Chapter 9: Smoke Before the Fire
Taylor.
Just the name alone sent ice through Marissa's veins.
The message was short deliberately cryptic.
We need to talk. Before he ruins you again.
She stared at the screen, heart thudding.
He?
There was only one he that mattered.
And Taylor… she knew everything.
It had been two years since they last spoke. Two years since that night—the one Marissa pretended never happened. The one that broke more than just her heart.
And now she was back. Like a match held too close to dry kindling.
Marissa didn't tell Mason. Not yet.
Instead, she went to meet her. At the rooftop bar where secrets always tasted better with whiskey.
Taylor was already there when she arrived, a hurricane in heels, eyes sharp with unsaid things.
"You look good," Taylor said.
"You look like trouble," Marissa replied.
Taylor smirked. "Still got that fire. I was starting to worry the boy snuffed it out completely."
Marissa sat, arms crossed. "Say what you came to say."
Taylor didn't sugarcoat. She never had.
"Mason left because he was protecting you. But you never asked from what."
"I asked," Marissa whispered. "He lied."
"No," Taylor said. "He chose. You were breaking. After your mom. After everything. He thought he was the reason. So he did what cowards do he disappeared."
Marissa's throat tightened. "And what? You were there to catch him?"
Taylor laughed bitterly. "No. I was the one who watched him fall apart. He barely slept. He kept replaying the moment he saw you cry and couldn't fix it. He loved you too much, Riss. Still does."
The truth hit like a punch.
"I hated you," Marissa said. "For staying in his life when he left mine."
"I hated me too."
Silence stretched.
Then Taylor leaned in. "But there's something else. Something he's not telling you. And if you're going to love him again, you deserve to know all of it."
Marissa's pulse roared. "Then tell me."
Taylor handed her an envelope.
Inside, was a photo.
A hospital room.
Mason.
Beside a girl who looked eerily like
Her.
And she wasn't breathing.
She stumbled home in the rain, the city spinning around her.
Mason was waiting on her porch, worry etched into his face.
"Where were you?"
She didn't answer. Just held up the photo like a knife between them.
His face went pale.
"Mason," she said, voice trembling. "What is this?"
He looked at her like a man already drowning.
And said nothing.