“It is,” he said. “I told Jen the truth that night when I fell off the wagon. He’s right.” He jerked his head to his left, indicating Aaron. “He knows the truth and so did Jen. And now you do too. You weren’t driving the car that night. I was. That’s what I put in the letters to her. The letters exposed me, not you. That’s why I needed you to get them out of the house. I asked her to give them back, and she refused.” He looked up at Aaron. “You can let Ryan go now. Let him go back to his family and his life. I’m the one you want, okay? Is that what you wanted me to admit? That I did it? Well, okay, I admit it. I drove that night and then I staged the accident to make it look like it was you.”

I took a step toward Blake. “Don’t say that. Don’t say those kinds of things if they’re not true.”

“They are true. You started driving, but you clearly weren’t able. So we pulled over and switched. You got in the backseat, and Aaron was the passenger.”

“Why?” I asked Blake, taking another step closer. “Why would you do that to me? To your closest friend? Why?”

Blake used his tongue to moisten his lips. “Just go, Ryan. Get out of here and go.”

“No. Why?”

Blake’s eyes flashed. “Because.” The one word cut through the space, freezing all of us in place. When he went on, he spoke in a lower, more controlled voice. “Because I got tired of always being the fuckup. I got tired of being the joke. Everywhere we went, I stood in your shadow. You were the winner. I was the clown. And let’s face it. I deserved that reputation. I’m not saying I didn’t. But damn, it gets old, having everybody see me that way.”

“I didn’t see you that way,” I said. “We were friends. You were my best friend. You’re the reason I finished school, the reason I survived my dad dying.”

“Everybody else saw it that way. And when that accident happened, and you didn’t know if you were driving or not, I saw an opportunity to level the playing field a little. To bring me closer in line to you.”

“That’s nuts,” I said. “Blake, that’s truly nuts.”

“But look what happened. . . . You graduated and went on your merry. And when you moved here and married Amanda, nobody knew about the accident. Nobody knew what really happened. It was just a blip that occurred in the past at a small college. Everybody knew about Aaron. He did the time, while the rest of us moved on.”

“I didn’t. I’ve been living with that guilt over what I did.”