That has the mic drop effect I expected when he gasps in shock. “What?”

“Not by my hand. I’m not a serial killer. But my parents . . . they were in a car accident while driving to pick me up. It was late at night, and I got scared at a sleepover and called home, begged Mom to come get me. But Dad didn’t want her driving alone so late, so they came together. A drunk driver hit them.”

That’s all I can say about that without crying, so I move on to my next piece of evidence. “I moved in with my grandparents then. My grandma died of sepsis from a burn—”

Blake interrupts. “Was the burn your fault?”

He’s trying to make me feel better, but the truth is bitter. “Yes. We were baking together, and she let me hold the hot pads to take the cookies out of the oven. I lost my grip on the cookie sheet somehow, and it fell, badly burning her arm. She doctored it with cream for days, telling me it was fine and just an accident. Even when she got a fever, I didn’t realize it was related to the burn. Not then. But later, I figured it out.” One last piece of evidence, the hardest one to reveal. “My grandpa was killed by lightning.”

“Unless you’re Thor, wielder of thunder and lightning, you can’t blame yourself for that one, Zo.” Blake’s voice is quiet, hard.

“He was in a field with friends, hanging out to celebrate his birthday. There was rain in the forecast, but nothing major. Nothing that should’ve mattered, and it wasn’t raining anyway,” I recall. “Dry lightning, they called it. Just shoots down out of the sky to the ground, and it hit Grandpa on the way.”

Tears spill over, but I brush them away. I’ve cried rivers—no, oceans—of tears over my parents and grandparents, but all it ever does is give me a headache. It doesn’t bring them back, and it doesn’t lessen my guilt.

“Zoey, I am so sorry, baby,” Blake coos soothingly. “But none of that is your fault. Peanut butter allergies, wayward dodgeballs, clumsy kids, a bad parachute packer—all just bad luck. And your parents? The blame lies with the person who got behind the wheel after they’d been drinking. Your grandma could’ve seen a doctor sooner, and your grandpa’s death sounds like an act of God. I don’t mean that to be rude, it’s literally a class of death in the insurance industry.”

Really, he explains it all away, each and every horrific thing I’ve done, with a wave of his hand as though none of it matters. “Is that all you’ve got? Because I’d like to ask you out again.”

“You are . . . something else, Mr. Hale.”