“I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “My dad—he used to say, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’ I guess you just reminded me of it when I saw your face earlier. I kind of knew, you know?” He finally faces me, his eyes as sad as my heart. “Is this it, Riley? Am I losing you?”

I sigh. “Losing me would mean that you had me to begin with.”

His lip curves on one side. “I had you, Riley. Even if it was for a second, I still had you.”

I look away, because the hope in his eyes is too detrimental to my soul. “I messed up, Dylan.”

“How bad?”

“I don’t even know where to start type bad.”

He blows out a breath so heavy I can feel his entire body shift beside me. “You’ve been keeping it a secret from me?”

“Yes.”

“So why is it so important you tell me? Because Jake knows about it?”

“No… because you deserve to know.”

“And what if I told you that I don’t want to know? That I hold a secret I don’t want to tell anyone. Especially you. And what if I told you that we could both keep them for eternity and it wouldn’t change a thing?”

I don’t hesitate. “I’d still tell you.”

“Why?”

I turn to him. “Because you were the one who asked me to.”

He doesn’t respond, just looks right at me. After a while, he looks away. “Heidi had an abortion while I was in basic training. It was my child. She didn’t tell me about it. She didn’t even tell me she was pregnant. Not until Vegas a few months ago. That’s why I left her for good.”

All air leaves my lungs. “Jesus. I’m sorry, Dylan.”

“We spoke to each other while I was in basic at Camp Lejeune and even when I deployed. She wrote me letters even after she broke up with me. She should’ve said something. And when she did, she tried to put it on me like it was my fault because I enlisted and left her. I didn’t leave her. I just enlisted. There wasn’t an either/or decision. We could’ve still made it work. The worst part is that she knew she was pregnant when I left. She didn’t even tell me then. She just let me go. She should’ve said something, you know? I should’ve had a say at least.”

I take a calming breath—one that gets caught by the lump in my throat. “That’s not your shame to carry, Dylan. It’s hers.”

“I think deep down I know that. But it doesn’t stop it from hurting. And it’s not even about her. She stopped being the reason I hurt the night I found out. I think it’s more about my decision to leave.” He faces me again. “You think it was selfish? For me to go?”

“For you to search out something more for yourself? Not at all.”

“But I didn’t tell her I enlisted until it was too late.”

“And you think it would’ve changed anything? You think that by you not going you would’ve been happy together, with or without a baby?”

He shrugs. “No. I wouldn’t have been happy. Not together anyway.”

“So now? When you look back on it all… what do you think?”

“It’s irrelevant.”

“Of course what you think is relevant.”

“No, Riley.” He shakes his head. “I mean, when I look back on it… none of it matters anymore. I thought it did. Then I met you. And now it’s irrelevant.” He pulls me closer to him. “And you—your secret. Is it relevant?”

I think about his question for a long time and I come up with nothing. A yes or no answer would be too simple. So instead, I give the complicated. “After Jeremy died, I lost it. Like, mentally lost it.”

“You were grieving.”

I shake my head. “No. It wasn’t just grief. It was everything.”

“Like what?” I look down on his hand on my leg and I get lost in the warmth of his touch and his voice when he says, “It’ll only change us if you let it.”

I heave in a breath and let it out in a whoosh, along with everything I’ve wanted to say but never had anyone to say it to. “He was so scared up on that cliff, Dylan. He was scared and I laughed at him. He told me he loved me. I never said it back. They were the last words he ever said to me and I never—” I break off on a sob.

“Riley…”

I sniff through the pain and find the courage to continue. “I still remember the moment it happened. The rocks when they landed on my shoulders and the impact of the water when we hit the lake. I remember the exact moment I knew something was wrong.” The pain is already unbearable, but I push through it. I have to. For both Dylan and Jeremy. “His grip on my hand tightened… he was supposed to jump. He didn’t jump. He fell. He fell all the way to the bottom and he didn’t come up. The medical reports say he hit his head on the edge of the cliff and was already unconscious when he hit the water.” I wipe my eyes across my forearm. “It only took a day for the rumors to start and another day for them to get back to me. Kids in our class were saying that it wasn’t an accident. That I pushed him. That I drowned him. I would never hurt him, Dylan. Never.”

“Fuck them, Riley.”

“Mom kept telling me that they were just bored and needed something else to focus on to take away from the pain of losing someone. And I just kept thinking, what about me? What about my pain? Then it escalated to the point where people began questioning why I didn’t call for help right away….”

Dylan’s eyes are wet when he rubs them across my bare shoulder. He sniffs once. Twice. His hands going behind my knees and lifting me onto him so he can hold me tighter. Closer.

“And I tried to talk to my mom about it. When the nightmares became too much, I tried to talk to her. I tried to talk to anyone who would listen but no one would. No one cared. And then the generic I’m sorrys mixed with accusations started coming through and I lost it. I was so mad, so angry, so lost. People stopped talking to me. Friends I thought would be there stopped being my friend because they were never really mine, they were his. His parents stopped talking to me. And the girls—they were the worst. The messages I’d get pushed me over the edge.”

“What messages?” he asks, a single finger wiping my tears away.

“The truth. That I was never worthy of him to begin with. That it was my fault his life was taken too soon. That he was such a promising kid and I ruined it all. I took it all away from him.”

“That’s not true, Riley.”

“And after a while, everything stopped. The messages, the fake sympathy, all of it just stopped. And when I couldn’t find it in myself to go off to college and start a new life that was supposed to be ours, my mom stopped caring too. She just got mad and impatient and she didn’t understand that I wasn’t ready. That I was still grieving. I could see it in the way she looked at me… she didn’t understand why I was still stuck there—in my hell—when the world was moving around me. I started to lock myself in my room. I didn’t eat. Didn’t shower. Didn’t talk to anyone. And then one night she came into my room and said, ‘It’s time to move on,’ like it was that fucking easy. And I lost it, Dylan.” I break off on another sob. “It’s not like I planned on any of it. I hadn’t even started drinking then. I stole her car in the middle of the night. I just wanted to hurt her like her words had hurt me. And when her salon came into view, I stepped on the pedal and I drove up the curb and over the sidewalk and right through the front window. Just to fuck her, you know?”