It’s just after ten when I pull up outside the diner.
I leave the engine running for a minute, sitting there with my hands on the wheel, staring at nothing. The hum of the motor fills the silence until I can’t take it anymore and turn the key. The quiet that follows settles around me like a heavy, suffocating weight.
I lean back in my seat.
The neon sign that normally buzzes and flickers as if it’s having a seizure is dark.
The parking lot is mostly empty now. A couple of cars sit near the curb. There’s a pickup truck with rust eating through the wheel well. A sedan that looks older than half the people who eat here. Dented. Faded paint. The kind of car that’s held together by duct tape and prayer.
Even here, I can still feel it. That gnawing feeling that at any second my world could come crashing down.
I stare out the windshield at the empty lot and try not to think about the possibility that this might be my life now. That this is it. Days spent at the hospital sitting beside dad’s bed, holding a hand that doesn’t squeeze back. Talking to someone I have no idea can hear me. Not knowing if the man who raised me will ever open his eyes again. Doctors with their careful voices saying the same two fucking words every single day.
The thought weighs heavily on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I swallow hard and force myself to look at the diner door instead. To focus on something else.
The door swings open, and a group of teenagers spills out into the night, laughing and shoving each other toward a battered car parked under the only working streetlight. Their voices echo across the lot—loud, careless, full of the kind of happiness that comes from people who don’t yet realize how quickly everything can fall to shit in an instant.
I watch them pile into the car. Watch the taillights disappear down the street. Then it’s quiet again.
Just me, the empty parking lot, and the heaviness in my chest that refuses to leave no matter how hard I try.
All day, I watched that video of Tia’s downfall. Over and over. I watched her face crumble and how the cafeteria erupted after she ran.
I should feel guilty about that. I should feel something other than satisfaction.
Instead, it made me smile. A small, petty piece of justice amid everything else falling apart. One thing that went right when nothing else has.
Headlights sweep across my windshield. Bright and blinding for a second before they cut away. A truck pulls into the spot beside me.
I glance over at Noah’s truck. He cuts the engine and steps out. Tall and steady as he always is, as if nothing ever rattles him. He’s probably the only one of us who has his act together even when the rest of us are drowning. He shuts the door and walks toward my car, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets.
I lower the window before he knocks.
I already know what this is. A lecture. Another person who feels the need to warn me about Jace. Telling me I’m making a mistake, that I don’t know what I’m doing, and that in the end, he’s only going to hurt me.
I don’t understand why everyone only sees the surface when they look at him. The jerk. The fuck boy who says whatever he wants and doesn’t apologize. The guy who keeps his distance and acts like he doesn’t give a shit about anything.
That’s not the version of him I see. It’s not the boy who holds me when my chest gets too tight to breathe, who shows up, and who stays.
Noah leans one arm on top of the car door, with a careful expression.
“How are you?” His voice is steady.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically. The words come out flat. Rehearsed.
His eyes slowly scan my face, taking stock and reading the cracks I’m trying to hide.
He doesn’t answer right away. Which means he doesn’t believe me.
Of course he doesn’t. Noah studies people for a living, sees through their bullshit, spots the things others miss. The things people don’t say.
“So,” he says after a moment, his tone softer now, “how are you actually doing?”
I shift in my seat, trying to find an answer that’s honest but not overly so. I’m about to tell him I’m okay considering everything, but the diner door swings open before I get the chance.
Aubrey steps outside.
She’s tying her hair back as she walks, fingers working through the dark strands. Her shoulders slump slightly in that way people do when a shift finally ends and the weight of the day catches up all at once.
