Chapter 58
Calla
My heart is pounding so hard I swear it might crack open and spill out every secret I’ve been holding for the last seven months.
I expected him to look worse—gaunt, unshaven, haunted. Like he’s been suffering the way I have.
Instead, he looks… fine.
Not untouched. Not like he hasn’t struggled. But nowhere near as wrecked as I imagined. Nowhere near as wrecked as he should be.
It stings more than I want to admit—like maybe I was the only one drowning. Like time didn’t stop for anyone but me.
The light through the window is too bright. The air, too still. And I’m just standing there, staring at the man I used to love—the man I know I still do.
But I don’t have the energy for small talk or pleasantries.
“Tell me everything.”
He exhales, and for a second, I’m afraid he hasn’t changed. That he’ll shut down again. Bury it all.
But then he starts talking .
And I flinch at the sound of his voice.
“Jules and Willow were inseparable. Best friends, but opposites. I told you about Willow… she was all about work, about her dream. She just wanted that restaurant. And you knew Jules. She just wanted to have fun.”
His voice is tight, thick with regret.
“Jules pushed her out of her comfort zone all the time. My family loved her for it,” he says. “She got Willow to go to that party, which was huge. I don’t even think she wanted to be there.”
Something jagged and sharp slices through my chest.
In just a few sentences, he’s unraveling everything I thought I knew. Dismantling the version of the story I clung to like a life raft. It’s too far from what I needed to believe.
I want to stop him. Shut it down before everything falls apart.
But I don’t.
Because someone is finally telling me the truth.
“But she got overwhelmed. The alcohol wasn’t helping. She told Jules she wanted to leave—asked her to walk her back to the car.”
A cold pulse shoots through me, like my body figured it out before my brain did.
“They only made it halfway,” he continues, staring at a fixed point on the floor—like if he watches the grain of wood long enough, he’ll disappear into it.
“Jules’s phone rang. It was Tyler—yelling, asking where she was, who she was with.
So she pointed Willow toward the road… then she turned around and ran back to him. ”
He drags a hand through his hair, pulling on the ends.
I stare at him, waiting for the part where he says he’s got it wrong. That it didn’t happen like this .
“Willow never even made it back to the car.”
The air goes still.
His face says everything his words don’t—the grief, the guilt, the knowing.
“There were parties out there all the time, but she never went. And you saw those woods, Calla. You know what it took to get there. It wasn’t her fault.”
The images I’ve been trying to push away flood back in. The twisted trees. The uneven terrain. The endless dark. The way the shadows swallowed everything whole.
“Jules told the police she walked Willow all the way back. Said she watched her drive off,” he says, voice quiet but steady. “But when they questioned Tyler a few days later, he said she was only gone a couple minutes. They did the math. It wasn’t enough time to get her to the car.”
He doesn’t say it right away—and I wish he wouldn’t at all. But I already know what’s coming.
“They brought her in again,” he says. “And she admitted it. She left Willow halfway. Just… let her go.”
I stare at the floor. The bar. His hands .
And suddenly, it all starts to make sense.
She talked about everything except that summer. I thought it was just a breakup. A bad decision. Something small she couldn’t let go of.
I didn’t realize she was guarding everything .
“The police came back to us,” he says. “Told us they’d been searching the wrong area. If they’d known the truth from the start, they would’ve searched differently. They said maybe… maybe they could’ve gotten to he r in time.”
The air leaves my lungs.
“They didn’t say it outright—that it was Jules’s fault. But we all knew what they meant.”
It’s like hearing the verdict before the trial even starts.
I close my eyes, but it doesn’t help. I can see it anyway.
Willow, terrified. Lost.
While Jules ran back to the fire she thought would keep her warm—even though it was already burning her down.
I want to scream. To cry. To hit something—anything—just to stop this aching, burning feeling from spreading.
And still, part of me wants to defend her. Wants to believe it was a mistake. That she panicked. That she didn’t know what could happen.
But that part is smaller now. Almost silent.
