“Okay, okay. We were all drinking. You know that. And we pushed you to go out of town and take that sign from Gnaw Bone. Look, we knew how much you wanted to get into Sigil and Shield. We played on that. We all did. It’s no different than that gun you have there. That gun can get us to do a lot of things, if you’re willing to use it. We used your desire for acceptance in the same way. I pushed you to do those things.”

“The accident,” Aaron said.

“I was drunk too. And it was fuzzy for me. But we were in my car. And when I woke up in the hospital that night, I could remember that we’d all walked to the car together. I remembered getting in. And I was behind the wheel. And I remembered driving away from campus.”

“You did. You were driving.”

“So it’s me. I’m the one you have the problem with. I should have been arrested. Let Blake go.”

“Let Blake go? What about this . . . ? How did the cops come to think I was driving if you were really the one behind the wheel?”

His words froze me, and I looked at Blake, who was staring at the floor.

“Well?” Aaron said.

“Blake moved us,” I said. “Before the cops came, he moved me to the back and you to the front. He staged the scene. And when the cops arrived, they found you behind the wheel. You were so out of it you had no idea. Blake told me when I came to in the hospital. And we went with that. . . .”

“You went with that,” Aaron said. “You make it sound so fun. So casual. Oh, we just went with that.”

“Aaron, it was wrong. I wanted to tell the truth. My father had died. I was barely paying for school. I covered my own butt because I was afraid I’d lose everything. Everything my mom was working for to help me finish school. She went back to school, worked nights and weekends.

“It was stupid and selfish and wrong of me. And many times I wanted to call the police and tell the truth, but I always found a reason not to. I’m not proud of it. Not at all.” I felt sick just saying the words. But I was also glad for someone else to hear them. For Aaron to know the truth. “Call the police. Bring them here, and I’ll tell them the truth. There isn’t a statute of limitations in Kentucky. I’ll go to jail. I’ll lose everything. Just make the call and end this. . . .”