‘Don’t you dare,’ Mum hissed, venom burning in every word. ‘You think I don’t know what you did?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I demanded, confusion settling over me like a doom-laden snow.
‘Eloise, don’t,’ Drew’s voice interjected from the landing. A warning.
Too late.
‘She tried to ruin your career. When you fell down the stairs last year and fractured your foot, wrecking your game,’ Mum’s words were acid eating away at my stomach. ‘It was no fall. Sarah pushed you.’
The air left my lungs as the room tilted.
‘No… no. She wouldn’t.’ But one look at Sarah confirmed it. Her face was drawn into an expression of pure dread. Her whole body shook, tears streaming.
‘I’m sorry. I wanted you to stay,’ she whispered between ragged breaths.
The ground ripped out from beneath me.
‘Stay?’ My mind sped through the accident. Through the way she’s looked after me. Each touch a lie.
‘It’s worse than that. She got paid to hurt you,’ Mum pushed on, not caring that she tore my heart to shreds with every word.
‘I’m so sorry. The manager of the other team pushed me to do it. I had to pay off my dad’s debts, and he used that against me. And when I realised it would keep you with me for another year,’ Sarah sobbed, words punctuated with broken gasps. ‘I didn’t know what else to do. Jake, please, I’m so sorry.’
My stomach lurched.
The girl I loved.
The girl I trusted.
The betrayal twisted deep.
I turned on Drew, eyes blazing. ‘Youknew?’
The silence was a death sentence to our relationship.
I went at him, fists flailing, before I could think straight. Pain jolted up my arm as my fist met his jaw, a terrible crack reverberating. Drew staggered but took the hit, eyes welling and fists white by his sides.
‘I never want to see you again.’ I whispered through clenched teeth before turning to Sarah. ‘Either of you.’
Drew stared at me, blood covering his lip and marking my hand. His eyes shone with pain. Not from my punch. From the fracturing of the safety we’d found in one another.
‘Through everything,’ I rasped, my words shredded as tears choked me. ‘You two have been my constants. The two people I thought I could fucking trust. And you’ve both destroyed me.’
I tore myself from the wreckage. Sarah’s sobs and Drew’s ragged breathing followed me down the hall like ghosts.
Haunting me with what could have been.
They deserved each other.
TWENTY-SIX
SARAH
Istood on the doorstep of Drew’s apartment, soaked through from the rain like a little drowned rat. The builders had let me into the foyer, complaining loudly about the fact that residents shouldn’t be back yet.
My knuckles reddened as I continued to knock when he didn’t come.
‘Please answer.’
