I don’t cry.
I refuse.
Instead, I walk.
Halfway down the street, headlights cut through the storm.
A familiar truck slows.
Dax rolls down the window. “Get in.”
“I’m fine.”
“Red.”
That tone.
I climb in.
The cab smells like him. Leather and heat and something grounding.
We sit in silence for a block.
Then I snap. “I was stupid.”
“Hey—”
“I knew better,” I continue. “A year of letters and I let myself believe?—”
He grips the wheel. “He didn’t stand you up.”
I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Sure felt like it.”
“The roads?—”
“Always an excuse,” I cut in. “That’s what they say when they don’t show.”
He pulls over abruptly.
Snow pelts the windshield. A whiteout blinds the road in front of us.
He turns to face me fully.
“Look at me.”
I do.
His eyes are dark. Intent. Stripped bare.
“You weren’t stupid,” he says. “You were brave.”
My breath hitches.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he says quietly. “Because whoever he is? He’s an idiot for missing tonight.”
Something twists inside me—relief and pain tangled together.
