Finally, she turns around to face me, and her eyes meet mine through the windshield. The look on her face does something to me.
She jerks her chin toward the house.
“Come inside.”
My feet seem heavier than they should when I step out of the car.
This is the part where I should walk away. Give her space. Let her fix the fallout without me standing in the middle of it, making everything worse just by existing.
Instead, I follow her to the front door.
“Come inside,” she says again.
I hesitate on the porch. She shouldn’t have to choose me and lose everything she cares about. She shouldn’t have to trade her best friends for some fucked-up asshole who’s only going to disappoint her in the end anyway.
She pushes the door open and steps inside. I’m still standing here, frozen between leaving and staying, between doing the right thing and doing what I truly want, which is to stay.
“Jace.”
I step forward, one foot in front of the other, crossing the threshold into the house.
She closes the door behind me.
“You’re going to regret this,” I say.
Her head slowly turns toward me. “Regret what?”
“Choosing me.”
There it is. The fear I’ve been holding onto since I stepped in front of her car this morning. Since I kissed her that first time. Since I let myself feel anything beyond surface level. The truth that’s been eating at my insides every time she looks at me without flinching, every time she doesn’t treat me the way I deserve to be treated.
Her eyes don’t soften. They harden, sharp enough to draw blood if I’m not careful.
“I didn’t choose you,” she says evenly, toeing off her boots near the door, “I chose myself. Plus, they’re not my whole world. They made that clear when they decided ghosting me was easier than showing the fuck up.”
That makes me look at her. The tightness around her mouth. The way she keeps her chin lifted even though I can see how much it cost her to stand out there and burn those bridges. The exhaustion etched into the space beneath her eyes.
I should crack a joke, make it lighter. Pretend this isn’t heavy enough to crush both of us.
Instead, I say the thing I don’t want to.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Defend me.”
Her jaw tightens slightly. “I wasn’t defending you. I was simply stating the truth.”
But the truth is I’m exactly what Aubrey said I am. I am a walking red flag with a reputation that follows me into every room. I’m the kind of guy who peaks in high school and spends the rest of his life wondering why nothing ever gets better.
“The truth,” I say slowly, “is that they’re right about me.”
“Are they,” she says, turning. She pads down the hallway in her socks.
It’s warm here. Not the thin, useless kind that leaks out of cracked trailer windows and disappears before it reaches your bones.
Lola enters the kitchen and places her keys on the counter.
