“I’ve been looking for her for a few years, yeah. But the night I found her, it was by complete accident. I was about to bang her roommate and she stormed in and…” I trail off, I’m sure they don’t need the full details of that night.
Letty’s hold on my hand tightens, letting me know that she’s still here with me.
“Why were you looking for her?”
“She… uh… she knew something about me, was hiding information I needed.”
Luca’s eyes narrow. “You met her before? When we were at camp she was always hidden away like a princess locked in her ivory tower.”
“She was yeah, but she saw something she was never meant to. I never spoke a word to her until a couple of weeks ago.”
“I’m confused,” Peyton says, her brows drawing together.
Luca quickly fills her in on who the Fletchers are before they both turn back to me.
“What did she see, Lee?”
I suck in a breath knowing that I’m not going to be able to talk around this and find a way out of it.
“R-Richard Fletcher. He wasn’t… wasn’t the man everyone thought he was.”
Luca’s eyes narrow in confusion.
“Why? What was he really like?”
“He was… He… Fuck.” I drop my head into my hands. Even after all these years, I can’t bring myself to say it out loud.
I thought it would go away, that I’d be able to keep it hidden forever.
I hoped I’d find him and put my demons to rest by getting my revenge. That might still happen, I guess. But not before I have to spill my guts to the very last person I ever wanted to know the truth.
“What did he do, Lee?” Letty says softly, wrapping her arm around my waist, holding my trembling body tight.
I breathe in. Then breathe out. Trying to keep myself under control. My fists clench and unclench as I try to form some words, anything to put an end to this.
“He was an abusive cunt who wasn’t only interested in having boys at his home for football,” I say in a rush hoping that they won’t catch it and I can just leave it at that.
The second Letty’s sob rips through the silence though, I know she understood every word of it.
Her other arm wraps around me as she presses her face into my shoulder, her tears soaking my shirt instantly.
I fight to stay in place and be what she needs me to be, but every muscle in my body screams to get up, to run, to try and put those few words behind me like they never left my mouth.
“No,” Luca spits. “N-no. We went there every summer. You loved it there. It was… it w-was—”
I look up at him and the second my eyes connect with his watery ones he sees the truth.
“No,” he sobs. “No. Please. Tell me you're lying.” I hold his stare, unable to do as he requests. “Goddammit, Leon,” he booms. “Tell me you’re fucking lying. Tell me he didn’t—FUCK,” he roars, jumping up from the couch and storming out of the room.
“Lee, I’m sorry, I—” Peyton looks between me and the door Luca just stormed through.
“Go. I’ll be okay.”
“O-okay.” She’s gone in a flash leaving me alone with Letty who’s still clinging to me like her life depends on it.
“I’m not going to shatter, Let. It’s okay,” I say, gently pulling her away from me and taking her hand in mine.
“All those times we joked about secrets, never did I think that—” She hiccups, cutting off her words.
“It’s okay.”
“No, Leon. It’s not. It’s really fucking not.” Her bottom lip trembles as she speaks. “He hurt you, he r-rap—”
“Shh,” I comfort her when her voice cracks on that word. “It was a long time ago.”
“I don’t care, Leon. He had no right to do that. You were a kid.” She trembles with anger for me as she holds my gaze.
I’m so fucking relieved that they’re full of fire and fight instead of pity and sympathy.
“I want to fucking kill him for you.”
“Why do you think I’ve been looking for him, Cupcake?”
Her eyes widen.
“No. No, Lee. You can’t. If you get caught then he’ll completely ruin your life. Fuck, please. Don’t do that.”
“Jesus, Let. I’m not going to walk up to him with a gun in public and shoot him point blank for the world to see.”
“O-okay, g-good,” she sniffles. “So what are you going to do?”
I shrug.
“You know where he is though?”
“Thanks to Macie, yeah.”
“Fucking hell. Macie. What have you done to her?”
“She’s in Miami at her uncle’s place.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“She knew, Letty. She stormed into his office one day and… she saw what was happening.”
“Holy shit. Did she know it was you?”
“You think she would’ve let me anywhere near her if she knew it was me?”
“Macie is a good person, Leon. I’m sure you’ve figured that out over the past couple of weeks.”
Have I? Or will my opinion of her always be tainted by our past?
“It doesn’t matter. I needed her to help me find him, and she led me right to him.”
“So that’s it. Everything between you was fake, everything you said you felt for her was a lie?”
“Means to an end.” I shrug. It’s cold, I know it is. But it’s the truth.
Macie was right. Me and her, we’d never work.
The player and the nerd. It’s not exactly how things go.
I’m sure she’s got a plan for her life and following me to whatever city I end up in probably isn’t at the top of her to-do list once she graduates. Not that I think we’d ever have made it that far should anything have continued.
“That’s bullshit, Lee, and you know it.”
“Do I? She was a pawn in my game, Cupcake. Why do you think I never intended on her meeting any of you.”
“Oh,” she says with a laugh. “So that’s why you took her to a Harris party. You thought none of us would be there.”
“You weren’t meant to make friends with her,” I mutter.
“Well, I did. And while I might be devastated for what you’ve been through, Lee. While I might sit here and hold your hand and cry with you, don’t think I’m not fucking furious with you for treating her like a piece of shit.”
“She never helped me, Letty. She knew and she did nothing.”
“She was a child. What did you really expect her to do? Her only guardian was an abusive cunt of a man. You really think she was going to go up against him?”
A shudder of fear runs down my spine again at the possibility of him hurting her.
“He never touched her.”
“Oh, know that for a fact do you? Because ten minutes ago none of us had a clue he ever touched you.”
“She was a virgin,” I shout, my frustration getting the better of me.
“Was?” Letty questions, one brow shooting up.
“Yeah, was. I stole that from her just like that cunt stole everything from me.”