“Okay, Bryce,” Vashti finally said when Bryce started the engine. “I honestly thought that being around each other would make you and Kaegan realize how much the two of you mean to each other.”

“It did. It made us realize just how much we dislike each other.”

“But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can tell him the truth about that night.”

Bryce didn’t say anything for a minute as she put the car in gear. “I did. Or at least, I tried to.”

“What! When? You never told me that.”

No, she hadn’t, mainly because after telling Vashti what had caused her and Kaegan’s breakup, she’d been too emotionally drained that night to tell her the other part. “What I didn’t tell you was when I got that call from Kaegan letting me know why he was breaking up with me and that he intended to block my number, I used every penny I had in my savings account and caught the bus from college, all the way from Grambling. That meant crossing four states and enduring an eighteen-hour bus ride to reach North Carolina. And because he had blocked my number there was no way for me to let him know I was coming.”

“What happened when you got there?”

“Well, for starters, I couldn’t get on the military base. But the soldier at the gate checked his log and told me that Kaegan wasn’t on base anyway. That he was on a two-day pass and chances were he would be at the Mud Hole that night.”

“The Mud Hole?”

“Yes. It’s a hangout for the marines and located close to base. I checked into a hotel, freshened up, and that night I went to the Mud Hole.”

Bryce paused a moment and then said, “More than anything, now I wish I hadn’t.”

“Why? What happened?”

Bryce tightened her hands on the steering wheel as she remembered that night. “Kaegan was there that night and he’d been drinking.”

“Kaegan? Drinking?”

Bryce knew why Vashti was surprised. Because his father had been an alcoholic, Kaegan had sworn never to touch the stuff because it turned fairly decent men into assholes.

“Yes, he was drinking and had a barely dressed woman sitting in his lap. I approached him, and when he saw me, the look in his eyes was one I’d never seen before. He proceeded to say some not-so-nice things to me in front of the woman and the friends he’d been with. I tried to get him to go outside with me so we could talk privately, but he refused to do that and said he didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. He said his father had been right about me all along. He told me to leave and that he hoped to never see me again.”

Bryce paused again, and then she said, “When I refused to leave, tried to make him listen to what I’d come all that way to say, he got mad and left...with her. That woman who all but had her hands inside his pants. He kissed her right in front of me and then they left together. I went back to my hotel room and cried the entire night.”