“Sloane accused him of something.” He paused, swallowed, and tried again. “She said he crossed a line he should never have crossed.”
“What happened?”
Ryan looked directly at me.
“The people destroyed it.”
The words fell heavily.
“No one believed him.” Her voice fell. “Not me. Not my mother. No one.”
I felt bad.
“We called her a liar.” Her eyes shifted to the window. “We called her worse things, too.”
For the first time since I’d known him, Ryan seemed genuinely ashamed of the person he had been.
“He was just a kid,” he said. “But that’s no excuse.”
Silence settled between us.
Then I asked the question whose answer I already knew.
“Was he telling the truth?”
Ryan closed his eyes.
“Yeah.”
