Burn Out *18+*

Chapter 32

I reeled back then as if I had been physically slapped. And even with all of the thoughts whirling through my head, I was still aware that Alistair and Jasper wouldn't have faltered. And when they spoke, they wouldn't have sounded so stricken. "What?" My weakness was just pouring out of me and I wasn't strong enough to rebuild that damn.

As if he hadn't wanted to release the words, Dexter also stepped back and turned away as he ran a hand through his hair. But that didn't stop him from repeating it. "I did it, Lonny. I wrote the letter."

For a moment I could say nothing at all. My mouth opened and closed, then open and closed again. This couldn't be true. Dexter wouldn't do that to me. There had to be some other explanation. But who else would threaten a budding rally racer that had very little to his name? What could someone possibly want from him? And even though I was wielding Calvin against Dexter, I didn't really think that Calvin would do it. Besides, Dexter had no reason to lie.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" I snapped, unable to come up with anything else.

"I don't know."

"Well then who the fuck knows?" I snarled, pulling out one of my mother's favorite lines from when I was a child. When he didn't answer right away, I continued down my spiral. "Why would you do this? How did you even do it?"

"I mean, I just wrote the letter with my left hand—"

"Not the fucking letter! This whole thing!" I wanted to grab his shirt and throttle him. I wanted to scream. Maybe I was already screaming.

And Dexter seemed so very small all of the sudden. "Oh, I wrote it, then I called Jasper. He asked for a picture of it, but didn't throw much of a fuss when I asked if someone could be assigned to me. In fact, I think he was pretty relieved. It gave him a simple task to keep you focused on. I think he definitely suspected something was up, but it was too convenient for him to say no."

"You're fucking crazy," I accused. My anger wiped away my shock in one stroke. It was like a frantic storm finally giving way to a lightning strike within me. My shoulders rolled back and I jabbed a finger against the center of Dexter's chest. "What were you even thinking?! You just committed fraud! Why would you do this?"

I expected Dexter to crumple because I knew what I looked like in that moment. I could thunder with the force of a thousand hurricanes in that moment and it would only take the slightest change in wind to set me off. But my best friend met my eyes with an evenness I didn't anticipate. I felt my lightning crackling at my fingertips, daring him to come back at me.

"I did it because I love you too much to watch you kill yourself."

It was one hell of a confession. I could see that he wanted his words to level me, but all he did was unleash my rage.

"I had it fucking handled! All you had to do was stay the fuck out of it!"

That brought him tumbling into the natural disaster. "Handled? Handled?" he seethed. "Are you kidding me, Lonny? Or are you really so delusional that you actually think that you were okay back then?"

"I was doing what I could."

"You were doing nothing. Nothing! You were wasting away. You lost so much weight in such a short time. you stopped eating. Your hair was falling out. Fuck, you couldn't even force yourself to smile half the time. and the worst part was that you didn't even know what you were doing to yourself through all of that."

"My mom was missing. She still is. And if you hadn't budged your way in, maybe I could have been on the squad trying to track her down!"

Arm folded across his chest, he shook his head in disbelief. "We both know that wouldn't have happened. The realistic version is that an experienced team would find her and she would come home to a skeleton of a daughter." Dexter's tight muscles and defensive pose suddenly released as he sucked in a slow breath. His chest rose and fell three times before he was able to bring his gaze back to me. The anger was now at a low simmer. "I don't want to fight, Lonny. I know what I did was wrong and I'm sorry."