Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(104)

His face contorted in anger.

In rage and grief.

“So, we snuck around. Kept it a secret so we wouldn’t hurt you. Because your sister didn’t want you to be angry with her. Didn’t want you to be angry with me. She was keeping the peace the exact same way as you did with Nikki.”

I jarred back.

He scoffed. “Don’t act like we didn’t know. All this time, and you think we didn’t know? That she didn’t know?”

Shock beat through my blood. “Sydney knew?”

Rex huffed a breath. “Of course, she knew. She was pissed you wouldn’t tell her. That you thought you had to keep her out. That you wouldn’t let her in.”

More regret.

Could I shoulder any more of it? I didn’t fucking know how. I could feel it piling on me.

Rubble and rocks and debris.

A fucking bomb.

It’d destroyed any semblance of peace.

Old grief curled through Rex’s hard expression, something sour seeping through.

“And I was too big of a pussy to stand up and say something. I should have said something. Instead I—” His words broke off, and Rex gave a harsh shake of his head.

Heartbreak.

I knew exactly what it looked like.

It clutched and clung and tortured.

Slamming him from all sides.

“If I’d have just stood up that day and made a claim, Ollie.”

He choked, trying to bite back a sob.

Like it’d come from out of nowhere.

Balled up grief that had simmered for too many years.

His eyes filled with moisture, and my heart was beating out of my fucking chest.

Regret. Confusion. Sympathy.

For a beat, I covered my face with both my hands.

What the fuck was I supposed to think? What was I supposed to feel? Because right then, I was feeling too damned much.

Rex stood up straight. Stretching his arms out wide. “It was my fault. Be pissed off at me, man. Hate me. Blame me. Because it was my fault. She was there that night because that was where I was gonna be. She was pissed because of me. She left because of me.”

With every line of confession, he hit his fist against his chest.

Harder each time.

“Because I kissed that chick because that was what I thought you expected me to do. You were right that night. I was a pussy. I was a pussy because I didn’t have the guts to tell my best friend I loved his sister.” He slammed his fist against his heart again.

“My fault.” It was a rasped cry that boomed against my walls.

I blinked at him, trying to see through the daze. To process and add and make sense of what he was saying.

His mouth twisted in agony. “We loved each other. We did. Just like you loved Nikki, and you’re a fucking fool if you think that it was any different.”

He sucked in a choppy breath. “We’re all responsible. All of us . . . a bunch of stupid, ignorant kids who didn’t know any better. We made mistakes. Mistakes we didn’t have any clue would lead to what they did.”

My back hit the wall, and I was searching for air, lungs squeezed tight.

Regret shook Rex’s head. “The next morning when we found out she hadn’t made it home . . .” He stumbled like he couldn’t handle the memory, his voice hoarse and raw when he finally spoke. “I wanted to die. I wanted to curl up and die, Ollie.”

Hurt blistered through me.

His.

Mine.

My body rocked.

I didn’t know how to stand under it.

“Rex,” I attempted. Needing to shut him down. Because I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.

Torment rushed from him on a torrent.

The guy beaten up and mangled.

In a way I’d never seen him before.

Like maybe there was a chance he felt an ounce of what I was feeling right then.

He held his hand out like he was the one stopping me. “Just fucking listen, man. I’ve kept this in for so long. For so long, and I can’t bear it anymore.”

A harsh breath wheezed into his lungs. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know how to admit it. I didn’t know how to tell you I was the one to blame. I was fucking terrified and heartbroken, and all I wanted was for it to end.”

An exact echo of me.

Rex took another step back in my direction. “We fucked up. We fucked up so bad. But I see it clearly now. I get it in a way I couldn’t then. Those mistakes weren’t malicious. They weren’t cruel or intended to hurt. They were mistakes we made as we tried to figure out who we were.”

His brow twisted in emphasis. “Figure out how to live and who we were supposed to be. How we’d all fit because every single one of us knew things had changed. No longer kids but not grown, either. All of us were fumbling through.”

His entire face pinched.

Agony and grief.

Lifting an arm, he drove his finger toward the door as he chucked the words. “But there is someone out there who is cruel. Someone who is malicious. Someone out there who did this to her. Someone who hurt her. He’s the one to blame, Ollie.”

Stumbling back, he bent in two, his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath like he’d just been struck in the stomach with a bat. “He did this. Not you. Not me.”

I could barely form the words, the weight of them so heavy on my tongue. “We sent her out into the night. By herself.”