Chapter 12 #3
Safe, maybe. But were the benefits of boring worth it?
I wasn’t sure anymore. I sighed as I reached the front door, not bothering with the peephole before pulling it open.
I already had my guesses about who it might be.
Kids with wagons full of chocolate bars.
Girls selling cookies. Young men holding Bibles and polite smiles.
But it wasn’t any of them. It was Austin. I knew something was wrong immediately.
He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before, now wrinkled and careless.
Dark shadows sat beneath his eyes, and his hair was a mess in a way I had never seen before—like he’d run his hands through it too many times and never stopped to fix it.
He had been pacing the length of my porch, fingers buried in his hair, restless.
The moment he saw me, he froze. Then he crossed the distance between us quickly, his hands lifting in front of him like he expected me to shut the door in his face.
“Blair,” he said, the word tumbling out fast. And I frowned. Not because he was here. But because he hadn’t called me Yellow.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, my face pinching in confusion.
Austin’s mouth opened slightly, like he was about to answer, but then he stopped himself.
He closed it again and shook his head. His eyes kept flicking over my shoulder, like he was expecting Holden to appear again.
He was watching me just as closely as I was watching him.
Measuring. Waiting. It made my stomach tighten.
And the thing was, I had no idea what was happening, which said a lot, because I was usually good at reading people.
“Austin?” I said his name again, easing the door open a little wider. “Good morning?” The words came out sounding more like a question than a greeting.
“I—uh.” His gaze flicked past me, into my house, like he was looking for something. Or someone. I had no idea which. “Is everything okay?”
My confusion deepened as he repeated the exact question I’d just asked him.
“What?” I paused, giving him space to explain himself.
He didn’t. “Everything’s fine,” I said slowly.
“But I’m more concerned about whether you’re okay.
And why you’re standing on my porch at eight in the morning looking like you haven’t slept. ”
“Right,” Austin nodded, clearing his throat. For the first time since I’d met him, the air between us felt… off. Uneven. Awkward in a way that didn’t belong to either of us. “No,” he said finally, forcing a small smile. “I’m good, Yellow.”
But the way he said it told me he wasn’t, and even through the awkward energy hanging between us, the fact that he’d called me Yellow again was enough to soften the knot in my stomach. Not completely, but enough.
“So…” I shrugged, letting a small laugh slip out. “Why are you here?”
“Oh.” Austin answered a little too quickly.
“I was wondering if you’d want to get breakfast. With me.
” I blinked. Once. Then again. Something in my chest told me he hadn’t come all this way just to ask me to breakfast, and I paused, trying to understand where that feeling was coming from.
“Please?” he added, and for the first time since I’d opened the door, he smiled.
And just like that, it felt harder to say no. “Yeah,” I nodded. “Okay. Just… let me tell my mom.” I stepped back through the still-open doorway, leaning my head into the quiet house. “Mom, I’m going out.”
“Who’s at the door, Blair?” her voice called out, followed immediately by the sound of her footsteps. She appeared in the entryway seconds later.
“Oh,” she said, catching sight of Austin. “It’s the boy.” She lifted her brows at the two of us, and I fought the urge to disappear into the floor.
“Mom,” I muttered, attempting a stern glare that absolutely did not land. She laughed instead.
“Good morning, Jane,” Austin said easily, his confidence snapping back into place like it had never left. “Is it alright if I take your beautiful daughter out to get some food?”
My mom tilted her head, leaning back against the wall as she crossed her arms. “Well, of course it is.”
“Great,” I said quickly, too quickly, already stepping outside. “Goodbye.” I was fully committed to not looking back when Austin spoke again.
“Yellow?”
“Yep?” I pressed my lips together, desperate to escape the knowing look I was certain my mom was giving us.
“Are you forgetting something?” he asked, a low chuckle slipping from his chest.
“What? No.”
“You sure?” His smile turned unmistakably amused as his gaze dropped downward.
I followed it. Straight to my feet. The fuzzy pink slippers I was still wearing stared back at me.
“I mean, if that’s what you want to wear, Yellow, I’m fine with it,” he continued, and I fought the rising realization of my own stupidity. “They’re cute. Like you.”
