Bennet is squatting down next to me inside the passenger door with both hands raised, palms out, and his face has lost every sharp edge it's been carrying.
"You're in the car," he says, dropping his voice low. "You're in Los Angeles. You're safe."
I'm gripping the seat with both hands. My knuckles are white. My chest is heaving, and there are tears on my face. Thetraffic passing in a roar sound like it's coming from very far away.
"Blaire." He says my name again with the same steadiness, and it pulls me another inch back toward the surface. "Can you tell me where you are?"
"The —" My voice is hoarse. I swallow. "The car."
"Yeah." He doesn't move closer. Doesn't reach for me. Just stays exactly where he is with his hands up and his eyes on mine. "The car. Just off Highway One." A beat. "He's not here."
I look at him.
He holds my gaze and nods.
"Come back to me. Right here with me. He's not here," he says again.
I release the seat. My hands are shaking, and I press them flat against my thighs and breathe — in for four, out for four — until the traffic sounds come back to normal volume and the interior of the car stops feeling like it's contracting.
Bennet sits back slowly. He doesn't ask me to explain it or confirm that I'm okay, because I'm clearly not okay and we both know it.
He just reaches into the back seat and comes back with one of the waters from the gas station and holds it out.
I take it, but my hands are still shaking when I try to unscrew the cap, and my fingers won't cooperate. I feel a fresh wave of humiliation on top of everything else. He takes the bottle back without a word, opens it, and brings it to my lips.
"Drink."
The water is cold, and I focus on that, take three long swallows before he lowers it and caps it, setting it in the cup holder between us.
The traffic moves past in a steady rumbling. Somewhere a horn sounds, distant and ordinary, and the ordinariness of it helps.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand. My mascara is probably destroyed. I can't find it in me to care.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"Don't be."
"I don't usually—" I stop. Start again. "I'm sorry." Like an overflowing dam, I can’t take the pressure, and a sob escapes me before I can stop it. I cover my face with my hands as even more humiliation washes over me.
Bennet pulls my legs around so that I’m facing him and wraps me in his arms. One hand rests on my back, the other on the back of my head. It takes a few minutes, but eventually, I wrap my arms around him. Burying my face in his neck. He pulls me closer.
"You’re safe."
For the first time since I woke up screaming, I actually believe it.
Ten Years Ago – Blaire
I catch myself watching him again. Michael Bennett. Captain of the debate team, the tallest person in the junior class by a significant margin, owner of exactly five hoodies that he rotates with the loyalty of someone who has decided comfort wins. Today, it's my favorite gray one that says ‘Ew People.’ Baggy jeans. His hair does whatever it wants, which is apparently the only policy he has about it.
Jessica Fullerton has been hovering at his locker for ten minutes.
He doesn't seem to notice, which is somehow both oblivious and magnetic at the same time. He has this quality — a quiet confidence, and it attracts a certain kind of girl. The kind who can tell the difference between someone who is cool and someone who simply doesn't care about being cool and finds the second thing infinitely more interesting.
I've noticed it since freshman year.
I've spoken maybe thirty words to him total, and most of those were strategic — keeping him at a safe enough distance that Colt's jealousy never had reason to fully land on him. Colt notices everything. Who I talk to, who talks to me, who looks too long at anything he considers his. Keeping Michael Bennett at arm's length has been less about disinterest and more about protection, which is a thing I've never said out loud.
The first time we actually spoke was at the assembly sophomore year. He sat next to me in the auditorium and looked over and said, with complete sincerity,You have a really pretty collarbone.
