“Fine?” Tiffany echoed. “You’re living in a movie theater—” She paused, her gaze flicking over me, taking in my clothes, the mess of my hair, the eyes that hadn’t seen a decent night’s sleep in God knows how long. “This is what you call fine? It’s not.”

“Sounds like a personal problem.”

She let out a sharp, bitter laugh and crossed her arms. “Well, congratulations, Blake. You finally gave me a reason to hate you.”

“Well,” I said after a long pause, my voice colder than I meant it to be, “glad I could make your life easier.”

I took a step back, but she moved before I could turn away, grabbing the front of my shirt with a fierce grip that stopped me dead in my tracks.

“No,” she said, her voice low and tight with frustration. “You’re not getting off that easy. I don’t know what the hell went wrong, Blake, but this?” She shook her head. “This is not the way to fix it. You don’t shut people out. You don’t run away. You face your problems. You talk to your friends. You talk to Jamal.”

“You don’t get it,” I muttered, trying to shake her off, but she held on tighter, her fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt like she wouldn’t let me go until I stopped running.

“Try me,” she challenged, her voice steady, a touch of empathy lacing through it. “I’m not going anywhere, Blake.”

I ran a hand down my face, too drained to even process her words properly. But Tiffany didn’t back off.

“Oh, you don’t care? You don’t care that Jamal’s been losing his mind, wondering where the hell you’ve gone off to? You think you don’t matter to him because he kicked you out?” Her fingers twitched, as if she was debating whether to shake me or hold on tighter. “He cares about you. Even if you don’t want to believe it.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t,” I said, my voice hollow.

“Blake,” she seethed, “he’s out there, tearing up the city for you, trying to find you!”

I didn’t know how to respond.

I didn’t know if I could.

There was too much shame in me, too much regret.

She stepped closer, her voice lowering with an intensity that shook me. “You also don’t care that Beverly was in the hospital?”

I blinked, trying to make sense of what she was saying.

Beverly—hospital? What the hell was she talking about?

“What?” I rasped, panic creeping into my chest.

“Oh,” she said bitterly. “Now you want to talk, huh?” Her grip loosened slightly, but she was still holding on. “You didn’t know, did you? Jamal didn’t tell you, did he? To protect you, maybe.”