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I’m in bed with a book I’m not reading when my phone buzzes. I look at the screen.

Rafe?

Rafe: What time are you done tomorrow?

I stare at his question. What?

Me: Why?

The dots come up.

They go away.

They come back. They stay for a long time. Long enough that I sit up in bed. Long enough that I can picture him three doors down, sitting on the edge of his bed with his phone in his hand and his jaw doing that thing, typing something and deleting it, typing something and deleting it.

They go away again.

Rafe: Answer the question.

I look at it for a long time, heart in the races. Then I type.

Me: Four.

I send it and wait.

Nothing comes back. No dots. No reply. Just the word Delivered under my message, and then, a minute later, Read.

I lie back down and look at the ceiling.

And I know, the way I know anything about him, all the way down in my stomach, that he’s planning something.

I have absolutely no idea what this time because I never know what to expect with this new Rafe.

12

That’s Called an Empty Seat

Rafe

Tessa:Four.

That’s all she sends. One word. And I sit on the edge of my bed with the phone in my hand and stare at it, and now I have to figure out what the fuck I’m doing.

I asked before I knew. My thumbs typed What time are you done tomorrow? while the rest of me screamed not to hit send. I fucking hit send before I’d decided anything at all. I knew I wanted to know when she was done. I hadn’t gotten around to admitting why.

Now I know why.

I’m going to offer her a ride.

And I hate it. Not the ride. I don’t care about the ride. I’m driving to the same town she grew up in, on the same highway, in a car with an empty seat. What I hate is that I already know exactly what she’s going to hear when I say it.

Charity. Pity. Money. Control. Rafe Waleska deciding where she goes again.

And she’d be right. That’s what makes it impossible. Three weeks ago, I stood in a stairwell and offered to pay a year of her rent to make her disappear. Now I’m going to offer to drive her home. There’s no version of that she’s going to believe. There’s no version of that I’d believe, if I were her.

I open the thread and type.

I’m going your way.