“I’m so hungry,” she says, leaning against the other side of the island from me. She takes a sip and then licks her lips. Always a good sign that she likes it. Like the little wiggle dance she does when she’s enjoying her food, she’s so easy to read and so adorable.

“Can I ask you more questions?” she asks like that isn’t already a question.

“It seems I’m an open book for you, so go right ahead.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to ruin our night.”

She doesn’t see how much she’s helped me. Not yet. I finally feel like I can breathe again. I feel light, like I did before . . . just before. The debt of gratitude I owe her is immense. I’ll spend my days thanking her any way I can. “You can’t ruin our night.”

With each question she asks, I answer, my soul lifted from the hell where it’s been living. But then just like she always does, she gets to the heart of the matter. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I did, but my aunt called me a liar. She said the police report proved her son would never do that. And before my parents had a chance to arrive at the scene, she had police officers questioning my involvement as a suspect.” I take a big gulp of wine. I thought about all the stuff a million times, but saying it out loud for the second time feels unnatural. “I know what happened. The only reason I survived is because I put on more muscle than he had that summer.”

She looks at me lost in thought and hesitates to speak. I can almost see the words on the end of her tongue. But she moves to the pot and stirs, appearing to debate whether to ask.

“Anything, Lark. You can ask me anything.” Though I keep my eyes on the wooden spoon as it takes another spin around the pot as a distraction.

She turns the knob, and then asks, “Do you know why he did it?”

“I know he’d been troubled for a long time. At one point, he wanted help. It was something we had talked about a few times.” I spin the glass by the stem, but the memories are too strong to stay buried, and the conversations, confrontations we had come flooding back. “We had a big blowup that ended up in punches being thrown. I hit him first, but it was to stop him from getting in the car. He was high as fuck and just as drunk. Lucas knew just how to get me to react.”

I gulp, ready for the good times to replace all the bad memories he left me with. “Don’t get me wrong. I loved him as a brother. He had a way of twisting things on me, having me take the blame, so maybe what happened after his death was part of the pattern.”

It took me more than a year to realize the day at Devil’s Edge was a cry for help. Before that, I’d always considered it an attack.”