Chapter 119: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN

AVERY

Skyler had been talking about my birthday for twelve straight minutes, which would have been impressive even by her standards if Leo hadn’t started joining in like the two of them were co-hosting a celebration committee I never applied for.

“I’m just saying,” Skyler said, stabbing her yogurt with a spoon for emphasis, “three days is not a lot of time, but it is enough time. Dinner. Cake. Something that is not tragic. You always act like joy is a contagious disease.”

“I do not,” I said.

“You do,” Leo replied mildly, which was how I knew I was in trouble. Leo did not usually take sides with this much energy. He closed his textbook around one finger and actually looked invested. “We could keep it small. Just us. Nothing overwhelming. There’s that new dessert place near Maple, or we could do something at your house if that’s easier. Jace would like that.”

“Jace would lose his mind,” Skyler agreed. “We could get balloons. Not tacky balloons. Tasteful balloons. Is that a thing? It can be a thing.”

“No neon,” Leo said seriously. “And no surprise crowd. She hates crowds.”

“I also hate being discussed like I’m not sitting here,” I muttered.

They ignored that.

Skyler leaned forward, eyes bright. “What about a sleepover after? Movies. Face masks. We make Leo leave at midnight so it becomes a sacred feminine ritual.”

Leo frowned. “Why do I have to leave?”

“Because you ruin the sanctity.”

“I bring logistics.”

“Exactly.”

Under any other circumstances, I might have found it funny. Sweet, even. The two of them overlapping in their completely different kinds of care… Skyler all spark and insistence, Leo all practical tenderness — both of them trying so hard to build a soft place for me to land now that eighteen was close enough to touch.

But all I could think was that eighteen was never supposed to arrive like this.

Not without Emery.

Our birthday.

That was what it had always been. Not mine in isolation.

Ours.

Same day, same candles, same ridiculous argument about whether the cake frosting was too sweet. Even when we celebrated differently as we got older, the day itself had still belonged to both of us. Turning eighteen was supposed to be the big one. The threshold people marked with speeches about freedom and future and finally becoming real adults in the eyes of the world.

Everyone looked forward to it.

To me, it felt like a reminder

The first birthday I would turn without her.

No shared glance across a table. No private joke halfway through someone else’s toast. No version of the day where I could roll my eyes at her and still feel steadier because she was in the room. Just me, getting older in a life I had borrowed pieces of, carrying her name in public and her absence everywhere else.

I stared down at the table until the wood grain blurred.

“I don’t want to celebrate,” I said.

Skyler stopped mid-sentence. “What?”

“I don’t want to celebrate,” I repeated. “No dinner. No cake. No balloons. I just want the day to pass.”

Silence opened between us for a second too long.

A flash of pity moved through Skyler’s eyes before she could hide it. Her whole face softened, the excitement draining.

Leo, of course, still tried.

“It doesn’t have to be a big thing,” he said gently. “Even just the three of us. Turning eighteen matters, Em. You deserve one good day.”

Skyler’s foot shifted under the table. She nudged him stylishly Leo glanced at her, confused, then caught whatever he saw in her expression and closed his mouth.

Bless Skyler.

She didn’t say Emery’s name. She didn’t make a speech. She just understood why the idea of candles made my throat feel too tight, and she redirected the room before it could drown me in well-meaning concern.

I exhaled slowly.

“Well, well, well,” I said, forcing a little lightness into my voice as I turned toward her. “I have a better use for your energy. You’ve got that look. The gossip look. Spill.”

Skyler brightened instantly, relieved to be handed an exit ramp. “I do have a gist.”

“I can see that. You’ve been vibrating since you sat down.”

Leo looked mildly alarmed. “Is this going to be one of those conversations I regret hearing?”

“Almost certainly,” Skyler said, then lowered her voice and leaned in. “I heard Jordan got expelled.”

My heart sank so fast I felt it in my stomach.

Jordan.

Expelled.

I hadn’t talked to him.

Not since that night.

I hadn’t seen him either, not in any way that counted. After everything in the car, after the rain and the dizziness and the part of me that had run until my legs gave out, silence had felt like the only survivable option. I had not gone looking for closure. I had not asked questions. Some cowardly, practical part of me had been grateful not to have to shape that night into spoken words for anyone.

And now he was just… gone?

“What?” I said.

Skyler nodded hard, eyes wide. “Expelled. Not suspended. Not ‘family emergency.’ There is this my cousin who is a friend to his ex…Erica. Erica told her about it. Apparently the girl transferred out of the school last year and now she came forward. Formally. And this time it actually went somewhere.”

Leo’s brows pulled together. “Came forward about what?”

Skyler gave him a look. “What do you think? She left school last year out of nowhere. People said she transferred, but according to my friend it was because of him. Controlling, scary, the whole thing. She finally reported it, and the school actually moved.”

My fingers tightened around my pen until the plastic creaked.

Skyler wasn’t done.

“And before you ask how a report from last year suddenly had enough weight to get him removed now,” she said, voice dropping even lower, “I heard Asher was involved.”

The pen went still in my hand.

“Asher?” Leo repeated, skeptical. “Asher Whitlock?”

“Yes,” Skyler said. “Apparently he helped her. Backed her. Made sure the school couldn’t brush it off. Like he actually fought for the girl. I know it sounds unreal, but that’s what I heard. Turns out there’s a good side to him after all.”

A good side.

The phrase was so clean it almost offended me.

Because if there was one thing Asher Whitlock did not do, it was wander into other people’s tragedies out of abstract virtue. He did not spend his influence like a public service. He did not burn time, reputation, and pressure on a junior girl’s justice story unless something about it mattered to him personally.

Which meant one of two things.

Either I did not know him as well as I thought

Or he knew more about Jordan than he was supposed to.

My mind moved too quickly for comfort, pulling up images I had spent weeks trying to keep folded shut. The parked car. Jordan’s voice changing. The sick realization that the water had done something to me. Running until the night blurred. Asher finding me. Asher not asking enough. Me not telling enough.

Had he found out anyway?

And if he had… if he had gone after Jordan in that exact, ruthless way

What did that make this? Protection? Possession? Guilt? All three braided into one terrifying instinct?

I forced my expression into something less obvious before Skyler could zero in on it.

“That’s crazy,” I said carefully.

“Right?” Skyler sat back, satisfied by the reaction even if she hadn’t read the whole of it. “I nearly dropped my phone when I heard. I mean, of all people. Asher. Doing something almost noble.”

“Almost,” Leo said dryly. “Let’s not start embroidering him onto a quilt.”

Skyler waved him off. “I’m just saying, maybe he’s more complicated than pure menace. People can contain multitudes. Even emotionally stunted soccer captains.”

I made a vague sound that could have passed for agreement and stared at the margin of my notebook hard enough to burn a hole through it.

Complicated did not begin to cover it.

Because somewhere under the shock and the dread, one fact kept repeating itself with brutal simplicity:

Jordan was gone.

And somehow, whether I had asked for it or not, Asher had made himself part of the reason why.