“No,” I sighed at last, staring down at my slippers for another second before my embarrassment melted into a giggle. “Just give me a second.”
“Anything for you, Yellow,” Austin winked, and the familiar tingles flared again, settling warmly under my skin.
After I changed into actual shoes, Austin led me to his car.
The strange energy he’d shown up with that morning had faded, mostly, but something was still off.
He wasn’t looking at me the way he usually did.
It was subtle, but noticeable all the same.
He seemed restless as he started the engine, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel in a way that felt almost nervous.
“Actually,” I said carefully, “do you mind taking me to The Pitt?”
“What?” Austin glanced briefly at me before returning his eyes to the road. “You want to eat where you work?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I left my car there last night.”
“Oh.” He nodded once, still not looking at me. “Of course.”
Silence filled the car. Austin focused on driving with an intensity I hadn’t seen before, hands tight on the wheel, jaw set.
I shifted in my seat, my thoughts starting to spiral despite my best efforts to stop them.
Maybe I was reading too much into it. That was something I was good at, something I’d learned the hard way.
Living with Holden’s addiction had trained me to notice the things most people ignored.
Body language. Speech patterns. Fidgeting.
Avoiding eye contact. All the things Austin was doing now.
“Yellow,” he said, pulling me out of my thoughts. I realized then that I’d been staring at him, really staring, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when he noticed. “I, uh… I have to admit something. I didn’t come to your house just to take you to breakfast.”
“Oh?” I said. My stomach clenched anyway, irrational and automatic. I had been trained to expect the worst from confessions. From pauses. From the space between words.
“Yeah,” Austin nodded once. “The truth is… I saw your brother last night.” I went still. I’d already assumed that much. It explained the tension, the pacing, the way he’d shown up looking like he hadn’t slept. But it didn’t explain this.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “He got home from rehab yesterday.” My voice trailed off on purpose, leaving the door open.
“Right,” he said, finally looking at me. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. It was the same look he’d given me when Cherry was drugged. Careful. Measured. Like he was bracing himself for me to fall apart. Why?
“Look,” Austin said, his voice dropping.
“I need to be honest with you about something.” The seriousness in his tone made my chest tighten.
“I kind of…” He hesitated, exhaling through his nose.
“I kind of know Holden.” My brows pulled together, but I stayed quiet.
I waited. “We weren’t friends,” he continued quickly, like he needed to clarify that part immediately.
“But we used to… run in the same circles. Hang around the same people.” He said it like a confession.
Like he was standing in front of me barehanded, waiting to see what I’d do with the truth.
“Okay,” I said, even though something cold was already forming in my gut. Holden’s voice echoed in my head from the night before. Don’t ever let anyone change your mind.
“And you know how I told you I’ve done things in my past,” Austin went on.
“Things I’m not proud of.” He glanced away again, fingers tightening on the steering wheel.
The air in the car felt heavier now. Like we’d crossed some invisible line where pretending wasn’t possible anymore.
I didn’t interrupt him. I was afraid of what would happen if I did.
“Do you do drugs?” I interrupted him, watching his face carefully, because I needed to know the answer.
“What?” Austin looked startled, his eyes darting between the road and me. “No. I just smoke weed, and you know I don’t even do it that often any—”
“Did you do drugs?” I cut in again, firmer this time. I needed the truth. Not reassurance. Not tone. Truth.
I realized then that I had asked him this same question the night Cherry was drugged.
But now, with everything he’d just told me, the answer mattered in a way it hadn’t before.
To me, an addict was an addict. Always. Recovery didn’t erase the past. It was a lifelong thing.
A path I had already walked beside once. And I would not do it again.
“No, Yellow,” Austin said, frowning now, the shift in my voice clearly unsettling him.
“That’s not what I’m telling you.” He pulled into The Pitt’s parking lot, the car slowing until it came to a stop.
I took a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Austin unbuckled his seatbelt and turned toward me fully.
He looked nervous. I could see it in the tightness of his jaw, the way his hands hovered like he didn’t know what to do with them.
“I just need to hear this,” I said quietly. “Were you ever an addict? I don’t care if it was a year ago or five. Have you ever been addicted to anything?”