Clicking on the girl’s email address, I worked my way backward, hitting the keys on autopilot. I guess I really could do this in my sleep because that was exactly what the search felt like—like I was hacking through a thick fog.

Last night? With me. Was it just research for your next blog?

I flinched as Dean’s words echoed in my mind, stinging me just as fiercely as they had before.

I never expected any of this.

The blog’s popularity, the consequences, falling for Dean, and then him hurting me more than I knew possible. Brandon had tried to take what wasn’t his—he scarred me with his treatment of me as a possession, and it haunted me. But Dean? I’d given him my heart willingly, despite all my efforts to protect it, and he’d taken it. Taken it and crushed it.

A few more clicks.

A gasp.

Another break in my chest.

TWCrashandBurn was connected to a Snapchat account I’d seen before.

TW.

Tessa Winters.

Dean’s little sister.

The light of his life.

Fuck. My. Life.

He’d been angry over the blog. Over the secret I’d kept. Over the fact that I’d told him I was a virgin and yet somehow had this wealth of knowledge about sex. He’d lashed out because he thought he hadn’t known me.

Did he know about Tessa? Or had she not told him yet?

If he knew what I’d really done?

That I’d had a hand in getting his baby sister pregnant?

He would never speak to me again. More than that, he’d likely crash my system over and over—a reminder of the pain I’d caused his family.

I rubbed my palms over my face, backing away from my computer like the distance would help me breathe.

He accused me of using him.

He’d sold me out to Tanner.

But this…this was worse. This made everything he’d said before no more than I deserved.

Maybe he had known about her…

I sank onto my bed, my head buzzing, and the shattered pieces of my heart trying to beat normally as if it hadn’t just been obliterated.

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Dean

“You look miserable,” Tessa said as she walked into my room.

I leaped to my feet from where I’d been sitting on the floor of my room, my back against the bed. Somewhere in the night—while not sleeping—I’d ended up there and simply stared.

“Are you okay?” I asked, my voice raspy.

“Yes,” she hissed, glancing over her shoulder. She whirled around, shutting the door behind her. “Can you not?” she asked, taking a seat in the chair at my desk. “Mom and Dad got back this morning.”

“They did?” I blinked a few times, my eyeballs grainy.

“You’d know that if you bothered to leave your room.”