After our call, I have nothing else to do all day, leaving my mind to wander, which doesn’t do it any good. Instead of spinning the wheels of my brain, I hop in my car just before sundown and go to the gym since I haven’t been in a while. Getting back to the gym will be good for me. It’ll help me think. Do I tell Annalisa about my past and Tony? Do Aiden and I tell our friends about Jason and Jackson? Is Agent Dylan really hoping I draw Tony out? These are the things going through my mind as I drive, taking the back roads so I have extra time to think.

As I drive, I spot a familiar red Mustang ahead of me on the road. My chest tightens. I haven’t seen Ryan since he left a bruise on my wrist.

It has to be him, right? What are the odds of that specific car with those modifications being on this road? As I’m staring at it, the car slows down and I make out a flash of blond, and watch, stunned, as the car drives away.

Did he just kick Kaitlyn out of his car?!

There’s no way that just happened. It has to be a trick of the eyes. But as I slow down, the shape of a girl is illuminated by my headlights. She rises from the ground and dusts herself off, or as well as she can with one arm in a sling.

Holy shit. It really is Kaitlyn. He really did push her out of a moving vehicle.

I pull up beside her but before I can roll down my window, she glances at me and starts walking back to town.

Does she know it’s me? Should I just keep going? I want to see if she’s okay and needs a ride back, but as I’m about to roll down my window, I pause. After everything she’s done to me, does she deserve kindness? What she’s put me through flashes through my mind: the humiliation, the threats, the bullying. Would she do the same thing for me if the roles were reversed? I think it over for a couple seconds.

Screw it. She can walk back to town.

Without giving myself time to change my mind, I start to drive again, but there’s a gnawing feeling in my stomach.

Don’t look in the rearview mirror. Just keep driving, Amelia. Don’t you do it.

I look in the rearview mirror.

It looks like she’s limping but trying to keep her head held high as the sun sets around her.

“Damn it.”

I make a U-turn and pull up beside her on the opposite side of the road. My car comes to a crawl, keeping pace with her as she heads back to town, but she refuses to look at me.

“Hey, do you need a ride?” I call from my open window.

She looks at me for the first time. The makeup streams down her cheeks, making her healing black eye look black again.