“You tried.”

“I should have tried harder.”

“Carter.” I reach out to touch his arm, but he stands and shakes his head. I wonder if he has the nightmares a lot or if seeing Isaiah last night triggered something. “It’s not your fault—the fire, what happened to Max. You know that, right?”

“Of course I do.” He squeezes the back of his neck, then stretches. “Do you want the first shower?”

Just like that, the conversation is over. It doesn’t have to be. Maybe he needs someone to make him talk about it. Maybe that someone should be me.

I take a deep breath. “I blamed myself when Heath died.” The words aren’t as hard to say as I would have thought. Maybe because I’ve carried them for so long. Or maybe because I know Carter needs to hear this from me.

He blinks at me, and I can see the struggle playing out on his face—the internal war between exposing a broken part of his soul to help me with a broken part of mine, and keeping everything locked down so he doesn’t have to admit he isn’t whole.

“We were fighting when he left for work that night.” My stomach knots with the memory. Heath was so jealous, so angry, and there was nothing I could do to make it right. “He was killed during a routine traffic stop. The guy was high and had a bunch of heroin in the car. Heath should have called for backup, but he was in a mood.” I turn away, not wanting to see the sympathy in Carter’s eyes. “He was pissed at me, so distracted by our argument that he was reckless. And it got him killed.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Carter says softly. “You weren’t even there.”

“Maybe I wasn’t there physically.” I tap my temple. “But I was there.”

“Don’t do that to yourself, Teagan. You have no idea what was going through his mind.”

“And neither do you—with Max, I mean.” I hold up my hands before Carter can shut me down. “I’m not saying it’s the same. I know it’s not. If I’d been there that night and survived him . . .” I shake my head slowly. “I can’t imagine what that was like for you, but I do know what it’s like to carry that blame. I know how it eats away at you. How it makes you . . .” I close my eyes, remembering those months after Heath died and before I moved away. “It makes you act differently. Recklessly.”

“You think I’m being reckless?”

“I think the Carter I knew before the warehouse fire didn’t have a revolving door of women in his bed.”

It’s not pain that crosses his face with those words but . . . nothing. Like he flipped some switch inside him that turns off his emotions and turns his face to stone.

“I’m not saying it’s the same,” I repeat, trying again, “but I am saying I might understand what you’re going through better than you realize.”