Page 111 of Protecting You
“But why? I don’t understand why she wouldn’t…” Alyssa swallowed and looked away. “It explains why she avoided me after graduation. I reached out to her so many times. She never responded to my calls or texts, just ghosted me. I even mailed a letter to her parents’ house, thinking maybe she’d changed her number or something. But she never responded.”
Alyssa brushed cookie crumbs off her fingers and slid her hand around the milk. She didn’t sip, though, just spun it on the table. “I blamed myself. I thought I wasn’t a good enough friend, that I should have tried harder.” Alyssa met his eyes. “When I found out she’d died, I felt this weight of shame and guilt. I berated myself, trying to figure out what I could’ve done differently. What did I do to so offend her that she would keep your relationship secret? That she would hide…?”
Again, Alyssa looked away, but this time, tears shimmered in her eyes.
He slid his hand over hers on the kitchen table. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Alyssa. It was Megan. She had this weird idea that you would be hurt if you knew we were together.”
Alyssa looked at him again, eyes narrowed. He’d expected her to pull her hand away and was heartened when she didn’t. “Did she say why?”
“I know it’s nuts.” He laughed, suddenly feeling stupid for even saying it aloud. “She thought you had a crush on me.”
“Oh, right. She was always so sure.” Alyssa didn’t smile.
He guessed the reason. “I wondered sometimes why, if she thought you had a crush on me, she, uh…” Yeah. He probably shouldn’t finish that sentence.
“Why she what?”
“She sort of came after me, you know, like she was super into me. I didn’t know at the time that she thought you liked me. I didn’t know any of that until later.”
“What do you mean, she came after you?”
Callan remembered the night so well. A stupid party at the apartment he shared with five other guys. He hadn’t planned the party, but he’d certainly indulged in it. He’d had way too much to drink when Megan hit on him. Shirt too low, jeans too tight. Music too loud, dancing too close.
Bedroom too near.
The next morning, he’d woken up with a heavy dose of shame. He wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of guy, never had been, yet the evidence of his fall into debauchery was sleeping beside him. He’d barely known Megan, certainly not enough to know if he liked her or not. Certainly not well enough to take her to his bed.
Maybe it was a desire to redeem himself that had him suggesting they go on a date—a nice, innocent lunch date. When they did, Megan showed up looking not like the…well, he preferred not to think the word that he had used back then. She’d shown up looking like a normal girl. Long hair pulled back in a ponytail, big brown eyes, nerdy glasses. She’d sat across from him, cheeks red from embarrassment, and sworn she’d never done anything like that before.
“I don’t know what got into me,” she’d said. “I had a really rough time over Christmas with my family, and I just wanted to forget.”
He’d apologized for taking advantage. She’d apologized for throwing herself at him. And then they’d dated.
She’d seemed like the girl-next-door type who’d made one terrible decision and was trying to redeem it, just like he was.
He wouldn’t learn the truth about her until it was way too late.
The longer he took to answer, the squintier Alyssa’s eyes became. She’d gone back to her cookie, reducing it to a pile of crumbs on her plate, a shameful waste of a Nutter Butter.
Callan gave Alyssa the Cliffs Notes version of events. If anything, her expression became more suspicious as he talked.
“She told you she had a rough holiday?” At his nod, Alyssa said, “She and her family went skiing at Chamonix that Christmas.” He must’ve looked confused because Alyssa added, “In the French Alps. She told me it was the best vacation of her life.”
So Megan had lied to him. That didn’t surprise him at all.
“And the notion that she’d never done that before? She had a habit of sleeping with”—Alyssa waved toward him—“random people. Not that you’re random. You were targeted. I’m just saying…”
Again, Callan wasn’t surprised. It seemed wrong to speak ill of the dead, but what he’d learned about Megan was that she was conniving and deceitful whenever it suited her—and sometimes just for fun.
Too late—way too late—he’d learned the depth of her depravity.
“You know how she was.” Alyssa spoke as if Callan had broadcast his thoughts. “She wasn’t exactly a paragon of righteousness. But why you? There were thousands of good-looking men on campus. Why did she go after you?”
He grinned, focusing on exactly the wrong thing. “You think I’m good looking?”
“Almost as handsome as you think you are.”
He chuckled, but it sounded so out of place during the serious conversation that he clamped his lips shut.
