Chapter 12: Caleb's Confession

I took Caleb out to the stairwell landing, where the light was yellow and the radiator ticked.

Behind my door I could hear the neighbor telling Ezra and Nolan that nobody was listening at the keyhole.

Caleb sat down on the top step with his wet hood hanging off one shoulder.

"I'm going to say it all at once," he said. "Don't stop me."

"I won't."

"The hospital thing was mine."

I waited.

"Tripp needed seventy-two thousand. Nolan was going to ask you about a credit card, and I said, that's weak, she'll say no."

He wiped his face.

"I said, tell her it's somebody's mother. Nobody refuses a mother."

"You used your own mother."

"She's the only one I had."

His voice cracked.

"I said it to your face, Mara. In your kitchen. I held your hands."

I remembered.

He had cried a little then, too, and I had hugged him.

I had been the one who offered to lend more.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I'm not good at saying no to them."

He looked at his knees.

"Wyatt says jump and I figure out how high on the way down. You know I've always been like that."

"I know it."

"And I thought, Mara will be fine. She has savings. We'll pay her back."

"I have a scar from my collarbone to my stomach," I said. "I'm not fine."

He flinched.

"Say the rest," I said.

"The funeral thing." He swallowed.

"I told my mom you died in March. I said it was fast. I said you didn't want anyone to come."

"Why would you tell her that?"

"Because Wyatt told me to, and I figured it didn't matter."

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