Page 95 of Take The Risk

​“The fuck they weren’t, you sick bitch!” Cady-Jo tried to advance on me but found herself restrained. “I read every depraved word. I knew it! I knew you were a whore when I met you. I knew you’d hurt my boys!”

​“She didn’t hurt anyone.” Helen came to my defense, looking at me questioningly.

​“It’s okay,” I told her. “You can tell her. Tell her everything.”

​Cady-Jo rounded on Helen in horror. “You knew. You knew she was…she was…”

​“It’s not like it seems, Cady-Jo.” Helen was supremely calm, which was crazy given I wasn’t sure if my heart could handle beating this hard.

​This is all my fault.

​“Cady-Jo. I know you’re angry. You have every right to be angry.” Sort of. “I swear to you, I didn’t do what you think. I never meant to hurt you. We were going to tell you. We were going to tell you this week.”

​It was the wrong thing to say.

​Louise had loosened her grip just enough when it seemed Cady-Jo might listen to Helen.

​With a roar, Cady-Jo flung herself at me, knocking me to the ground. “I’m going to kill you!” She grabbed my head and bashed it off the ground. I heard a sickening crack and felt pain explode across my skull. “You ruined everything! You ruined everything!” I wasn’t sure she was even talking to me anymore.

​That was how the police found us, the sirens deafening as the cars skidded to a stop out front.

​Cady-Jo was hauled off of me, her hands immediately restrained by handcuffs, an officer reading her her rights.

​I lay there on the floor for a minute, stunned, feeling something hot trickle down my neck.

​Another officer ordered everyone else not to move and rushed to my side. I couldn’t make out his face through my blurry vision. When he helped me sit up, I thought I was going to throw up and curled my legs to my chest.

​“Phoebe? Are you okay?” Helen crouched down in front of me, ignoring the police’s command.

​Cady-Jo had gone quiet, her chest heaving, fury etched in every line of her body.

​“I can explain.” I looked at her, trying to focus my vision that kept blurring in and out. “You don’t need to arrest her.” I tried to get to my feet, Helen helping me, only to fall onto my couch. Something felt wrong inside me and I couldn’t stop to figure out what.

​“I’m sorry, ma’am. We witnessed her assaulting you. It’s an automatic arrest,” the officer who stood beside Cady-Jo, his hand on the cuffs at her back, said.

​“No. This is my fault.” I had to make them understand.

​“You got that right,” Cady-Jo spat, finally speaking, blue eyes blazing accusations. “How could you? Ty? And Jesse?”

​Louise picked up some of the papers and was frowning down at them. “I think there has been a serious mistake here.”

​When I looked at her, I knew. Even if I didn’t want it to, my secrets—all of them—were coming out.

​“Someone needs to explain what happened here.” The police officer who was in charge looked expectantly between all of us.

​Helen went to speak for me, and I put my hand on her arm.

​“I’m not Phoebe Lebonaire. Well, I am. I’m just also A.J. Lane and P.J. Alexander.”

​There was a stunned silence. Even Cady-Jo, who looked murderous only moments ago, was suddenly looking uncertain.

​“The author A.J. Lane?” the officer asked, looking shocked and a little in awe only to flush when Helen cut him a quelling look.

​“Yes.” Then I did something I’d never done in my life. I claimed me. With my head splitting, my stomach threatening to empty its contents, with five people, one who hated me, one who knew my secret and was still my friend, and one I hoped would still be my friend (I had no illusions about Cady-Jo wanting to be my friend after this) and two strangers, I told the story I’d never been able to write. Mine.

​“So that’s it. All of it. The only thing I don’t know is how Jesse got my papers. He wouldn’t have stolen them from me.” I needed that to be clear.

​“This is Ty’s handwriting.” A subdued Louise held up the damning love letters for inspection. Just in case Cady-Jo didn’t believe me.