“I was sixteen,” he goes on. “Found this car, or at least, that’s what I thought mattered the most back then. A Camaro. Black. Sleek. The one you’re so obsessed with. One of those rare things that makes you think, If I get my hands on that, everything changes.”
The black car? The one he said he won in a race?
His mouth pulls faintly. “And just as I was about to steal it, this girl, around my age, walks up.”
He falls quiet for a moment, thumb tracing the rim of the glass.
“I know you think I’m a scary fucker now, but back then? I had nothing left to lose. People could tell. They stayed the hell away. But she just walked right up and said the car was hers.”
“Where’d she get it from?” I ask.
He huffs a small laugh. “No idea. I’m guessing she stole it herself. By the time I found it, it was already half-dead. Looked perfect on the outside, but the engine was wrecked. She told me I could fix it,ifI knew what I was doing. And I… stayed.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. First time I wasn’t wanted for muscle or speed or hustle. Just… for what I could do. My hands. What I could build. So instead of boosting the car, I tuned it. For months. Kepttelling myself I’d sell it later. After one more run. One more night behind the wheel.”
He turns to me then.
“She wasn’t my soulmate or anything like that. I wasn’t in love. I didn’t even know what that meant back then. But she was the first person who felt like more than concrete under my feet. The first person who made me think I could be… not good, exactly. But maybe something more than wreckage.”
His throat works around the next words, like they’re scraping their way out.
“And because of that—because I wanted the rush more than I cared about what could happen—I agreed to go with her into Rey’s territory for a race we should never have touched. And she died because of my enemies. Bled out all over that car.”
I don’t know who Rey was, or what his territory meant, but it doesn’t matter. His pain hits just the same.
“Rhea was different, though,” he says suddenly.
My brows knit together.
“The other person?” I ask.
He nods faintly. “Yeah. Three years later, I thought maybe I could afford to care again. After Lark, I swore I’d never let anyone that close. She taught me that the moment you let someone take up more than a corner of your mind, you hand them a target. So I made myself a promise—don’t love. Love means loss. And loss means… worse.”
“You promised?” I ask quietly.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I promised I’d never fall in love. Trouble’s my second name, you know?”
The sound that escapes him isn’t really laughter. It’s dry, brittle, pretending to be a joke.
“Hell, I even prayed once that I’d meet a ghost. No heartbeat, no leaving me in the dark. Can’t kill what’s already dead, right?”
He laughs again, softer this time, but his eyes stay locked on mine.
A ghost… likeme?
I try to picture it: him, years ago, still breathing and broken, wishing for someone who didn’t exist yet. Someone I wouldbecome.
It’s insane.
And somehow, it makes my heart skip.
They say in every tragedy there’s something good. As if the universe shoves you through pain just to move the boulder sitting in your chest. Only if it hits hard enough.
“Be careful what you wish for,” I whisper.
He meets my gaze and scoffs. “If you mean that now you’re here, and my ‘hot-ass ghost’ can actually bleed, then yeah… joke’s on me. I kind of wanted you to be invincible. So you’d never get hurt.”
