“I’m sure Cam doesn’t blame you,” I said.

“He doesn’t.” It was Avery who answered. “He never did.”

Teresa’s smile was wobbly. “That’s because my brother is pretty damn awesome.”

I reached over and squeezed her hand, feeling the tears really start to well up in my eyes.

Avery pressed in against my side. “So is Jase. He’s also pretty awesome.”

A weak laugh bubbled up.

“And he had secrets. Really big and really important ones—secrets I can’t elaborate on, because they’re his business, but I was in the dark for a long time and when he let me in, I got why he’d kept some things to himself.” Emotion poured into Teresa’s beautiful face as she went on. “The whole point of this, Calla, is all of us have things we’ve lied about and things we’re ashamed of, and things we wished we talked to someone about a long time before we did.”

“But telling someone, fessing up about everything . . .” Avery smiled again when I looked at her. She squeezed my hand back, and I realized that through me, all of us were connected in that moment. “Not to sound completely cliché and cheesy as hell, but it changes everything.”

“Especially when you tell your friends,” Teresa added softly.

Pressing my lips together, I nodded a couple of times, and I wasn’t sure exactly what I was agreeing with. Probably everything, and maybe a half a minute passed before I found whatever it was that had given me the ability to tell Jax that didn’t involve tequila.

I told them about Mom—for real. The way she was before and the way she was now and I told them what had caused the change. The fire. I told them about Kevin and Tommy, and my dad, who gave up on all of us. And I told them about the scars, all of them, and I did so weeping like a baby that just had tossed its binky to the floor and no one would pick it up for her. Actually, we all were having a major festival of the sob, but there was something cleansing in opening up and sharing with them after they’d shared private and powerful stories with me. There was also something cleansing in the tears.

By the time I was finished, the three of us had our arms around each other and I finally felt like what Jax had believed—that I was brave, because that took a lot for me to tell them. It didn’t matter that Jax knew, and these girls understood that it didn’t matter how many times you told someone: It might get a little easier, but it is still hard.

And as we held each other, I realized something so important then. It was kind of sad that it took twenty-one years to really realize it, but family wasn’t just blood and DNA. Family went way beyond that. Just like with Clyde, even though I wasn’t related to Teresa or Avery, they were my family.