So now, standing on the porch of her grandparents’ cabin over thirteen years later, she couldn’t imagine how they could make a fire from cold ash. “That was too many years ago, Con. That grief would have sat between us unmoved. We made the right decision.”

Conrad’s eyes narrowed. He never liked to be challenged. Affable most of the time, the man was also stubborn to his core. “But what if we’d been wrong?”

“Con, why are you doing this? Because I can’t do this again with you. I can’t. It hurt enough the first time. I don’t know if this is about Chase or about rectifying what happened to Marley . . . but I don’t want to go back in time. We can’t change anything about what happened.”

He rubbed a hand over his face and blew out a breath. “I don’t know. When I see a girl like Chase, I have this inclination to do something. To stop her from ending the way Marley did. Because I didn’t help Marley when she asked for it.”

“I didn’t either.”

“But she called me before she overdosed. That night when we were together, she’d been calling me the whole time. Jesus.” He pressed his finger into his eyes, a man tortured.

“She called me, too, Conrad. Probably called Neve. Maybe Mom. I didn’t ask, but she could have. Everyone who loved her wished they’d done something different. I actually counseled one of her roommates a few years after Marley’s death. She carried the same burden, but ultimately, I’m not sure we could have stopped Marley. I truly believe that.” Probably more than anyone else, since Olivia was the only person who knew that Marley had intentionally killed herself. Would that change the guilt for Conrad? For her mother? For even Neve? Olivia had never thought how telling the truth about the day she found Marley might lessen the hurt inside others.

Would good come from admitting that Marley had taken her life?

Olivia needed to think about that before she admitted the truth.

“I know,” he said, dropping his hand and looking at her. He gave her a ghost smile. “I know this is out of left field. I’ve been assessing my life lately. I’m not getting any younger, and when I thought about the times I was happiest, it was with you in my life. I couldn’t get that thought from my head. I needed to, at the very least, see you and see if . . . I know I’m making a mess of things. I guess the memories wouldn’t turn me loose.”