She replies with a swift, “Fuck off.”
I press down heavier on the accelerator, flying past the street when Laiken’s hand reaches across the console, latching to the steering wheel. She attempts to make the turn herself.
There’s a horn blaring in front of us when we swerve onto the opposite side of the road. I slide us back into our lane seconds before a sedan flies past us.
My heart is in my mouth.
My life echoes before my eyes.
I jerk the wheel, nosing my truck to the side of the road, my front wheels catching in dips and unfilled potholes. We rock up and down until I pull to a heated stop, ripping up the handbrake, wet dirt spraying violently in our trail.
I turn in my seat to look at her, my chest heaving, ready for a fight, but instead, I find her with her skull against the headrest, closing her eyes.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask, my voice so low.
Laiken’s eyes remain pressed closed and when she folds her arms across her chest, rubbing away the goosebumps that stipple across her bare triceps, a small laugh gurgles in the base of her throat.
It is so broken, so unrecognizable, I want to remove it from my ears the moment it hits.
Her head grinds into the back of the seat when she swivels it to the side, her eyes popping open, latching onto mine.
A chill laces down my back, numbing my legs, my spine.
Laiken’s eyes are empty, her voice walking the same jagged path. “Do you think it would be easier sometimes, if we just, you know…died?”
Every. Fucking. Day.
That’s what I want to say, but instead, I turn away, biting my tongue and spearing my hands through my hair, forcing back a lungful of air.
“Doomed” by Bring Me The Horizon is a low rumble through my speakers. We sit in a still silence, my heart racing as we listen and when the final notes approach, I reach toward her, my hand trembling when I wrap it around the nape of her neck, burying my fingers gently into the skin at the side of her throat.
A friend holding a friend.
A friend that hurt a friend.
And a friend that knows it could have been so much worse.
Still could.
Laiken crawls her fingers up to mine, and they’re so cold, quivering at the bone.
She curls a weak grip around my thumb and with her eyes pressed closed, she guides it away from her, returning my hand to my lap.
I pretend it doesn’t hurt, remind myself that I deserve it.
I drop my chin, bite into my cheek, stare at her hand as it slowly slips away.
“Take me to Nan’s, Chase,” she croaks.
And my hand shakes as I wrap it around the stick, pulling back onto the road, though not turning around.
“Chase,” she warns.
And I pretend I don’t hear her.
The looming bars I’d been expecting come into view. The steel, a sharp shield, spearing all light away.
At sixteen, Jade and I both knew that the Devil’s Peak MC clubhouse was off limits.
