“All the more reason to ignore that stuff.” She tugged on my wrist. “Come on.”

“Wait,” I said, slipping free of her grip. “I’m going to do one more thing.”

“Ryan.”

“Hold on.”

I went through and blocked Blake. I blocked his texts and his calls. I made sure he couldn’t contact me, no matter how hard he tried. I looked at my desk, where our barely used landline sat, the one we’d had installed when Henry was born. Amanda wanted a backup in case cell service went down and there was an emergency.

“Can you block someone on that?” I asked.

“Just don’t answer,” she said.

I went over and pulled the plug.

“Okay,” I said. “That actually felt good. Now you have my undivided attention. You should always have it.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

I told Amanda everything that morning. Over coffee and toast and so much more coffee that my body started to jangle like a singing electric wire, I told her what I now knew about the accident. That I’d always believed I’d been driving that night and had allowed Aaron to take the blame for what I thought I’d done. That while I’d let Blake guide me to that decision, I had no one to blame but myself for going along with it. I was trying to cover my own butt, trying to save my own skin and finish college without getting into trouble.

Amanda’s face flushed as I spoke, and her eyes narrowed. “All those years you thought you’d been driving that night? As long as you’ve known me, you thought that?”

“I did.”

“And you knew how I felt about that issue because of Mallory? But you didn’t say anything to me.”

It was my turn to flush. Just because things were now out in the open didn’t mean it would be easy. Getting it all out felt like passing a kidney stone. A big one.

“That’s right,” I said. “And I’m sorry. I always wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. Because of Mallory. Because of the pain her death caused your family. I was protecting myself that night, and it’s the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, because I wasn’t honest with you.”

I explained about the money I’d been giving to the Steiners over the years, the amounts I’d taken out of our savings account. All because I’d thought I was behind the wheel.

“I saw the money being taken out,” she said. “I mean, I’m not a dummy. But you pay most of the bills. At some point it wasn’t really enough for me to worry about. I knew you had to put some money back into the Pig at one point. And then the work on the yard . . .”