Noah drags a shaky breath, trying—failing—to calm himself.
“I’m trying to help you,” he whispers. “I’m trying to understand what’s happening to you. But you’re shutting me out. Lying to me. Acting like someone else.”
I laugh again, quieter this time.
Not because it’s funny.
Because it hurts.
“Maybe someone else feels better,” I murmur.
He flinches.
The lights outside blur past as the car finally starts, rumbling to life. He peels out of the parking spot with too much force, tires screeching against wet asphalt.
“That’s not you,” he mutters. “You’re not this girl.”
“Maybe I’ve always been this girl,” I say, head tipping against the window, cold glass cooling my feverish skin. “You just loved the version that didn’t make a mess.”
“I love all of you,” he snaps.
“No,” I say softly. “You love the parts you can control.”
He doesn’t answer.
He drives faster.
The city lights smear into streaks of gold and neon.
Rain starts to mist the windshield.
My pulse hums under my skin.
My drunken thoughts tangle, twist, spill.
“You keep trying to fix me,” I whisper. “But you don’t even know what’s broken.”
His grip tightens on the wheel until his knuckles bleach white.
“I know enough.”
“No,” I say, almost laughing. “You know nothing.”
And his voice comes out low and deadly: “Then tell me, Scarlett. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what you’re hiding. Tell me who put that look in your eyes.”
I close my eyes.
The truth trembles on my tongue.
Kai.
Kai.
Kai.
But instead I say: “No one.”
He slams the brakes at a red light, and the whole car jolts as he turns to me with a furious, bewildered, disbelieving look.
