“Cora,” Kian whispered, his hand rubbing gently up and down my back, his voice soft and low like he was trying not to startle me, “I know this might not be the best time, but I really need us to talk this through.”
Honestly, I might have been crying for about an hour—though at this point, time felt strange and warped. If it wasn’t exactly sixty minutes, it was close. Ever since Will and Mike stormed out the front door, all I had been capable of doing was crying. The tears wouldn’t stop. It was like a dam had broken inside of me, and everything I had kept in—the guilt, the fear, the heartbreak—came rushing out all at once.
But through it all, Kian and Matt had stayed. They hadn’t just stayed; they had been there in every way that mattered. Their presence had been grounding, their words so
