Page 47 of Top Shelf

I drop my hands from my face and stare at the dark wall across from me.

What am I supposed to do with that? What does itmean?

I’ve spent years believing whoever hurt me was the owner of that voice. That those hands touching me were rough. The blue eyes cruel.

I’ve been so certain that they were the ones who hurt me.

I don’t remember anyone else being there.

And now…I don’t know what to believe.

Reaching for the glass of water on my bedside table, I gulp it down. It does nothing to remove the bad taste in my mouth.

I hate Ronan for this. I hate that his words have wormed their way into my head. I hate that they’ve cracked something open inside me. I hate that I’m doubting myself. I don’t want tobelieve he’s telling the truth. I don’t want to think the people I’ve feared all this time…didn’t do what I’ve blamed them for.

Because if they didn’t…

Then who did?

A chill spreads through me, bone deep and ice cold.

I force myself off the bed and cross to the mirror on shaky legs. My reflection is pale. My pupils pinpoint. There’s a tightness to my mouth I recognize—a tension that hasn’t left since that night.

The girl in the mirror doesn’t look like someone who trusts easily.

She looks like someone haunted.

Someone lost.

I grip the edge of the dresser and close my eyes again.

What do you know?

What if I don’t know what I know? What if I can’t trust what I remember?

What if I waswrong?

I force myself to breathe slowly, to let the air settle, but it does little to help. My thoughts won’t stop racing.

This is what Ronan wanted. Hewantedto make me question everything, and it’s working. I know trauma scrambles memory. The drugs. The fear. The shock. It distorts things. Rearranges them. But I never thought I could have been wrong.

I slide to the floor, my back to the dresser, legs folded in front of me. The wooden planks are cold beneath my thighs, but I don’t move.

Because for the first time in years…

I don’t know who the villain is anymore.

And that terrifies me more than anything.

By the time I pull myself together, I’m too late to stop and grab my usual order of an oat milk honey latte before class. I slip in through the door just as the professor calls for everyone’s attention at the front of the room.

Quietly moving to my regular table near the back of the room, I drop my bag on the floor and slide into the seat. It’s only as I pull my laptop out that I realize there’s a to-go coffee mug on my table, steam escaping through the slit in the lid.

I look around at the students seated around me, but no one is paying me or the drink any attention.Weird.

I can see something handwritten on the side and turn the cup enough to read it.Wren Winslow.

Who the hell is getting me coffee and leaving it for me in class? Who even knows I’m in this class?