“Thank you.” He closes the door carefully and circles to the driver’s side.
“Are you cold?”
I nod. Apparently my shivering didn’t get past him. I wonder if anything does.
He reaches to the backseat and pulls out a dinosaur blanket. It’s ridiculous, but I put it over my knees.
“Why do you have a dinosaur blanket?”
“It’s Noah’s,” he explains.
I tense.
“Cole’s kid,” he adds.
Right. Cole Hudson. The singer of “One Last Kiss.” Caspian’s friend.Maria has told me all about it.
“Do you want to talk about it? Report him?” Caspian asks.
I shake my head. “I want to forget it.”
Anything else is useless. It’s one of the extracurricular lessons I learned in school.
“Okay,” he says. No pressure. No judgment. Just acceptance.
I look out the window as familiar trees and houses blur past. I wish the drive would take longer, but our house is close to the campus.
Only a few traffic lights left.
I know I’ll never forget what happened. The panic, the helplessness, the fear. Then the moment Caspian stepped in and turned danger into safety.
I fidget with the blanket.
“So you’re not friends with him?”
Caspian looks genuinely offended.
“No,” he says. “We have mutual acquaintances. That’s it.”
A shaky breath escapes before I can contain it. “Oh.”
I feel relief, but it’s painful and heavy—the kind that will crush me the second I stop holding it back.
I try to focus on something else, like the ridiculously fancy interior of his car. The center console has black panels and the symbols glow invitingly.
“Your car looks like a spaceship,” I mutter.
He laughs. It sounds like a melody.
“What happens if I touch this?” I ask, my fingers hovering above the symbols.
“Please don’t—,” Caspian starts, but it’s too late.
I already touched one. Soft piano notes fill the car, and then Elvis Presley is singing that he can’t help falling in love.
Caspian makes a strangled sound, and I watch how his ears turn red.
Panicking, I touch the panel again, but it only gets worse.
