She groans, pressing her fingers to her temples. “You always do this! You insert yourself where you don’t belong!”
I huff out a breath. “Jake is a fucking creep, and you know it.” My eyes darken around the sound of his name.
“You love to scare off any guys that have ever laid their eyes on me. Do you find enjoyment in that?” She glares, eyes like daggers digging into me, waiting for a response.
I exhale sharply, raking a hand through my disheveled hair. “Nobody has ever been good enough for you.”
There is a beat of silence between us as the air crackles thick and suffocating in the cab.
“Who the hell are you to decide that?” She finally asks in return. “You don’t get to play God with my life, Alex.”
“I know you, Emiliana,” I shoot back, serious and unrelenting. “I know what you need. I know what you deserve. And it sure as hell isn’t Jake Pearson putting his hands on you like that.”
I can see the way she swallows something down, that she knows what I said is true.
“So what exactly do you think I deserve then?”
I look over at the passenger seat and bare my eyes into hers. “More.”
The word hangs between us, heavy and dangerous. She doesn’t respond and we are silent for a couple minutes. I focus on the road ahead, driving through the dark roads of town, guided only by the street lights glowing warm, yellow-orange tones.
“What the hell do you want, Alex?” Emma demands, breaking the silence once again.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing anymore,” I admit, the words coming out louder and more honest than I planned. “I don’t know what I want.”
She lets out a bitter laugh. “That’s obvious.”
I glance at her, my pulse kicking up. “But Idoknow I can’t stand being away from you.” My voice is full of frustration now, and something dangerous that I am tired of fighting. “I feel like I can’t breathe when you're not around, and it’s driving me insane.”
She flinches like she wasn’t expecting that confession.
“Stop,” she mutters, shaking her head.
“No.” My grip on the wheel tightens. “I’ve spent years trying to pretend I didn’t care. Trying to convince myself that it didn’t matter if you hated me. That you were right when you saidwhat we had wasn’t real,” I scoff, shaking my head. “But it was real, Em. And itstill is.”
She’s silent, as if trying to process my words.. Then, suddenly, the storm inside of her explodes.
“You don’t get to do this, Alex,” she says, voice filled with something dark, something meant. “You don’t get to show up and say shit like that whenyou’rethe one that made me feel miserable in the first place.”
I wince, but don’t look away. “I never meant to?—”
“Oh, spare me,” she spits out. “You knew what you were doing. You always knew.”
I pull up to her house, throwing the truck in park, but neither of us move. The air between us is charged with the weight of everything we still haven’t said pressing down like a damn boulder, trying to force us to say it now.
She shakes her head, shoving the door open. “I can’t do this with you.”
I move on instinct, following her before she can disappear inside.
“Emiliana, wait.”
She whirls around, eyes blazing. “No! Don’t follow me home, Alex! You say all this shit and expect me to just—what? Fall into your arms?” She lets out a humorless laugh. “You don’t get to be the one who’s hurt when you’re the reason I—” She cuts off, her voice catching.
I step closer. “The reason you what?”
She presses her lips together, blinking rapidly. I know her well enough to know that she’s trying to keep herself from being vulnerable and breaking right in front of me. She shakes her head. “Just go.”
“No.”
