“Pull over,” I repeated, louder this time, urgency breaking through as I clapped a hand over my mouth. The car swerved to the side of the road. I barely registered the stop before I shoved the door open and stumbled out.
The moment my feet hit the pavement, my stomach emptied. I heard Austin get out of the car. I heard his footsteps behind me. None of it mattered. My entire body was focused on one violent, uncontrollable thing, every last bit of alcohol and panic forcing its way out. When it finally stopped, when my stomach had nothing left to give, I straightened slowly, wiping my mouth and struggling to breathe. Only then did I take in where we were. A backroad. Empty. No houses. No buildings. No lights. Just asphalt, trees, and silence. Just him. And me.
“Are you okay?” Austin asked quietly. His voice was small. Smaller than I’d ever heard it. I looked up at him. Concern sat plainly on his face, raw and unguarded. He looked like he wanted to come closer, like his body was fighting the instinct to reach for me. But he didn’t. I was glad. I wouldn’t have let him.
“I’m fine,” I said, running my hands through my hair. My voice was steadier now. Grounded. “I’m fine.”
“Blair.” His voice caught on my name. He took a step toward me, and I watched him carefully, gauging the distance he thought hewas allowed to cross. “I’m so sorry,” he said. The words made my mouth twist.
“You’re sorry,” I repeated flatly. “You’re sorry that you’re a drug dealer who ruins people’s lives?” The calmness of my own voice surprised me. My body felt clearer now, the alcohol no longer blurring the edges now that my stomach had purged it. I was here. Present.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. He looked sorry. Genuinely. But how much could that possibly mean? “I tried to tell you,” he rushed on. “I tried, Blair. I was just—” He swallowed. “I was scared.”
“You were scared?” I echoed.
“Yes,” he said quickly. “I knew what would happen if I did. I knew you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.” I closed my eyes. Because he was right. I wouldn’t want anything to do with him.
And yet—
The fear that had ripped through me when I heard the crash flashed through my mind again. The certainty that he had died. The way my body had moved without permission, the way I’d run like I couldn’t survive if I didn’t reach him. The terror had been real. So why did it exist at all?
“Blair.” His voice sounded stripped of everything I’d known it to be. No confidence. No charm. No swagger. Just fear. “I’m so sorry.” I opened my eyes again. “Please,” he said. “Just listen to me. Just hear me out. I promise, after that, you’ll never hear from me again. You’ll never see me again. I’ll leave you alone. I’ll let you go in peace. Just… hear me.” He looked at me like he was bracing for rejection. Like he was already preparing himself forme to say no. I didn’t. And because I didn’t, he took a breath—and began to speak.
“Okay,” he said quietly, releasing a breath like he’d been holding it for hours. “I never sold to Holden. Okay? I never sold Holden anything.” Something inside my stomach loosened at his words, just slightly. Not relief. Not forgiveness. Just… space. “And I haven’t sold since the night we met,” he continued. “Since the drug house. I got out. I told the guy I worked for that I was done. I’d wanted out for a long time, Blair. I knew it was wrong. I always knew it was wrong.” His voice cracked. “But meeting you changed something. Because for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be wrong anymore.”
The emotion in his voice hit me like a physical force. It moved through my chest, heavy and relentless, turning my heart over and over like a stone in water. My eyes burned before I realized I was crying, tears slipping free and tracking slowly down my face. He watched them fall. He took a step toward me, then stopped, like he’d remembered himself at the last second.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he said, the pain in his voice unmistakable. “Never. You have to believe that. I never wanted this. And I understand if you can’t be with me. I do. I get it. But—”
“I don’t know what to do.” The words tore out of me before I could stop them. They sounded raw, desperate, unfamiliar even to my own ears. Austin froze, clearly just as startled as I was. “I don’t know what to do,” I repeated, my voice breaking apart. “I know I should walk away. I know that. But I don’t want to.”
“What?” he breathed.
“I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure it out. I’m so angry at you, but the thought of never talkingto you again—it hurts. Thinking about walking away from you hurts.” I shook my head, tears continuing to spill without mercy. “I’m trying to understand. I’m trying to make sense of it.” I dragged in a shaky breath. “Fate put me here,” I said quietly. “Fate put you in my path, and me in yours. She brought us together, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what she was trying to teach me.” My voice dropped, softer now. More honest. “Maybe fate knew I wouldn’t trust you,” I whispered. “But maybe… maybe she was asking me to. Maybe fate was sayingtrust me.”
“Blair…” Austin started, but I cut him off.
“Fate put you in front of me and I fell for you,” I said softly. “Maybe it wasn’t my plan, but it was fate’s. And it worked. So maybe I’m not supposed to walk away.”
“Blair,” he tried again, but I kept going, the words spilling out before I could lose them.
“And maybe it wasn’t your plan to fall for me either,” I said, meeting his eyes like a challenge. “But you did.”
“I planned on falling in love with you,” Austin said immediately. The certainty in his voice made my stomach drop. “I planned on it,” he repeated. “I knew the first time we spoke. I fell in love with you before I ever touched your skin.” My breath hitched. The weight of his words pressed down on me, heavy and real, and for a second my heart forgot everything else. Then he shook his head. “But fate?” he said sharply. “That’s bullshit. Fate didn’t bring us together. You and I did. We chose this.” His voice hardened, grounded and unyielding. “And fate doesn’t mean things turn out okay. It doesn’t mean there’s a plan. Bad things happen, Blair. They happen without meaning. Without reason. Without anyone watching over it.”
I opened my mouth to argue, to defend myself, but the words died before they ever reached my tongue. I just stared at him, feeling his truth press in on me, crushing the same heart he’d lifted seconds ago.
“And that’s why what I did to you is worse than you think,” Austin continued quietly. There was something dark in his eyes now. Something stripped bare. “Because I planned on falling in love with you knowing exactly who I was. Knowing what I’d done.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly breathless in all the wrong ways.
“Two years ago,” Austin said. His voice shook, just barely, like he was holding it together through sheer force. “I sold a kid some pills. He took them. He overdosed.” He swallowed hard. “He died.” He looked at me as the words finished settling into the space between us. I felt my face collapse. I felt the air thicken, heavy and suffocating, pressing in on my chest until it was hard to breathe. “It was the worst day of my life,” Austin said quietly. “But I did that, Blair. I did that.”
“I…” My mouth opened, scrambling for something that might help, something that might soften what he’d just said. “I don’t know what to say.” My voice came out broken. “You didn’t do it on purpose.”
The words didn’t comfort him. They didn’t reach him at all. Austin’s jaw tightened, his disappointment sharp and inward, like he was angry at the idea of mercy itself. Not at me. At himself. I tried to breathe. I tried to make my mind absorb what I’d just heard, to place it somewhere I could understand it. But nothing prepared me for what came next.
“And that’s not the only person I let die.”
