“That’s what you used to say. Two years ago.”
“Yeah, things haven’t changed much since then. I’m still the same asshole. Besides, this isn’t anything that I didn’t deserve, so.”
Her eyes fill with tears and I squeeze her against my body again, her tears enflaming my pain, making my injuries throb.
“I told them,” she confesses. “I only wanted to tell Con but Ledge was home too. I didn’t know that he was going to be there. And Con, he wants me to get an a-abortion and —”
“Doesn’t.Matter,” I snap out again.
Abortion.
My body recoils at the word and I almost fall down on my knees. The only reason I manage to stay upright is because I’ve got her in my arms and I’ll be fucking damned if I’m dropping her.
Fucking abortion.
I want to do something drastic, fuck up this world because of how much I hate that word, but it’s not my decision to make, is it? It’s not mymotherfuckingdecision.
I can feel her blinking up at me, all drowsy. “Where are you taking me?”
“To my car.”
“The one I stole?”
“Yes. The one you stole.”
“How did you get it back to how it was before?”
“What?”
“The car,” she explains. “It feels like before.”
“I worked on it all summer. Back then.”
“All summer?”
“Yeah.”
She hums. “I didn’t mean to do it. To steal your car.”
I squeeze her again. “You’ve already said that.”
“Why were you so mean to me? You said all those things that night. I can never forget them.”
“Because I wanted you to hate me,” I say against the tightness in my throat.
“Why?”
“Because I broke my promise to you.”
She has an adorable frown on her forehead. “Oh. Well, I did. I do. Hate you. And that’s why I’d never tell you.”
“Never tell me what?”
“That you’re a genius.”
“A genius.”
She hums again. “Yeah. A car genius. And a soccer genius. I hate how good you are with things.” She gasps then. “Maybe you should do it for a living. Build cars. And get out of your awful job.”
