Page 193 of Face Off

Their silence answered first.

“She found out before it ended,” Aura said.

The conversation on the patio returned with vicious clarity. My mother crying. Ryan’s hand against her back. Her apology for the ways she had failed both of us.

“You all knew.”

“Cee—”

“My mother knew while it was happening. Cade and Easton knew. Then the two of you knew for months. Everyone knew except me.”

“Not everyone,” Bliss said.

“Oh please, Briggs has to know and there is no way Rider isn’t aware either. They are too close and he shared it with them and you, my best fucking friends kept me in the dark.”

“We thought we were protecting you.”

My head lifted. “From what?”

“From blaming yourself,” she said. “From learning that your father used your illness against Ryan when you were finally building something stable.”

The word protection scraped against everything Ryan had accused me of on the patio.

“You thought I couldn’t handle it.”

“We watched you nearly die,” Bliss said, her voice breaking. “You can be angry, but don’t ask me to pretend I wasn’t terrified of anything that might send you back there.”

“I’m not asking you to apologize for being afraid. I’m asking you to admit your fear became control.”

She recoiled.

“You decided what I could know, how much pain I could survive, and which parts of my own life I was allowed to understand. You called it protection because that sounds kinder than admitting you didn’t trust me.”

“We trusted you,” Aura said.

“No, you trusted me with meals, therapy, my boutique, and every truth that didn’t frighten you. The second something became dangerous, you trusted your judgment more than mine.”

“We were trying to protect Ryan too.”

“I didn’t ask you to tell me what Ryan felt. I didn’t come in here demanding details after he asked me to wait.” My voice cracked, but I kept it level. “I asked if he was happy. I asked if hockey was okay. I asked whether something was happening in Milwaukee because he looked at me on that patio and said he was barely holding himself together and seething at the idea he would be forced around Lance.”

Aura’s mouth tightened.

“I respected his boundary. I was prepared to walk out of this room without anything that belonged solely to him. Then both of you lied because the truth involved something Lance did with my body and my name.”

“We didn’t know what the right thing was,” Bliss said. “Telling you felt like betraying Ryan. Keeping it from you felt like protecting your recovery.”

“My recovery wasn’t yours to protect! How dare you!”

“We supported you.”

“You did, and I love you for it. That doesn’t mean you own it or have the right to decide my business for me.”

“No one thinks we own it.”

“You acted like you did. You were supposed to help me use what treatment taught me, not remove anything that might require me to use it.”

“We were scared,” Aura admitted.