I convinced myself I knew what was best for you, and I became just another liar making choices behind your back.”

The truth was overwhelming because it wasn’t simple.

Austin was certainly not an innocent bystander in this tragedy, but he wasn’t the evil villain who had planned the accident, either.

He had been terrified, and his fear had hardened into a fortress of silence.

That silence had become a five-year life built around protecting me from a painful truth I’d had every right to know from day one.

I looked into his tear-filled eyes.