Page 84 of Campus Fake

“Thanks, Pop. Not just for this, but for coming all this way.”

He pulled me into a side hug. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, kid. I’m so proud of the young man you’ve become. This is a rough bump in the road, but I know you’ll get through this too.”

I hoped he was right. Talking with him had eased some of my guilt, but the fear was still there. And I suspected that wouldn’t go away until Sam woke up.

FORTY

I wasn’t sure where I was, but it was really fucking bright. And I had once again clearly misplaced my sunglasses.

I could hear people talking, but the voices and words were vague, like listening to a conversation through water. I felt like I was surrounded by clouds, and I couldn’t really see anything, but I could sense something was there. A presence. A pull.

“Hello?”

Nothing. No response.

The room got brighter and I blinked. When I opened my eyes, I was suddenly in Mira’s coffee shop.

But it looked different.

Well, no—it looked how it had looked before Mira bought it, when she’d worked there as just a barista. The walls were a little dingier, the tables clustered closer together. There was a chalkboard behind the counter with the day’s specials written in that terrible handwriting that the old owner refused to let anyone fix. And in the corner by the window, there was a table with two chairs, one of them slightly pulled out, like someone had just gotten up.

It looked like it had when Bryce was alive.

My throat tightened.

“You’re not supposed to be here, Ladybug.”

I spun around and couldn’t believe my eyes. He looked the same as I remembered him the last time I’d seen him. His blond hair—the exact same shade as mine—was slightly too long and falling across his forehead the way Mom used to nag him about. His eyes were the same bright blue. He had that infectious grin on his face, the one that could talk anyone into anything, the one that had made teachers forgive him for late assignments and made Mira fall in love with him in the first place.

He was wearing his favorite old Seahawks hoodie with the frayed wrists.

I could hardly breathe, and my nose burned as tears filled my eyes. Without even hesitating, I ran up and hugged him.

He was solid. He was real.

Bryce was here.

He chuckled as his arms wrapped around me, holding me close. The laugh was so warm and so familiar it made me cry harder. God, I’d missed him so much. I’d missed the sound of his voice and the way he smelled like that cheap body spray he used too much of and the solid, safe feeling of my big brother hugging me tight.

Bryce had always given the best hugs.

“Hey, none of that, okay?” He squeezed me tighter. “You’re getting snot on my hoodie.”

A laugh choked out of me through the tears. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

But I wasn’t sorry about the snot. I was sorry about everything. The competition. The storm. The black ice. All of it.

He cupped my face and made me look at him. His grin had faded but his eyes still held the joy I remembered being there. “There you go apologizing again. Some things never change.”

“Because it was my fault.” The words came out raw. Even after everything I’d been through with the ice rink and standing up to Mom, there was still a part of me that believed it down to my bones. I’d started to loosen my grip on the guilt, started to believe I deserved happiness, but it was still always hovering in the background like a specter.

Bryce’s expression fell. He dropped his hands from my face and took a step back, and for a horrible second I thought he was going to confirm it. That he was going to tell me what I’d always believed—that it was my fault, that I’d killed him, that I deserved every ounce of punishment I’d given myself for the last five years.

Instead, he pulled out one of the chairs at his corner table and sat down, propping his ankle on his knee the way he always used to. “Sit down, Sammy.”

I sat.

He leaned back and studied me, and the look on his face was so achingly familiar—the same expression he’d worn whenever I was spiraling about a competition and he’d have to talk me off the ledge. It was patient and a little amused, like he had all the time in the world to torture me with his silence.