember saying something like, ‘Mason, my only brother, who they threw away like garbage, whose reputation they ruined, along with a childhood friend’s life, I’m going to get a job there, I’m going to uncover their secrets, and I’m going to blast them all over social media.’”
“It’s not worth it, Bri.” He took another pull.
“It will always be worth it. You’re my brother, and they should never be allowed to get away with this.”
We drove silently until we reached the turnoff for our street, but Mason tugged the wheel slightly, ignoring my cry of shock as I quickly checked behind me to ensure I wasn’t in danger of causing an accident as the car swerved across the road.
“Bruno’s.”
“I’m not taking you to a bar at this time in the morning.” I slapped his arm. “And don’t ever do that again, you crazy asshole.”
“Bruno’s, Briar. Or I’m just going to walk there.”
“You’re just going there in the hopes you’ll get into a fight.” I protested weakly.
“Only if I’m lucky.” He met my worried glance. “C’mon, sis, do me a favor and let’s not argue over something that will happen anyway.”
“I want it on the record that I do not support this behavior.”
“The record is noted.”
We drove to the bar, and when I pulled up outside, I tried to reason with him again. “Mason—”
“Love you.” He got out and was pulling the bar door open before the car door even clicked shut.
“I love you too, you absolute dickhead.” I sat there a little longer, thinking about whether I should go in and pull him out, which would be pointless, or head home and listen to my mom rant about how Tiffany caused all of it and how she always knew she’d ruin my brother’s life.
My phone rang.
“Tell me you’re coming back to get me so we can go back to Wrighton.”
Or there was option number three.
I closed my eyes for a brief moment. “I’m on my way.”
I refused to make eye contact with her aunt and uncle as Diana got into the car. She gave me one look, then I locked the doors, turned up the music, and we headed back to the school that had brought ruin to both members of our family.
As I pulled into a parking lot in Halston, the main town a good few miles from campus, I looked around to make sure the coast was clear.
“Be safe and keep in touch,” I warned my friend as she got out of the car. She’d take the bus to campus. We didn’t need people to know we knew each other.
“You too.”
I watched her walk away, then drove to campus, the familiar feeling of dread descending on me as I got closer.
I hated them.
All of them.
Their school was steeped in deceit and cover-ups, and I didn’t care what Savannah Cole said about her father; he was as guilty as his predecessor. And as for Coach Bobby Ray Sutherland? Well, he should be in jail for his crimes.
After numerous unanswered letters to the NCAA, nothing had ever come from their ‘investigations,’ and they were either in on it, which I doubted, or Wrighton U was just too good at covering up their fuckery.
Parking my car, I took a deep breath and got out, shouldering my backpack, pulling my hair over my face, and assuming the role of Briar Holmes.
I kind of liked the meek and mild version of me. She was . . . timid. I sniffed with derision as I walked across campus. She was nothing like me. I was not meek or mild, and I think the only time Mason had described me as ‘timid’ was when I refused to eat spicy hot wings.
I rounded the corner, looked both ways to make sure no one was coming, and then climbed the stairs to my apartment.
Noah Matthews was not supposed to be sitting outside my door.
Noah Matthews was not supposed to be looking smug as he got to his feet while mine refused to take one more step.
Noah Matthews was not who I wanted to see at all.
“Wh-what? How?”
He was leaning against my doorframe with the casual ease of someone who had positioned himself exactly where he wanted to be and knew it. “The building next to Hadley? She’ll be fucking furious she missed this.”
I knew she lived here and had seen her too many times to make me very, very cautious about my comings and goings, especially after it was clear she was with Dustin.
I could either run from it or own it. I went with the latter. This guy didn’t need to see meek and mild Briar. She wasn’t who I was.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“I have questions,” he said easily. “You have the answers.” He stayed still as he watched me. “I think we have plenty to say to each other.”
He didn’t move away so I could unlock the door. I waited.
“Oh, and Dust and Hadley are heading back to her apartment,” he added as an afterthought. “Should I text them and tell them to come in?”
“You’re an asshole.” I shoved him aside and unlocked my door. He followed me in, closing the door quietly behind him.
He stayed near the door. He was big, but he was doing his best not to remind me of it by taking up too much space.
I dumped my stuff beside my couch. “So . . . how did you find me?”
“Got a very bright brother who likes puzzles.”
I nodded. “So you’re not bright?”
He shrugged. “More brawn than brains.”
I cast a look over him. “I don’t doubt it.”
I opened my window and leaned against the windowsill. “What do you want?”
“We want to know what happened to Mason. To Tiffany. We want to know what this place covered up, who did it, and how we can stop it from happening to us, because it will happen again. We worked too hard to get here and lose it over some scumbag.”
“So, it’s all about you?”
“I’m the only one who cares about my career as much as I do.”
I hesitated. It sounded very narcissistic on the surface, but when you thought about it, yeah, I could see his point. I’d expected the standard denial. I hadn’t expected that.
“It’s a weird way of saying that,” I grumbled.
“Then I’m weird.”
I glanced at him, and he shrugged.
“Is your brother older or younger?” Noah asked.
That wasn’t where I thought he’d start, either. This guy kept surprising me. I didn’t like it.
“Younger. A year younger.”
He looked pleased, and I wondered who had argued I was the younger sibling.
“Are you married?”
My eyes popped. “What? No.”
“So you faked your identity?”
“I . . .”