“She ghosted me after Willow died,” he says, barely above a whisper. “Like I didn’t exist. I tried to talk to her a few times, but she just… vanished. Wouldn’t answer texts. Stopped coming around. And when she did, it was like I wasn’t even there.”
He shakes his head, pressing his lips into a thin line. “Like cutting me out made it easier to pretend it never happened.”
Haiyden moves past me. Drops onto a barstool, elbows on his thighs, hunched like it hurts to hold himself up.
“My parents—”
He clears his throat, like the words burn on the way out.
“My dad, especially. He blamed Jules. It was like the second Willow died, his grief changed into something else. Not sadness… but resentment.”
He pauses, his jaw tight.
“They blamed me, too. Said if I’d just gone with her, like they asked, she’d still be here. That I didn’t protect her.”
I think about speaking. About saying anything.
But the look in his eyes silences me.
“I found out my dad had something to do with it the day they identified her body.”
His voice cracks, and the sound of it makes him seem… smaller.
“We were watching the news. And one look at him—I knew. He wasn’t shocked. He was a stone.”
The ground shifts. The air turns to ice. And even though I don’t want to believe it, the pieces are starting to fall into place. I’m just not sure I’m ready for what they’re building.
“I kept it quiet. Convinced myself it wasn’t my truth to tell. I was afraid—afraid of what it meant, afraid of what it would do to my family, to me. I’d already lost my sister, and I was scared.”
He swallows.
“I let that fear make all my decisions. I let it control everything.”
The pain in his voice is raw—exposing a version of him I don’t think I’ve ever seen.
And I know this isn’t just about Willow. It’s about Jules. About himself.
About the boy who was handed a secret he never asked for, and forced to carry a guilt that never belonged to him.
He was trapped. Backed into a corner. He never had a choice at all.
Do any of us, when the truth costs everything?
When I finally speak, my voice is steady—but the words hurt on the way out.
I can’t pretend I’m not angry. Can’t ignore how much it still wounds .
“So you just let me suffer? Let me believe I’d never know what happened to her?”
He flinches. But he doesn’t argue. Doesn’t try to justify it.
He just sits there, silent for a moment, then says quietly—
“I did.”
His voice is empty.
“I was selfish. I failed you. I failed Jules. I failed Willow.”
Before I even realize it, I’m shaking. Every emotion hits at once—love and betrayal, grief and disbelief. It all tears through me.
Everything in me screams to run. To shut him out before he can hurt me again. But my feet won’t move.
Tears sting the backs of my eyes, but I won’t let them fall. Not in front of him. Not again.
“You let me get close,” I whisper. “Knowing I could never forgive you for this.”
It’s cold and bitter. But I can’t stop it.
His voice cracks.
“It was so selfish, Calla. I know that. But I wanted to keep you. I thought maybe, somehow, we could build something where neither of us had to suffer. Where it didn’t rain. Where the sun kept us warm every day.”
He swallows, the words breaking as they leave him.
“I didn’t want to lose you. And because of that… I lost myself.”
It sounds like he’s choking. Like saying it out loud is its own kind of punishment.
He shifts in his seat and straightens, like steeling himself is the only way to survive it.
“I tried to push you away. The second I realized who you were—who Jules was to you—I told myself to stay back. That’s why I acted the way I did. I wanted to hate you.”
He lets out a bitter laugh. “But it didn’t work. You had to be so goddamn lovable.”
He sighs. “It wasn’t supposed to be you, Calla. But after months of storms… it’s fucking impossible to pretend the sun doesn’t exist.”
The way he says it hits me like a truth I’ve been avoiding. My heart stutters, questions forming even as the answers begin to take shape.
“The first few weeks without you were bad. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. I almost showed up drunk at your door again—even knowing you were already gone.”
I can feel his eyes on me now, searching for something—understanding, maybe. But I don’t know if I have that to give. Not yet.
“But I couldn’t be that guy again,” he says. “Not if I ever wanted a chance at being someone you could let back in.”
His voice lowers—rough, quiet—and I feel it. He’s stripped bare now. And for the first time, I see it. He’s been fighting. For this. For me. Harder than I ever realized.
