Be with Me (Wait for You #2)(76)

Relieved that this wouldn’t interfere with Cam’s plans, I relaxed a little. Jase left to find one of the officers so he could go upstairs and get my stuff. As I waited for him, I kept my gaze trained on the scuffed tile. I could feel the stares on me, and I wanted to shrink into the blanket and disappear.

When Jase returned, it wasn’t soon enough. Holding my purse, he helped me up and guided me outside. I barely felt the cool air as we made our way past the police cruisers that were parked along the curb and into the parking lot.

The ride to University Heights was silent. Jase held my hand, but I barely felt his grip. I was numb inside and out, and I wondered when I’d start feeling things again. Immediately after I’d injured my knee the first time, it had been like this. Empty. In a daze. The out--of--it feeling had lasted for days, but this was on such a deep, different level.

Cam’s apartment was dark when we stepped inside. Jase stepped around me, easily finding the switch to the overhead light. I imagined the apartment was like a third home to him.

He stopped a few feet from me and turned, thrusting both of his hands through his hair. “Tess, baby . . .” He shook his head, as if he had no idea what to say. And what does one say in a situation like this?

I took a deep breath, feeling weak in my knees. “I’ve . . . I’ve never seen a dead person before.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

“And she was dead.” I stopped, swallowing. That was a stupid, unnecessary clarification, but I needed to say it out loud. “She killed herself. Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know.” He started toward me, a look of pain clouding his eyes.

The back of my throat burned. “She told me last night that she was happy that she broke up with Erik. That she had her whole life to look forward to.” I drew in a breath that got caught. “She was okay today. I don’t understand.”

“I know.” He stopped in front of me, and when he spoke again, his voice was low. “You may never understand.”

I didn’t want to believe that. Something had to have happened to make her do what she did, because I didn’t want this to be something I never understood and had to live with. I wasn’t moving, but somehow I stumbled. The crutches fell to the floor, thudding softly off the carpet. Jase caught my elbow and led me over to the couch.

“You doing okay?” He sat beside me, placing a warm hand against my cool cheek.

I nodded as I closed my eyes, leaning into his touch. The words—-they sort of just came out of me. “Maybe I should’ve said something earlier to her about Erik—-about what I’d been through with Jeremy. I could’ve helped her. Maybe paid more attention—-”

“Stop,” he said, cupping my cheeks with both hands as he pressed his forehead against mine. “There was absolutely nothing you could’ve done to have made any of this different. Do you understand that?”

I wasn’t sure. I had been silent from the start with her and Erik, and Debbie had stayed silent over what had happened. Silence, no matter which way you look at it, destroyed lives.

He made a deep, torn sound. “If she wanted to kill herself, she would’ve done it no matter what anyone did or said, Tess.”

Kill herself.

Something didn’t ring true about that, made it hard to believe that she would’ve actually hung herself. Denial was riding me pretty strongly, but there was something in the back of my head that screamed she wouldn’t have done this.

“I wonder if they’ve found a suicide note,” I mused out loud, feeling a heaviness settle in my stomach and chest. “Do you think they did?”

He pulled back, dropping his hands to my legs as he shook his head. “I don’t know. They might tell you tomorrow when I take you to the office.”

That was the last thing I wanted to think about having to do. I scrubbed the heels of my palms down my face. So many thoughts raced through my head that I blurted out one of them. “Did you know Steph lived there? I mean, that she was my suitemate?”

“No. I’ve never been to her dorm. Never asked, either.”

I chose to believe him in that moment, because it was stupid to care about that right now. “She called you?”

“She did and I . . . she said you were really upset—-screaming—-and she called me.”

I shuddered as those horrible moments after finding Debbie came back. “How did she know?”

He looked at me, confused. “The night at the party—-she pretty much guessed that you meant something to me and that something was going on between us.”

Made sense. I turned a little and focused on taking several deep breaths.

“I’m going to see if Cam has something to drink.”

“Make it strong,” I mumbled.

“You sure?” He kissed my cheek after I nodded. “I’m sure he has something.”

Lifting my gaze, I found myself staring at where the crutches had landed on Cam’s beige carpet. A few days ago I’d thought my life was ruined. Not completely, because good things happened at the same time that something so terrible had. I got Jase. Finally, after years of pining for the boy, I had him. Earlier tonight, when I’d been upset with Jase over hitting Erik, seemed so irrelevant. As did my bum knee. Those issues paled in comparison to what had just happened to Debbie and her family. My problems were nothing, because Deb . . . she was gone.