“Can we just stop talking about it?” I cut in. The words came out sharper than I meant them to, and Cherry went still at my tone.
“Okay,” she said quietly. Then, after a beat, “Blair… are you actually okay? Like, really?” She studied my face, taking me in, and I forced myself not to look away. “You look… I don’t know. Pale. You look—”
“I’m fine,” I interrupted again. “You’re being dramatic.” The look on her face was immediate. Hurt. Like I’d slapped her. And I knew why. I wasn’t being the Blair she knew. Not even close. But maybe that was the problem.
“Do you want to do something when we get off?” I asked, watching her tentative smile begin to reform.
“Yes.” She sounded relieved by the question. “Absolutely. Your place? I saw the trailer for this new movie on Netflix…”
“Actually,” I interrupted. “How about something different?”
“Different?” she asked, tilting her head. “Like… what, HBO?”
“No,” I laughed at her expression. “Like different, different.”
“You know me,” she said, sounding closer to herself now, though there was still hesitation there. “I’m up for anything.”
“Good.” I closed my locker, the metal clanging louder than necessary. “We have tomorrow off. I’ve got a full tank of gas. I’m sick of this fucking town, Cherry. Let’s find something new, even if it’s just for tonight.” She froze, clearly unsure what to say. How the tables had turned.
“Sure,” she said anyway, just like I knew she would. She was always here for me, even when I couldn’t let her be here for me completely.
“Okay.” Excitement spread across my face, sharp and almost dizzying. This was what I needed. I needed Cherry. I needed Cherry, and I needed to become someone new. Someone different. Someone… someone else.
I left her standing there, still processing, as I turned and walked back onto the floor. Maybe tonight would be a new beginning. I needed that. I needed a new story. One that didn’t involve fate at all. One that didn’t involve living for other people.
Because that’s what I’d been doing, wasn’t it? Living for Holden. Living for my parents. Living for Cherry.
But not for Blair.
I had built this version of myself from the ground up. Constructed her. Created her. She was born from trauma andshaped by fear. I made her for everyone else. I thought I was becoming someone people could love. But she was a character. And that character was built on lies. Whose lies? I wasn’t sure. Maybe my own. Maybe my idea of who I was supposed to be, so that my life would unfold the way fate wanted it to. I thought fate was the author of my story. But it turned out no one was.
Cherry was sitting in my passenger seat, but it was nothing like the countless times she’d sat there before. Usually, she pressed her back fully into the seat, her feet propped up wherever she could get away with it. Sometimes on the dash, sometimes on the seat, sometimes curled beneath her, crisscrossed like a toddler. Her head was usually tilted against the headrest, one hand drifting lazily out the open window like the world couldn’t touch her. Not tonight. Tonight, Cherry sat rigidly straight, as if she were riding in a stranger’s car. Not just any stranger either. The kind of stranger your mom insists is safe. The kind you’ve only spoken to three times. The kind where you’re both silently hoping the ride ends as quickly as possible.
“So…” Cherry finally said, glancing at me the same way she’d been looking at me all night. Carefully. Like I might break. She didn’t know what I was about to do. And for the first time, that made me the unpredictable one. I smiled at her and waited. She shifted in her seat. The silence stretched. “What did you have in mind?” she asked at last.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Where do you usually get your alcohol from?” I’d never asked her that before. I’d never been curious. Alcohol had always just appeared around Cherry like it was summoned. Age had never seemed to matter.
She stiffened even more, if that was possible. “Uh… why?”
“Well,” I said lightly, “what do you usually do with alcohol, Cherry? You should know.” I almost laughed at the way she was looking at me now. Like she was the parent. Had she always been like this, and I just never noticed?
“You want to drink?” she asked. The words sounded foreign coming out of her mouth, like she didn’t quite believe them.
“Should we?” I smiled, lifting my eyebrows the way I’d watched her do a thousand times at the mere mention of booze.
She shook her head. “What? Seriously, what? When’s the last time you even drank?”
“At that party,” I said casually, turning the key in the ignition. The engine started. I pulled out onto the road, refusing to look at her. I could feel her stare anyway. Like I was made of glass, but fogged over, impossible to see through.
“You drank?” she asked slowly. “Did that have anything to do with—”
“No,” I cut in sharply. I wouldn’t hear his name. Not from her. Not tonight.
“Okay,” she said quietly, letting the thought trail off.
“So?” I pressed. “Where do you get it from?”
She hesitated, her fingers twisting together in her lap. “I guess it depends. I could ask Lucas and Killian. They have fake IDs.”
