A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)(19)

I don’t.

“Everyone is hiding so much from me, Jane,” I say softly. My voice is controlled. “Please. Whatever you’re thinking, just be honest. That’s all I want. Honesty. Truth.” I sigh, weary to the bone.

I let go of her hand and give her a very vulnerable look. I don’t want to be this raw, but I am. I don’t have a choice.

We sit in stunned silence. I grab my latte and down more of it. Jane blows lightly across the top of her hot coffee and stares at a spot over my shoulder.

Finally, she says, “When I saw your face the last time, your cheekbone was broken. Your eyeball was sunken in, and your face was swollen. I just am so happy you look like you. That they didn’t permanently scar you.”

And then a look of horror consumes her.

“Not... I don’t mean that you weren’t...I’m not minimizing what they—oh, hell, Lindsay, I don’t know how to even talk about what happened to you.” She squeezes my hand and gives me a look of such honesty that I feel like my heart’s being ripped out of my chest. “I’m sorry. I’m being so stupid and saying all the wrong things and—”

I squeeze her hand back. “No! No,” I say, my voice filled with pain and appreciation. “You’re the first one who’s treated me like a human being who was hurt. Like someone who is real. Like a person.”

I tip my head down and feel the tears gather on my lashes, pooling, then dropping, onto the sleek, steel tabletop.

We both struggle not to cry. We both fail.

“I’m so sorry you went through what you went through, Jane.”

“Me?” she squeaks. “You’re the one who—”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard for you, too. Finding me. Calling the ambulance. Trying to write to me and being....well...”

“Censored? Yelled at?”

Our eyes meet, open and jaded.

“We have a lot to talk about,” we say in unison.

As we smile through tears and gather ourselves, a new kind of warmth fills my chest.

I have a friend.

For the first time in four years, I have a real friend.





Chapter 16





“Where do we start?” she asks, direct like her mother. “They can’t shut me up like they did a few years ago. We’re face to face now. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” A shadow passes across her face, like she’s rethinking her words, but it floats off.

“I want to know everything.”

“You’d need months, Lindsay.” A chill runs through me. I know she’s not exaggerating. The fact that she’s serious makes me realize how high the stakes are here.

Someone really, really doesn’t want me to know some dark secrets about what happened after my attack.

“They really never prosecuted anyone,” I say. It’s not a question. I know the answer. I have to say it, though. Say it to someone. I don’t ask it like a question, but the inquiry is still there.

She shakes her head slowly. “No. You were taken to the hospital. They did a rape kit.” She paused, composes herself, then continues. “Once your mom and dad were called, everyone was shooed out. Me, Mandy, Jenna and Tara tried to see you.”

“And Drew?”

She frowns, her nose wrinkling a little. Suddenly, she looks nothing like Anya at all. “I don’t...” She shakes her head, as if trying to recall a memory. “I don’t remember him being there.”

“Is it true that Mandy, Jenna and Tara turned against me? Said something about me to the press?”

She pales. “You know that. Good.” She cringes. “I mean, good that I don’t have to break it to you.”

Oh, there’s no good here. “So it’s true.”

She mutters an expletive. “I figured someone else would have told you by now. That maybe that’s why you were in that...that place for so long.”

“Huh?”

We frown at each other.

“I think we need to start at the beginning,” Jane says slowly.

“I thought we were.”

“Yeah,” she says, tilting her head, studying me. “So did I. But I think I need to go way back. Back to finding you.”

My jaw clenches. “Right. Go ahead. I can handle it.”

She blinks hard, then says, “I was at the party, but left right before the police say the attack happened. I got sick, and needed some food, so Mandy, Jenna, Tara and I all went to get tacos. We asked you if you wanted to go with us, but you were on the couch with Drew and just gave us this half-hearted wave.”

I rack my brain to remember. “I did?” I have no recollection of that. I can close my eyes and remember everything up to a certain point.

Then it all goes blank.

And then I wake up on the island.

“I’ve run through that night in my mind a thousand times, Lindsay,” she says, wrapping her palms around her cooling coffee, her eyes unfocused. She leans closer and lowers her voice. “There was no reason to worry about leaving you. It was you and Drew on the couch. Stellan—”

I flinch. I haven’t heard his name in four years. Stellan, Blaine and John.

There. I thought their names. Stacia would be so proud.