I walk around the front and slide into the driver’s seat. The whole truck shifts under my weight. I stick the key in the ignition, and the engine turns over with a reluctant cough before settling into a rough, gravelly idle.
“I feel bad we’re taking his truck,” she says quietly, her hands folded in her lap.
“I’ll drive it back to him once I’ve gotten you home,” I tell her, my eyes on the rearview mirror as I pull out of thehospital parking lot. “Don’t worry about it.” I glance over at her. “Comfortable?”
She offers a small, tired smile and nods. “You’re all fussing over me like I broke a leg or something.”
The smile doesn’t reach her eyes. They’re still shadowed with the remnants of her fear. My own amusement fades, replaced by the heavy weight of the question that’s been burning a hole in my gut.
“What the hell happened, Millie?” I ask, my voice low. “Really. Why did you have a panic attack?”
She turns her head to look out the window, watching the town of Driftwood Cove slide by. The rebuilding efforts are evident everywhere—scaffolding on half-finished buildings, piles of lumber in vacant lots. It’s a town in the process of healing, just like she is.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I saw him and Jessica walk in, and… it was like a switch flipped. One minute I was fine, and the next… I couldn’t breathe.”
Her explanation hangs in the air between us, heavy with unspoken implications. And as she speaks, a bitter taste floods my mouth.
Pathetic. That’s what I am. I’m driving her home, playing the concerned friend, the good guy, all while my heart is a clenched fist in my chest. I’m pining over a girl who is so clearly, so devastatingly, in love with my best friend.
Every moment I spend with her, every comforting word I offer, is just another form of self-torture. I’m a glutton for punishment.
I force the thought down, focusing on the road, on the practicalities. I can’t fall apart right now. She needs me to be solid.
“Do you get them often?” I ask, my voice carefully neutral. “The panic attacks? How come I’ve never known?”
She turns back to look at me, her expression thoughtful. “No. The first time it happened was… the day after I slept with Liam for the first time.” She pauses, and I can feel the weight of that memory in the cab of the truck. “I just thought it was all the endorphins crashing, you know? A weird side effect. It never happened again until today.”
The world outside the windshield blurs. I swallow hard, the sound loud in the sudden silence. The day after she slept with Liam. Of course. It always comes back to Liam. A painful, twisted knot forms in my gut. I’m about to say something selfish, something born entirely of my own frustration and jealousy, and the words come out before I can stop them.
“If you have such strong feelings for him, Millie, why won’t you just date him? Why put yourself through all this?”
Her shoulders slump, and she looks down at her hands. “Because I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t lose him, Maddox. If we… if we tried that and it went wrong… I wouldn’t just be losing a boyfriend. I’d be losing him. My best friend. The person who’s been there for me through everything. I’m not going to lose Liam.”
She looks up at me then, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and I see it. I see the fear that holds her captive. It’s not just about losing Liam. It’s a deeper, more fundamental terror.
“I’m scared,” she admits, her voice cracking. “I’m scared of letting someone in that far. Of them seeing all the broken parts, the parts I don’t even like, and deciding it’s too much. It’s easier to keep people at a distance, you know? To be the friend, the one who’s always okay. Because if they see the real me, the messy, panicked me, they might leave.”
And that’s when it hits me, a punch to the gut that leaves me breathless. We have the same fears. The fear of being seen. Truly seen. I’ve spent my entire adult life building a fortress aroundmy own broken parts—the pain from the fire, the injuries I hide, the love I’ll never speak of.
I put on a brave face, play the strong, silent firefighter, because I’m terrified that if anyone saw how much I’m hurting, how much I’mfeeling, they’d see me as weak. They’d leave. She and I, we’re just two scared people hiding in plain sight.
I don’t say any of that, of course. I just nod, my grip tightening on the steering wheel. The rest of the drive is quiet, a comfortable silence filled with a new, unspoken understanding.
We pull up outside her apartment building. I kill the engine, and the sudden quiet is deafening. “Is there anything you need before we head up?” I ask. “Medicine? Food?”
She shakes her head, managing a real smile this time. “No. I have some leftovers in the fridge. We can just have that.”
“Okay,” I say, my voice soft. “Let’s get you inside.”
We both climb out of the truck.
I keep a hand on the small of her back, a silent offer of support as we walk. The building is quiet, the only sound the soft scuff of our sneakers on the worn concrete.
We’re just a few feet from her door when it happens. Her foot catches on the edge of a loose tread, a small, insignificant imperfection in the concrete. She stumbles forward, a soft gasp escaping her lips, and her full weight collides with my right side.
A sharp, white-hot bolt of pain shoots up my ribs, so intense and unexpected that I can’t stop the hiss that escapes through my clenched teeth. My vision whites out for a second, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out. I instinctively wrap my other arm around her, steadying both of us against the wall, my body a rigid line of agony.
“Whoa, you okay?” she asks, breathless as she finds her footing. She looks up at me, her eyes wide with concern, but then her gaze sharpens. She saw it. She saw my reaction.
