Chapter 31
Emmett
The track isn’t as busy as it was yesterday. There are still people milling about, riders making deeper grooves in the dirt with each lap. Some talking, some tinkering like we are.
I’m not sure why I was expecting another blow out the second we arrived, but I shook in my seat the whole way here. Even as we unloaded Envy and all Tristen’s tools, I vibrated so hard I could barely help.
But then there’s another person that nods their heads and greets Tristen like they know him.
Do they know him?
Is he … popular?
He smiles. Says ‘sup’ on more than one occasion.
Then buries his face back in the frame of the bike.
His nails are stained black around the beds. There’s a smear on his cheek and forehead from where he wiped at it.
Just as there’s a darkness beneath his eyes and a purpling around the splits in his skin.
My stomach twists up.
That sticker fell off his brow. It could bleed any moment, couldn’t it?
“Ah, shit,” Tristen hisses, and I jolt like I’ve been caught watching something I shouldn’t have been.
My face goes hot.
“Can you—” He tips his head to something inside the bike that he’s working on. “Lift that up for me. Aht—” I freeze with my hands midair and look up at him. “Don’t get your sleeves dirty, bubbles.”
My stomach flips and I release the hold I have on the cuffs of the hoodie, freeing my hands.
I have no idea what he’s doing—what I’m doing—but he hums something that sounds appreciative and reaches back inside.
It makes my stomach flutter.
“And,” he drags out, his words accompanied by the click of a ratchet then a grunt. “Done.”
The small grin on his face flashes and my cheeks get hotter.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I don’t mean to say it. Or at least, say it that way, but I regret it the moment it slips past my lips.
Tristen’s face falls into a tight-lipped forced smile and I hate it.
“A lot but, maybe elaborate.”
My chest goes tight.
He doesn’t say it in a mean way or with malice, but I can see it in the way his shoulders tighten ever so slightly. The twitch in his brow. The flex of his dirty fingers.
“I-I didn’t mean that. Never mind.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t do that. Say what you were gonna say.”
“I…”
I wipe my hands on my pants and curl them back into my sleeves.
“You think there’s something wrong with me?”
“I—”
“Emmett.”
I stiffen and drop my gaze to the ground. There are loose parts around where Tristen’s kneeling. Tools. A chunk of the green cover he pulled off.
I don’t belong here.
A lump forms in my throat and I try to swallow around it.
“It’s okay, bub.”
I shake my head.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.” Even my own voice sounds off. Monotone. Like it came from someone else instead of me.
The tools all blend together in one shining green blob of nothingness.
“Bubbles.”
Something touches my chin, and I jump. Stumble. Fall back on my ass and gasp.
“Nonononono.”
“Hey, hey. Em, look at me.”
A sound wedges itself out past the rock in my throat that sounds an awful lot like a whimper, and I draw my knees up. Hug my legs to my chest.
“I’m a selfish asshole. I’m s-sorry. Sorry.”
“You’re only an asshole if you decide to judge me for what’s wrong with me.”
My ears ring. “What?”
“You’re only selfish if you think what’s wrong with me makes me less than you.”
Less than? Me?
“No. No.”
“Okay. I didn’t think so.” There’s pressure on my shoulders and I flinch. “Then say what you were gonna say.”
“I …” I curl up tighter. “I just don’t understand you.”
His bark of laughter makes me jump and I lean away from the hand he’s got on the top of my back.
“I don’t understand me either.”
I can feel him move away. Back towards the bike. The clang of tools confirming where he went and that he stepped away from me.
I force a breath.
It’s filled with earth and fuel.
I take another.
Sage and leather.
“You smile a lot.”
“You don’t,” he quips right back.
Huffing, I tighten the band around my shins and press my forehead into my knees. The bluntness of bone hurts to roll against.
I want to slam down on them. Bash my head until I’m unconscious and bleeding out.
Would that make me … normal? To smile more?
I test it in the cavern creating by my body, allowing my thighs to see my lips curl at the corners.
I think.
It feels so weird that clamp my teeth down on them.
“Okay, bubbles. C’mon.”
When I glance up, the light makes me squint. It surrounds Tristen like an outline, shining from somewhere behind him.
It’s so distracting that I don’t realize his hand is out again, hovering between us, until he wiggles his fingers.
“Would it make me normal to?”
Tristen’s responding smile looks sad. Disappointed maybe. I’m not really sure what it means, and it makes my stomach twist up.
“No. Being you is what makes you normal. Everyone else is just a fake.”
I chew on the cuff of my sleeve.
“So, what’s that make you?”
“Horny, hungry, and tired.”
My face heats and my wide gaze drops to his boots.
Does that mean—
“I’m only slightly joking. Now c’mon, bubs. Ride with me.”
My entire neck feels hot.
“But you just said …”
He hums and crouches close, his fingers hovering over my forearm.
“And I promised you a ride. So, we ride. The rest is for me to figure out.”
Those digits dance softly over my sleeve, though they feel like they’re touching my skin, before turning over and he offers his grip once again.
I swallow and I take it.