A hand on my shoulder. “Addie.”
My heart drops.
Because I’d know that voice anywhere.
It’s Jeremy.
21
“Are you okay?”
I turn slowly, to give Jeremy time to run away if that’s what he wants to do. But he doesn’t. Here he is, all six-foot-one of him, white T-shirt, mesh shorts, backward cap over his brown hair, standing in front of me, breathing hard. His hand’s dropped, but he’s still looking down at me.
“Fine.” I hope he doesn’t hear the tremor in my voice.
His brows come together. “You’re bleeding.”
His hand hovers in the air, unsure. I get to my feet on my own, brushing my palms together. “I’m fine,” I say again.
A flash of his smile, so quick I might have imagined it, and then he averts his eyes, pulls one arm into a stretch. “Didn’t know you ran this way anymore.”
“I don’t usually. Just decided to today for whatever reason.”
It’s strange, standing here in this place I used to stand in, talking to the person I used to stand here with, but with the gulf of a year and everything that happened between then and now. Jeremy looks like he’s gotten bigger in the time we’ve been apart, his muscles straining through the thin fabric of his T-shirt.
“Yeah. Me too.”
I look down at my right hand. Little beads of blood bloom alongside the bits of dirt wedged there.
“So, are you okay?” His brows are drawn in that concerned-Jeremy way. “I don’t just mean your hands. I mean—are you okay?”
I know I don’t deserve this. Him standing here, acting like he still cares. But I miss it. And not just because he was my boyfriend. Because before that, he was one of my best friends.
“I’m fine. Thanks.”
A moment of quiet then, us pausing there in the gold-edged leaf shadow, looking at each other. Birds chirping, the scamper of a small animal in the undergrowth. Jeremy’s eyes go over me, taking in my black hair, black running clothes. I wonder what he thinks about them, about how thin I’ve gotten. He used to tell me he loved my curves, my plain dirty-blond hair.
I don’t want to bring up anything to ruin this strange trucelike space we’re in. But maybe he knows where Gen was the night Fiona died. If she has a valid alibi, then I can stop torturing myself with the theory that my former best friend tried to kill me.
“Jeremy, can I ask you something?”
A slight paling of his skin. His green eyes shift from right to left. “Sure.”
His casual tone is forced. He’s nervous.
I frown but forge on. “Um…so I noticed you’ve been hanging out with Gen.”
His eyebrows go up. That wasn’t what he was expecting me to ask. “It’s not what you think.”
“I mean, it’s not my business, but—” I hesitate.
We look at each other.
“We’re not together,” he says at the same time I ask, “Are you together?”
I exhale, and so does he.
“So do you know what—”
And suddenly—footsteps along the trail, from the direction of the Montgomerys’. Both Jeremy and I turn to look.
The figure who appears around the bend makes my heart drop.
Seth.
“What are you doing here?” Jeremy and I say at the same time.
Seth looks from him to me, his face unreadable. “Just going for a stroll.”
My eyes go down to his feet. Flip-flops, not loafers, at least, but still. There’s no way on earth Seth is out here going for a stroll.
“Bullshit,” I say.
Seth looks like he’s about to argue, but then he jerks his head at Jeremy. “Fine. I followed him.”
“Why?” Jeremy’s voice is flat, and his hands are in fists at his sides.
Seth’s arms are crossed. A mistake; if someone swung at him, he’d be late in trying to block it. I wonder if he’s ever been in a fight in his life. “Wanted to know what you were doing, running past my property.”