I close my eyes, swallowing the sticky knot in my throat.
Minutes whisk by while I’m lost to my battling thoughts. The car smells like a bamboo diffuser and the faint trace of woodsy cologne. I don’t look at Chase; I can’t. All I do is stare out the dust-streaked window until we pull into my brother’s driveway and I launch myself out of the vehicle.
“Annalise.”
He follows me. My work heels slow me down, his gait doubling mine. I whip around to face him, panicked, teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. “What did I just do?” I croak out, shaking my head back and forth. “God. I can’t believe I—”
“Hey. It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s fixable.”
My chest feels like it’s crumbling, the falling debris making my stomach churn. I almost double over. “Oh God…”
“Annie, listen.” Chase takes both of my hands in his, squeezing softly, centering me. “It’s okay. I promise. Fuck what I said last night. It was stupid, presumptuous, and clearly counterproductive. You were right. I don’t know you, and you never asked for my advice.”
His hands are calloused and cool, but his touch warms me. Defrosts my frozen bits. And I don’t understand it. We’re essentially strangers, yet I feel comfortable with him.
Safe.
The thought only heightens my nerves again.
It jumbles my thoughts until I blurt out the unexpected: “I almost killed him.”
His grip on me tightens, just for a breath, and then he lets me go. “What?”
I take a step back, nearly tripping over the first porch step. “Five years ago. Alex. He was teaching me how to drive, and we got into this argument, and I…” My eyes slam shut, memories pervading, intruding. “I lost control. Hit a tree. And he…he almost died.”
Chase studies me beneath the awning, his whiskey-brown eyes digging. “Shit,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”
I cross my arms, nails biting into my skin. “I walked away with a few scratches, while he suffered a TBI. He was never the same. A lot of the time, things are good. He’s loving, attentive, spoils me. But when he’s under pressure, frustrated…he’s like a different person. Mean, angry, volatile.” The words feel polluted on my tongue, like admitting it makes it more real. More damning. I wrap my arms tighter around myself, trying to hold in the ache. “But I can’t blame him for that. I did this to him. I broke him.”
Chase exhales, raking a hand through his hair.
“I know what you’re thinking. That I should’ve left him a long time ago. That I’m making excuses.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just watches me, his expression hard to read, until finally, he says, “I think you’re carrying something too heavy for one person to bear.”
I swallow, pressing my fingers against my temples. “There’s only me. I’m all he has. His parents moved to Rome, and they’re hardly in the picture. Theyjust abandoned him—left him with a restaurant and all this trauma. He’s an only child, has no friends, no relationships. What kind of person walks away?” My breath is shaky, riddled with despair. “What kind of person just gives up on someone like that?”
Chase shifts his weight, his hands flexing at his sides like he wants to reach for me again but doesn’t. “I don’t have any answers for you,” he says. “But I don’t think you’re asking the right questions.”
The words settle between us, heavy and unmovable.
My throat tightens. I dig my fingertips into my temples, trying to force some clarity into the dust storm inside my head. Chase doesn’t push, doesn’t fill the silence with empty reassurances or platitudes. He just stands there, watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
I blow out a breath and step back, sinking onto the porch steps. The wooden slats creak as I drape my arms over my knees, staring down at the cracks in the pavement. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,” I admit.
Chase hesitates before lowering himself beside me. He stretches his legs out, hands clasped loosely between his knees. “Sometimes it’s easier that way. Talking to someone who doesn’t have a stake in it.”
I nod, grinding the heel of my stiletto into a weed-laden groove. “No judgment. No expectations.”
“No history,” he adds.
The mood shifts, less strained now, something more delicate settling into place. The porch light flickers above, moths flitting toward the glow, chasing the elusive warmth.
“You were sixteen?”
I glance at Chase, rolling my lips between my teeth.
“When you had the accident,” he clarifies.
