CHAPTER 396: "FOREVER"

The police came for me on Sunday.

Two detectives, a man and a woman, both wearing expressions I recognized from the facility. Neutral. Professional. Suspicious.

"Sarah Brown? We need to ask you some questions about Cain Morrison."

"Of course. Anything I can do to help."

They took me to a small room on campus. Not the police station, not yet. Just somewhere private where they could talk without an audience.

"You were dating Cain," the female detective said. Not a question.

"Yes."

"When did you last see him?"

"Monday. We got coffee after class."

A lie. But a believable one.

"And Thursday night? Where were you Thursday night?"

"In my room. Studying. My roommate transferred schools, so I was alone."

Another lie.

"Anyone who can verify that?"

"No. Like I said, I was alone."

They exchanged a look.

"We found some things on Cain’s computer," the male detective said slowly. "Messages. Between him and his friends. About you. And about your friend Aria."

I let my face crumple. Tears on cue, I’d practiced this for years. "I know. I found them last week. He was using me. To get to her."

"That must have made you angry."

"It made me sad. I thought he cared about me."

"Just sad? Not angry?"

I looked up at them with wet eyes. "I’m not an angry person, detective. I was hurt. But I’d never—" My voice broke. "I’d never hurt him. I loved him."

The female detective’s expression softened slightly. The male one stayed hard.

They asked more questions. About my relationship with Cain, my relationship with Aria, my whereabouts, my state of mind.

I answered every one perfectly. The right amount of emotion. The right amount of detail. Not too much, not too little.

I’d been preparing for this my whole life.

After two hours, they let me go.

"Don’t leave town," the male detective said.

I nodded. "Of course."

I called my parents from my dorm room.

"I need you," I said when my father answered.

A long pause. Then: "What did you do, Sarah?"

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

"We’ll be there tomorrow," he said, and hung up.

They arrived Monday morning with a team of lawyers I’d never met. Expensive suits, expensive briefcases, expensive smiles that didn’t reach their eyes.

My mother hugged me briefly. "It’ll be okay," she whispered. But her eyes said something else: How could you be so stupid?

My father didn’t hug me at all. Just looked at me with that expression I’d seen before. Fear mixed with resignation. The look that said: Here we go again.

The lawyers went to work.

I don’t know all the details of what they did. I wasn’t supposed to. Plausible deniability, they called it.

But I heard things. Pieced things together.

The knife was never found. Somehow the search of my dorm turned up nothing.

Witnesses who’d seen me that night suddenly weren’t sure. Maybe it was someone else. Hard to tell in the dark.

Security footage from the dorm building mysteriously corrupted. Technical glitch.

My alibi solidified. My parents swore I’d been with them Thursday night, family dinner, came home late. They had receipts from a restaurant, a credit card statement, everything lined up perfectly. There were no questions raised about why I mentioned studying in the first place.

Cain’s family was approached quietly. A settlement. Enough money to make the questions stop. To make them accept that whoever killed their son, it wasn’t me.

And finally, evidence pointing elsewhere. A homeless man who’d been seen near campus. Who had a history of violence. Who couldn’t account for his whereabouts Thursday night.

They arrested him three weeks later.

Case closed.

The detectives came to see me one more time.

"You’re free to go," the female detective said. She didn’t look happy about it. "Your alibi checks out."

"Thank you," I said softly.

The male detective stared at me. "If I find out you lied—"

"She didn’t lie," my father said coldly. He’d insisted on being present for this conversation.

"My daughter was with us that night. Are you calling me a liar, detective?"

The detective’s jaw tightened. But he didn’t push. My father was a senior partner at one of the largest law firms in the state.

You didn’t call people like him liars unless you had ironclad proof.

They left.

My father turned to me. "Don’t ever ask us to do this again."

"I won’t," I said.

He studied my face for a long moment. "Do you feel anything, Sarah? Anything at all?"

I thought about it. Really thought about it.

"No," I said honestly.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, something had shifted. A door closing. The same one that had closed inside me.

"Then learn to be more careful."

He left.

My mother lingered. "Sarah—"

"I didn’t kill him," I said. The lie came easily now. So easily I almost believed it.

She looked at me with something that might have been pity. Or grief. "I know," she said softly, even though we both knew she didn’t believe me. "I know, sweetheart."

Then she left too.

Aria barely left my side the whole time.

She’d show up at my dorm with food I didn’t ask for, stay with me through classes, text me constantly to make sure I was okay. The attention was suffocating in the best way.

"You don’t have to do this," I told her one night. We were in my room, her on my bed doing homework while I pretended to study.

"Yes, I do." She looked up at me, eyes fierce.

"You just lost your boyfriend, Sarah. In the most horrible way possible. And then the police treated you like a suspect. You shouldn’t have to go through this alone."

"You believe me, right? That I didn’t—"

"Of course I believe you." She said it without hesitation, without doubt. "I know you, Sarah. You couldn’t hurt anyone."

If only she knew.

"Everyone else keeps looking at me weird," I said quietly. "Like they think I did it."

"Fuck them." Aria’s jaw set in that stubborn way I’d come to recognize. "They don’t know you. They don’t matter."

"You matter."

Her expression softened. "You matter to me too. You’re my best friend. My person. And I’m not going anywhere, okay? No matter what anyone says or thinks."

Something warm unfurled in my chest. Not guilt. Not remorse. Something else entirely.

Satisfaction.

Cain had tried to use me to get to her. Had reduced me to nothing, made me a tool, a stepping stone to what he actually wanted.

And now he was nothing. Scattered into pieces. Erased.

And Aria was here. With me. Choosing me. Protecting me from the whispers and the suspicious looks.

Exactly where she belonged.

When news about the ’culprit’ spread,

Aria called me immediately. "Did you hear? They got him. The guy who killed Cain."

"Really?" I made my voice breathy. Relieved.

"Yeah. Some homeless guy. He’s been arrested for assault before. They found evidence linking him to the scene." She paused. "Sarah, it’s over. You can stop looking over your shoulder now."

"I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again," I said softly.

"I know. But I’m here. I’ll always be here. You know that, right?"

"I know."

"I love you, Sarah. You’re like my sister. My family. I need you to know that no matter what happens, no matter who comes into our lives or leaves, you and me? We’re forever."

I closed my eyes. Let those words sink in. Settle into my bones.

"I love you too," I said. "Forever."

And I meant it. In my own way. In the only way I knew how.

She just didn’t understand yet what that kind of love required. What I was willing to do to keep her. To keep us.

But she would.

Eventually, she would.