Tears start to flow freely, and I let them. I don’t care that we’re out in the open.

“I had to sign the annulment papers. She made me leave my wedding ring behind. I didn’t want to. I wanted to keep something, so I would have…something. But she said I had to hurt you. Apparently, the annulment papers wouldn’t be enough. Then, I had to leave the papers there and go with her. I wasn’t allowed to ever contact you again. I said you would look for me—because I knew I would have looked for you. I guess part of me wanted you to find me…and the other part was scared that, if you did, she would pull the plug on Casey’s treatment. But she said she would make sure that you wouldn’t find me ever. I guess she made good on that promise.

“She had travel already arranged to take me, Casey, and Dad straight to San Francisco. I guess…I guess I was a sure thing. I had to go home and tell Dad while she waited outside. It…wasn’t easy.” I brush away some tears.

“We never told Casey…how we got her on the trial. We just told her that her doctor had gotten her on it. We quickly packed what we needed, and then Ava put us on a private jet at LAX to San Francisco. We were met by someone at the other end. We were put in an apartment near the treatment facility, and Casey started treatment the next day.”

I turn to face him. “You have to know, I never took any of Ava’s money. If she spent any money on Casey’s treatment, I didn’t know about it. And as soon as Casey was given the all-clear, we left the apartment and got our own place. Any follow-up treatment Casey needed was paid for by me and Dad. By that point, I had a full-time job working in a coffee shop.”

“Why didn’t you come back after Casey’s treatment was over?” His voice is even, detached…cold.

My heart stills. “The treatment took a long time. She was on the drugs for six months. It was a year before we got the all-clear. Then, we had to wait for follow-ups. And there was always that fear that it might return. Back then, Ava was my only option to getting Casey the treatment she would have needed if the tumor came back, like it had before. And…when we finally realized it wasn’t coming back…so much time had passed.” Biting down on my lip, I dry my face with my hands and stare down at the pavement beneath my feet. “I wanted to come back…so badly. But I didn’t know how to. I was…scared.”

“Of what?”

“That you wouldn’t be waiting when I came back. That…you’d have moved on.”

He lets out a humorless laugh. “I never did. That was your mistake, Evie.”

“I know that now. But back then, I didn’t. And I know this will sound screwed up, and you might not want to hear this…but part of what kept me away was Ava. It wasn’t fear—well, maybe a little fear.” I laugh a sound much akin to his. “But no matter how I felt about Ava, no matter how much I despised how she’d treated you all your life or what she did to us—how she used my sister dying for her own gain—I…well, I owed her. I still have my sister, living and breathing and healthy, because of Ava. I made a deal with her. I made a deal that I would never tell you the truth…a deal that I’m breaking right now.”

“You make it sound like you’re doing me a fucking favor,” he snaps.

It’s the first real sign of emotion I’ve gotten from him. Even though he’s snapping at me, I cling on to that as hope.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m just…I’m trying to make you understand why I couldn’t tell you back then.”

“You could have told me the instant you got back.”

“You’re right. But when you’ve held something in for so long, kept a secret…it’s hard to get the words out. It’s hard to say them. And even still, I felt like I owed Ava. And…I know your relationship with her was difficult, but she’s your mother. I didn’t want to be the reason your relationship with her ended. I know what it’s like to lose a mother, Adam. I didn’t want that for you, no matter how she is. I couldn’t be responsible for that.”

“But you could be responsible for obliterating my heart?” He stands abruptly.

My eyes follow him. Then, the rest of me does until I’m standing in front of him. “Adam—”

“I don’t know what to do with this, Evie. It’s too fucking much. Too fucked up. I want to be angry with you. I am angry with you. So very fucking angry.” He turns his face away.

When he brings it back to me, my heart splits in two. I see it there in his eyes. I’ve lost him again, and this time, it’s for good.

“Last night, I asked you for the truth. I told you, if you gave it to me, I would see if I could get past it. Today, you’ve given me that truth. Now, I’m telling you…I can’t get past it. And I don’t mean what you did—choosing Casey and saving her life. Hell, I would have told you to go, had I known. I would have told you to leave me, if it meant saving Casey’s life.

“But the moment you knew Casey was better, whether it was one year or five or ten, you had the chance. Countless times, you had the chance to tell me throughout those years and all these weeks since you’ve been back. But you’ve chosen not to because”—he lets out a disbelieving, painful-sounding laugh—“you owed my cunt of a mother. You left me here in the dark all of that time, knowing what she’d done to me, what she was still doing, what she’s always done to me—controlled my fucking life! That”—he points a finger at me, taking a step back—“I can’t forgive.

“So, now, I’m telling you, Evie, leave me the fuck alone. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to breathe the same fucking air as you. I want you gone from my life. I want you to disappear just like you did ten years ago. But this time, I want you to stay gone.”

Then, he turns and walks away down the street.

All I can do is watch him go, my arms wrapping tightly around my stomach.

Whoever said the truth would set you free was a fucking liar.

I don’t feel free. I don’t feel better. I feel like I’ve just put a gun to my own heart and pulled the trigger, and now, I’m bleeding out, slowly and painfully.

I walk for a long time, just wandering around Beverly Hills, because I don’t know what else to do. There’s too much in my head, too many thoughts, and I don’t know what to do with them.

And when I finally do know, I find myself standing outside the place I once called home.

Only, it was never a home. It was just a house I lived in.

It might be a big, beautiful glamorous house that most people would give their right arm to live in, but I hate this house. It reminds me of the loneliness I felt growing up. It was the place where I learned I was never wanted. I was needed for the studio and nothing else.

This house represents the emptiness inside of me, the emptiness that Evie used to fill—before Ava stole that from me, too.

Using the key I have, I let myself in through the main gate.

Millie, my mother’s longtime housekeeper, is waiting at the open door for me.

“Adam, so good to see you. It’s been so long. Your mother never said you were coming. I would have prepared some food for you.” Millie always has the need to feed me. Maybe it was her way of trying to make me feel better while I was growing up, trying to fill the lonely empty void she could see in me.