“So I switched to morning shifts. Forced myself into a routine. Kept quiet. Kept busy. I got a dog.” A faint smile flickers across his face. “She loves me unconditionally… even though most days, I’m not sure I deserve it.”
Unconditionally.
What would it even feel like? To be loved like that?
“My therapist… she recommended cooking. I’m decent at it now. Better than the disaster breakfast I made for you back at my ap artment.”
He smiles at the memory—faint but real.
I let out a slow breath. That breakfast feels like forever ago, but I can still taste the burnt toast. Still see the way he hovered in front of me, so sure he could make something better.
“And then… there was my dad.” His tone shifts. The moment of lightness slips away in the blink of an eye.
“I stood outside the house for a long time. Almost walked away. Told myself it was too late—that nothing would change.”
He pauses. Breathes.
“I had my phone recording in my pocket. At first, it felt pointless. I had no leverage. He just… accused me of knowing. And he was right. I did. I’d known the truth for months.”
His breath hitches, his pulse visible in his throat.
“He threatened me. Like he always does. So I left. Stopped the recording. Got in my car. And sat there.”
His voice drops.
“And then I got back out. Walked back in. Gave him a choice.”
He meets my eyes, and something inside me stills. There’s exhaustion in his face. But also resolve.
“I played the recording. Told him if he didn’t turn himself in, I would. That I’d end up in jail too, probably, because of his fuck-up. I asked him if that’s what he wanted—one dead kid, one criminal.”
He swallows.
“He didn’t say a word. So I left. Actually left that time.”
The words knock the breath out of me. “You were willing to go to jail over this?”
He nods slowly. “I was tired, Calla. I couldn’t live with it anymore.”
His voice softens .
“And it stopped being his secret the second it started destroying you. Once I saw what it was doing to you—what it was doing to me—I realized he’d already taken enough.” He looks at me, eyes steady. “I wasn’t going to let him take you.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“I was going to give him a few weeks. Let it settle. But he turned himself in before I could do anything else.”
A long, shaky breath leaves him as he leans back against the bar. His body’s still tense, but something’s shifted.
A stillness.
Like the storm has finally broken.
Then, suddenly, he steps closer. Just one small movement—but it feels huge.
His voice breaks when he speaks again, like the words are tearing something open.
“Ever since you left, I’ve been trying to make things right. But I don’t know what that looks like without you.”
I can’t breathe. I know he’s trying. I see it. I feel it.
But even with all that, it still doesn’t feel like enough.
His gaze drops, eyes dragging over me—slow and searching.
“I get it if you can’t forgive me.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. My thoughts are too loud.
My heart’s louder.
Please don’t walk away.
His voice falters, then steadies—bare, honest.
“The truth is, I still love you, Calla. I never stopped. I don’t know if I ever will.”
I freeze .
It should hurt. Should crush me. But it doesn’t. It lands—soft, quiet. Like something that’s always lived in me. Something that’s always belonged.
“You’re the light I never saw coming,” he says. “And now that I’ve had it, I don’t know how to exist in the dark again.”
My heart hammers against my ribs.
I want to reach out—ache to—but I don’t know if I’m ready to touch him yet.
So I just stand there. Listening. Taking in every word, every piece of himself he’s offering.
No walls. No defenses.
I hear the change in him. The growth. The awareness of what he’s done, of who he wants to be.
But somehow, it doesn’t quiet the pain. It doesn’t erase the ache.
It’s too much. All of it.
I take a step back.
Not because I want to, but because I have to.
Because it feels like I’m coming apart at the seams, and if I don’t put space between us, I won’t survive it.
I want to reach for him.
I want to ask him to hold me. To piece me back together.
“I have to go,” I whisper.
He shifts—abrupt, startled.
Panic flashes through his eyes before he can hide it.
“Please don’t leave town yet.”
“I won’t.”
I don’t know why I say it. Maybe to ease the desperation in his voice. Maybe because it’s the only thing I can give him .
But I say it anyway.
My legs move, but my mind doesn’t.
Everything inside me is tangled. Spinning.
I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what comes next.
All I know is I can’t stay. Not with him.
Not like this.