“Look, let’s take a breather. I don’t want this to come between us, Mac, but clearly we’re both a little heated right now. I’ve got to pick Lucas up from school, but maybe once we cool down we can discuss this more rationally.”

“I don’t want to discuss this again. End of conversation.”

“Then what do you want?”

Her eyes were unblinking like a porcelain doll’s. “I want you to stay away from us.”

Now standing at the doorway, I turned and glared at her. “You want to end more than two decades of friendship just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that.”

I faced the front door, wanting to leave but unable to move. Fury clenched me in its fist. I couldn’t stop the anger dripping from my lips. “Just because you were invisible in high school doesn’t mean everyone else is—especially Aria.”

“And just because you were a slut in high school doesn’t mean everyone else is,” Mackenzie shot right back.

So many lies haunted me from the past that if I turned around to face them, they would swallow me whole. Lies that only Mackenzie knew, secrets she had kept for me. I opened the door, ready to flee, but I couldn’t forsake the one person who had held me together all these years—Mackenzie.

I glanced back at her, with her eyes blazing, mouth set crookedly, arms folded. How could our friendship mean so little to her? How could she throw it away over what was probably a misunderstanding?

We stood for a tense moment in a stare down. I didn’t want to leave like this; we’d never fought before—not really fought—and I didn’t know how to cross this divide. But I’d had enough of the unfounded accusations of someone who was supposed to be my closest friend. Mackenzie had always been the peacekeeper. I’d never seen this side of her.

“Please let’s not end things like this,” I said finally as the warm May air gushed past me. “Can we talk later, once we’ve both had time to process this?”

“Until you’re willing to talk to your son about what he did, there’s nothing to talk about. Either you talk to him, or I’ll have Owen talk to him. And you know Owen doesn’t handle things with words. The choice is yours.”

I knew what Owen was capable of. Which meant there was no choice.

Chapter 13

Lily

TUESDAY

We need to talk. The most dreaded words in the English language. They never segued into anything good.