“So you can imagine,” I say, voice strung tight and raw, “how it felt when suddenly all those people who wanted to help—who still had hope—were now telling us how sorry for our loss they were. How she was such a great person, when they didn’t even know her. Not really. Not like us. How sad it was. Tragic,” I grit out through my teeth. Chest heaving, I force myself to release a breath. My knuckles rub roughly against the concrete beneath me. “They gave up. They all gave up on her.”

I don’t realize how loud my voice has gotten until it seems to echo into the early morning air, bouncing off the concrete barriers holding us up.

“Way—”

I barely hear him as all the pent-up spite and bitterness tumble out of my lips unbidden. “They wouldn’t leave him alone. They still don’t. The girls who hang around the bar all the time...they’re the worst of them, and they don’t even see it. They don’t care what he has to say. They don’t care that they are hurting him, and pushing him closer and closer to an edge he barely survived the first time.”

My eyes burn as I turn to glare down at the town below my dangling feet. “It’s like the more he’s visibly hurting...struggling...the more they want to take from him. The more they want to be the one to say they fixed him.”

Images flash across my head, ones I’ve tried desperately to cast away. Never to look on again. “They don’t care that they’re just putting cracks in a shell, and soon there will be nothing—”

A hand suddenly grips my shoulder and I stiffen. “Hey.”

I shrug out of his hold and turn toward him. His mouth is a bloodless line.

“I know,” he tells me forcefully.

“I’m not sorry I snooped—”

“Hey, I snooped, too. It’s fine—”

“I will destroy anyone who fucks with him.”

His eyes are red with unshed pain. “I know. I know.”

I swallow and look down at my fisted hand. I feel Will’s gaze follow mine.

“But I am sorry...I’m sorry I brought you here,” I manage eventually. I run my hand through my hair self-consciously. “And I’m sorry for your loss, as stupid as I know that sounds. I wasn’t thinking. I’m not usually so...”

“Morbid?”

I squint up at him. “Nah. Insensitive, maybe?”

He chuckles softly. “Maybe a little, but it’s whatever.”