“Why’d you offer to drive me?” I ask, breaking the silence.
“Because I didn’t want you out here alone, walking in the dark.” His jaw tightens again as his knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. I see the way his forearms flex, the veins in his hands standing out and the moonlight reflecting off the scars on his knuckles. The scars I subconsciously drew in my sketchbook only a couple hours earlier.
I was with him the day it happened.
We were walking through town one afternoon. The streets were busy with kids out of school for the summer. It had been a couple weeks since Mom had passed and some teenage boy made a rude comment about my “dead mom” as we were walking past him. The second the guy opened his mouth again, Alex stepped between us, shoving me behind him like I was something breakable.
“Say it again,” he said, dangerous in a way I’d never heard before.
The boy laughed in his face.
Big mistake.
Alex’s fist connected with the boy’s face before I could even say his name to stop him. He caught his knuckles on the boy’s teeth, splitting them clean open, blood blooming in seconds, dripping onto the hot concrete below. The whole thing was chaotic after that. Shouting, scrambling, people trying to pull Alex off of him, Cam yelling from somewhere. I don’t remember all of it, only the red streaks down Alex’s wrist and forearm, and the way nothing in the world mattered to himexcept me. As if at that moment, he would go to any length to protect me.
Later that day I found him down by the lake, sitting on a flat rock ledge where we used to skip rocks. He was rinsing the blood off with his hand in the water. His face still looked tense and burning with rage, refusing to look at me, as if expecting me to be upset with him for what he did.
“You’re such an idiot,” I’d said, dropping down next to him.
I took his hand anyway, holding it gently in my palm. My thumb brushed over his split knuckles as the blood mixed with the lake water. The world had never felt so sharp and alive than in that moment.
“For you,” he responded, like that explained everything. And maybe it did.
Now I notice that the scars never healed right. There’s a thin, pale line across his middle knuckles and fingers. The faintest reminder of the moment where something shifted between us, before we even knew it.
And for oneinsanesecond, I think about what that hand would look like wrapped around my throat like a necklace, holding me in place as he makes me forget every bad thing that’s ever happened.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I rip my gaze away from his hands, angry at myself, angry at him, just…angry.
“You always think I need saving, don’t you?” I finally huff out.
He exhales hard through his nose, shaking his head. “Jesus, Em. I’m not trying to save you. I’m trying to…” His words cut off as he swipes a hand through his hair, making it even messier than it already is. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to do.”
Folding my arms across my chest, I try to contain the anger but it’s fighting to be released. “You don’t get to act like I’m still your problem. You lost that right a long time ago.”
His head whips towards me, his eyes piercing through the armor I swore I had reforged by now. “Don’t do that. Don’t sit there and pretend like I didn’t matter. Likewedidn’t matter.”
I flinch at how hard and unexpected his words hit.
Damn it.
“We obviously didn’t matter enough to make me stay in this god forsaken town.” I snap, before I can stop myself. I take a moment to catch my breath, realizing my anger is making me lash out.“I didn’t mean that, I just—you think Iwantedto leave? Do you really think it didn’t kill me to walk away from you?”
His foot eases off the gas. The truck hums lower, gravel crunching under the tires as it coasts. “You obviously wanted to because you did,” he bites out. “You left anyway. You left me, Em. And you didn’t even give me the chance to fight for you.”
My chest caves in and burns hot all at once.
“I couldn’t stay here, Alex,” I whisper, shaking my head hard as my breath falters. My nails dig crescents into the soft fabric of my jeans. “I couldn’t breathe here anymore. Not afterher. Every street, every room, every goodman inch of this town reminded me she wasn’t coming back. And you—you reminded me too.” I choke on the words. “You made me feel safe, and I hated it because it made me weak. I was drowning and I couldn’t drag you under with me.”
His jaw works hard, throat bobbing with a thick swallow. His hand lifts off the wheel and rubs roughly over his mouth, like he’s trying to wipe away every word I just said.
“Do you really think I wouldn’t have drowned with you? That I wouldn’t have chosen to sink if it meant keeping you close?” His voice is raw as he continues, “I would’ve carried every ounce of that grief for you if you’d let me. Hell, I wanted to. But you didn’t give me the chance. You just ran.”
I suck in a breath so shaky that it feels like my ribs might splinter.
“Loving you wasn’t enough to make me stay. I thought it would be. Iwantedit to be, but it wasn’t.”
