Free Hardcore Volume 3 by Staci Hart Page B

stood, leaning on the glass with the phone still in her hand.
    I turned.
    “Get back here, you cunt. Get back here, or I’ll fucking kill you.” She slammed the phone against the glass. “Let go of me. Let go!” A chair scraped on the other side of the wall, but I wouldn’t look back.  
    I walked up to the officer next to the door who nodded at me when I passed. The door closed behind me with a final click.  

    I sat in the quiet loft as dusk fell. It had been hours since I’d gotten back from seeing Jade, hours of sitting in the silence, thinking about everything and nothing, grateful everyone was gone. I needed the solitude.
    The loft door groaned as it opened, and Erin walked in with her bike on her shoulder. She flipped on the kitchen light as she closed the door.  
    “Why are you sitting in the dark? What happened with Jade?” She set her bike down and made her way over to sit next to me, dropping her backpack and pulling off her gloves on the way.
    “You were right. She sold Jace out. She wanted my help to pin him for everything.”
    Erin sank into the couch and stared off into space. “Wow.”
    “Yup.”
    “Why is it that you always hope that people will change? That they’ll learn, even when they fuck up over and over again?”
    “Because it’s depressing to think that someone could be so fucking stupid. Especially someone who you cared about. But some people just can’t be better. They’re too selfish, too self-centered. Jade wants everything and gives nothing. I might have been tempted to help her, if she had changed. But she’ll never change.”
    Neither one of us moved, just kept staring at nothing, our minds too preoccupied to focus.  
    “Do you think she’ll find a way to get out of it?”
    I stared at my feet propped on the coffee table. “Nope. No way will she be able to convince anyone that Jace somehow coerced her into laundering money for five years.”
    “Do you think it’s over?”
    “If she’s selling Jace down the river, then she’s exhausted all of her options. I don’t think she’s going to bring us into it.”
    We sat in silence for a moment. In the moment of endings and beginnings, of contemplation, I was reminded of Van, of the letter. Erin still didn’t know. But I was ready to tell her.  
    “I have a confession,” I said.
    “Oh?”
    “I wrote Van a letter a few days ago.”
    She shifted to face me, eyes big. “Did you send it to him?”
    “I didn’t write it for him. I just had to get it out, you know? But you know how Chase came to the coffee shop?”
    Erin nodded.  
    “Hearing him talk about Van … I don’t know. I had to get rid of it. I had to give it to him, so I left it as his gallery.”
    “What the fuck, Cory? How did you not tell me this?”
    I shrugged and sank a little deeper into the couch. “I didn’t want to talk about it.”
    “What did the letter say?”
    “I just told him everything I didn’t say to him that night. I guess deep down I hoped it would change his mind, even though I didn’t expect it to. I just kept hoping. But I haven’t heard from him.”
    “Well, what if he didn’t get it? What if it’s lost?”
    I gave her a look. “I left it on his desk in the gallery. I’m sure he got it, Erin.”
    She frowned. “I thought he’d be less … stern than that. I honestly thought that if he knew you were under duress, he’d forgive you.”
    “That’s not why I told him.”
    “I know, but still. Maybe he’ll come around.”
    I didn’t meet her eyes. “Maybe. But it’s done. I wrote it all down and let it go. It’s over for good.” I sighed. “Look at all of the good that came out of it. We got out from under Jade. Jilly knows the truth. We’re all going straight.”
    “Do you really feel that way?”
    “I really do. I enrolled in NYU today.”
    She popped off the couch, grinning. “Oh my God! Seriously?”
    I smiled at her. “Seriously. If I can survive everything that’s happened, I can do this. I’m