My voice trails off as he turns away. He grabs a duffel bag from the closet and starts blindly tossing clothes in. I watch him, not knowing what to say or how to stop this.

“You’re not supposed to leave for Ohio until tomorrow. We still have one more day.”

He doesn’t stop. I don’t know if he’s even listening to me anymore. My eyes catch some of the balled-up things he pushes into the bag.

“What are you doing? That’s not even your stuff.”

“I know that.” His voice sounds so far away.

My chest tightens. “Nate...”

But nothing I can think of to say seems good enough. He can’t mean what I think he means. My eyes fill against my own will and I wipe my face with the back of my hand before the tears can roll down my cheeks.

Nate glances at me, jaw tight. I’ve never seen him this angry. Or this drunk. I know he’s feeling vulnerable. I know he’s not thinking straight. I know all of that. It still hurts.

“Nate, you...” I shake my head. None of this is making any sense. I reach over, grab his arm. “Where am I supposed to go?”

He avoids my eyes and shrugs me off without answering me.

I feel something inside me collapse, as if someone has punctured a golf ball–size hole in my lungs. I didn’t think—I never thought he could be this brutal. I don’t care if he’s drunk. This isn’t him. This isn’t the Nate I know.

I try to keep my voice level, but I’m desperate. “Nate. Please, just talk to me. What NDA are you—”

He snatches away and fills the bag with the rest of my stuff. I can’t watch. I go in the front and pace back and forth, trying to come up with a way to rectify this. Whatever this is.

Maybe he spoke to those cops again. Maybe they hunted him down, trying to get to me, and filled his head with all this shit. These lies. That’s the only sensible thing I can think of.

My head jerks around when I hear Nate come up behind me. He doesn’t say anything, just tosses the bag my way. The bathroom door slams a few seconds later and I feel the hurt of that rejection reverberate through me a thousand times.

If Nate wants me out, I’ll leave. I know how to be alone. I don’t want to stay here with him while he’s like this anyway.

Tears threaten to fall, but I force them to stay where they belong. I need to focus on the things that I can control. I need to figure out how I can get more information about the night Simon was murdered. Any information.