Chapter 14 #5
“That’s not your fault,” I said immediately.
“Austin, that has nothing to do with you. That was an accident. That could have happened to anyone.” This wasn’t what I had imagined.
Not even close. This wasn’t violence. This wasn’t intent.
This was bad timing and bad luck and a moment that spiraled out of control.
But Austin didn’t soften. He didn’t relax. If anything, his expression hardened. “Wait,” he said sharply. “Just—just wait.” My brows knit together, but I did what he asked. I waited.
“I stopped my car,” he continued. “I had my phone out. I was about to call the police. I was about to call 911.” His voice faltered for just a second before steadying again.
“But I decided to check on the driver first. I needed to see how bad it was. I needed to know if I should tell them to send an ambulance.”
“Okay,” I said quietly.
“I ran to the car. The door wouldn’t open. The whole thing was folded in on itself, like it had been crushed by something bigger than it.” He swallowed. “So I grabbed a rock and broke the window.” My chest tightened. “I leaned inside,” he said. “And that’s when I saw his face.”
Austin’s voice changed then. It wasn’t just regret anymore. It wasn’t even just pain. There was anger there now. Sharp. Alive. “I recognized him.” My breath caught. “I didn’t just know him, Blair,” he said, looking straight at me. “I hated him.”
He held my gaze like he expected something to click. Like the meaning should have been obvious. But it wasn’t. I didn’t understand.
“It was the guy who raped Seren,” Austin said. “It was Jax Harrington. It was—” He drew in a shaky breath through his nose. “It was him. The guy who hurt my best friend so fucking badly that she tried to kill herself.”
The realization hit me like an earthquake. Everything shifted. Everything rearranged itself at once.
“He was bleeding,” Austin continued, his gaze going distant, like he was back there again.
“From his head. From his nose. His mouth. He was bleeding everywhere.” My stomach twisted.
“I lifted my phone again,” he said. “I was about to dial 911.” He looked at me then, really looked at me, like he needed me to understand exactly what came next.
“But I didn’t. I didn’t dial 911, Blair.
I just stood there. I stared at him. I watched him bleed.
” His jaw clenched. “And I asked myself why. Why would I help someone like him, knowing what he’d done? Knowing who he was?”
My chest felt hollow, like something had been carved out of it.
“Why would I ease his pain,” he went on, his voice cracking, “when he’d caused Seren so much?
” Something cold spread through me then.
Numbing. Sharp. I didn’t have a word for it.
I wasn’t sure there was one. “I got back into my car,” Austin said.
“And the fucked-up part is how calm I was. I didn’t even look back.
I just drove.” His jaw tightened, conflict etched into every line of his face.
“I didn’t know he was going to die,” he said quickly.
“I didn’t know it was that serious. I just…
” He swallowed. “I wanted him to suffer. That’s it.
I couldn’t be the one to take his pain away.
I couldn’t be the one to help him. I just couldn’t.
” The words sat between us, heavy and suffocating.
“I found out the next day,” he continued.
“They said he died from the crash. Drunk driving.” His mouth twisted bitterly.
“The police called Seren. Told her he’d gotten off the hook.
That his pain was over.” Austin’s eyes darkened.
“And I remember thinking how cruel that was,” he said quietly.
“That his pain ended. All of it. Because he was gone.”
He shook his head. “But she wasn’t. She was still here. Living with what he did to her every single day.” His voice dropped to almost nothing. “She never said it out loud, but I could see it in her eyes. Her pain didn’t lessen. Not for a second.”
“So where was fate in all of that?” Austin asked quietly.
“Nowhere. And where was fate for me? Nowhere.” His voice fractured.
“Because I know what I did. Maybe the police don’t, but I do.
I know exactly what I did, and I’ll live with that for the rest of my life.
” He finally took a breath, ragged and desperate, like the story itself had been suffocating him.
“And that’s what happened,” he said. “That’s how bad of a person I am, Blair.
” He shook his head slowly. “I told you before—the things I’ve done.
The person I was. I was a bad person.” His voice softened.
“But like I said… you’ve changed me. And I don’t know if I’m a bad person anymore.
Not because of anything I did. Because of you. ”
He went still then, his chest rising and falling as he looked at me.
He was waiting. Waiting for my forgiveness.
Or my rejection. And I gave him neither.
We stood there in silence, the moment stretching unnaturally long, frozen in place.
He watched me like he was bracing for impact, like any response would finally break something open. But I didn’t have one to give him.
“Can you take me home?” I asked at last. My voice was the only sound cutting through the warm summer air, and it sounded wrong—flat and distant, chilling in its calm.
Austin looked at me with something like defeat.
He didn’t speak. He just stared, searching my face, as if he’d known the words were coming but hadn’t been prepared for how badly they would still hurt.
After a few seconds, he nodded. I didn’t look back at him.
I turned and walked away, opened the passenger door, and slid inside.
I shut it quietly and waited—waiting for the car to move, waiting for the weight of the conversation to finally settle into my bones, waiting for whatever came next.
Because simply… it wouldn’t. I heard his words, of course.
How could I not? I understood what had happened.
I could see it in my mind, frame by frame, but it wouldn’t settle.
It wouldn’t stay. It felt unreal, like a far-fetched lie told just to disorient me.
But I knew it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t a lie.
The truth had been in Austin’s eyes, bright and undeniable, like the fireworks he once set off just for me.
It was there. Clear. Unavoidable. So why couldn’t I accept it?
The drive to my house was silent. Neither of us spoke.
I didn’t move, not even an inch, and I had the strange feeling that if Austin hadn’t been driving, he wouldn’t have moved either.
When he pulled up beside my house, the moment the car stopped, I got out.
I didn’t look back at him as I walked to the door.
I didn’t look at anything except my feet.
It felt like I was holding one single breath in my chest, choking on the air the same way I was choking on everything he’d just poured into me.
The house was asleep when I stepped inside.
Quiet. Still. Nothing like my mind. My thoughts weren’t even words anymore.
They weren’t in any language I knew. They flashed colors that didn’t exist, collided without meaning, and refused to slow down.
I went straight to my room and crossed to my dresser, pulling open the first drawer.
I pushed aside folded clothes, searching for what I knew was there.
Keep it safe, he had said. Keep it to remind you of me.
My fingers closed around the pink stone, cool and solid in my palm.
I turned it over and over, like it might change if I stared at it long enough.
Like it might become something else. Another color. Another shape. Another meaning.
But it didn’t. I let out a short, shallow breath and curled my fingers around it.
The edges pressed into my skin, sharp enough to hurt, and I welcomed it.
I crossed the room to the window, struggling to open it with one hand, refusing to let go of the stone with the other.
When the lock finally gave, I shoved the window open wide.
Night air rushed in, clean and cold, mixing with the stale air trapped inside my room.
I opened my hand and looked at the stone one last time.
Then I threw it out the window.