Chapter 16 #3
“Yeah,” Cherry agreed, but I could feel her hesitation creeping back in. She opened her mouth to say something else.
I cut her off. “Can we just enjoy it, Cherry? Please?” The desperation slipped into my voice before I could catch it. I wondered if she heard it too. She was quiet for a moment, and the silence stretched long enough that my chest tightened. Then she nodded.
“Okay, Blair,” she said gently. “If that’s what you want, we’ll enjoy it.”
“Great,” I smiled, hoping she meant it.
And she did. We drove through the city like nothing mattered.
The music was loud. We sang. We laughed.
We let the night carry us wherever it wanted.
Eventually, familiar streets faded into roads I didn’t recognize.
I didn’t care. I turned when I felt like turning, drove when I felt like driving.
My mind didn’t know where we were going—and for once, it didn’t need to.
Like my body, it was finally free from plans.
For these few minutes, it felt like I had accepted the truth.
There were no directions in life. No maps.
No GPS. Just turns. Highways. Forks in the road.
And in the end, it didn’t really matter which way you went.
“Here.” Cherry braced herself again as I abruptly pulled the car over. She scanned the darkness through every window, clearly trying to understand what possessed me to stop here of all places.
“Here?” she repeated, doubt thick in her voice. And honestly, who could blame her? I looked around too. There wasn’t much to see. Just a stretch of black pavement flanked by damp grass and shadowed trees, the road swallowed by emptiness in both directions.
“Yeah. Here,” I smiled, already reaching for the pack of beer as I pushed the door open.
“Why here, Blair?” Cherry called after me.
“Bring the cigarettes,” I said, glancing back just long enough. “And the lighter.” Then I turned away and walked into the dark.
I was still wearing my white work shoes, and even though I could barely see my feet, I knew the grass would stain them green.
The ground was damp beneath my steps. I didn’t slow down.
I didn’t hesitate. I just walked. I heard Cherry’s hurried footsteps behind me.
Of course she followed. Cherry would do almost anything to avoid being alone in a dark, empty car.
“Blair!” she called when she finally caught up, looping her arm through mine. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly.
She let out a slow breath. “Okay. So we could literally be walking to our deaths right now and have no idea.”
“Yeah,” I said lightly. “I guess so.”
She shook her head. “If I didn’t love you so damn much…” I didn’t respond. My eyes were adjusting now. The moon was full overhead, bright and unapologetic, like it was the only thing willing to illuminate the world for us.
We were standing in a field. But unlike the one Henry had once shown me, this one was painfully unremarkable.
No hill. No rise. No view. Just flat land stretching into nothing.
I recognized the metaphor immediately. I ignored it.
My steps slowed as I took one last look around.
A part of me wanted to keep walking, like maybe, just maybe, if we went far enough, something meaningful would appear.
Something worth the detour. Something I could point to and say, See?
I told you. Instead, I stopped. Accepting that maybe… it wasn’t.
“Come on,” I said, dropping to the ground and tugging the beer down with me. “Sit.”
Cherry looked down at me like she was reassessing her life choices.
Then she sighed, peeled off her sweater, laid it on the grass, and sat beside me.
I focused on the beer, tearing the plastic rings apart and freeing the cans.
I handed one to her. She took it without comment.
I cracked mine open and drank like I’d crossed a desert, ignoring the bitterness as I swallowed.
“So,” Cherry said after a moment, sipping hers carefully. “Here we are.”
“Here we are,” I replied, pulling the half-empty can away. “I forgot how bad beer tastes.”
She laughed softly. “Yeah, but you’re chugging it like it doesn’t.”
I paused, then shrugged, conceding the point.
When the can ran dry, I tossed it aside and opened another.
Cherry sighed, but she didn’t stop me. She would have, if she thought it would help.
Instead, she let the silence stretch between us, sipping every so often while I drank steadily.
I didn’t wonder what she was thinking. I didn’t want to.
Eventually, the alcohol hit me harder than it should have.
Two days of barely eating will do that. I wasn’t drunk—but I was loose.
Looser than I’d been in days. Like my mind had finally unclenched.
“Let me see those cigarettes,” I muttered. I didn’t wait for her answer. I took them from where they lay, peeling off the plastic and pulling one free. I held it up, examining it in the moonlight. It looked harmless. We both knew better.
I held the lighter up, flicking the metal wheel until it finally caught, sparks leaping into the air before the flame steadied.
I brought it to the end of the cigarette and watched as the fire devoured the paper, curling it inward.
I lifted it to my mouth and inhaled the way I’d seen other people do it a hundred times.
I coughed instantly. The smoke scraped down my throat, coating it in something bitter and chemical, something deeply unappealing.
I waited for something to happen as it filled my lungs.
A rush. A calm. Anything. Nothing came. I felt my face fall as I pulled the cigarette away from my mouth.
Disappointed. Almost offended. I tossed it to the ground in front of me and crushed it under my shoe, grinding the ember out until there was nothing left but a smear of ash. Cherry didn’t say a word.
“Do you remember the night Brandon drugged you?” I asked suddenly. I felt her surprise before she spoke.
“Well,” she said carefully, “he tried to drug you too. But yeah. I don’t think I’ll be forgetting that anytime soon.”
“If we hadn’t found you in time,” I continued, doing everything in my power to keep Austin’s name out of my mouth. “And I don’t know… let’s say the worst happened.”
“Blair,” Cherry started, but I pushed on.
“Just go with it,” I said. When she hesitated, then nodded, I continued. “If the worst happened. If he assaulted you. Would you want him to die?” Cherry stared at me. Her eyes softened in a way I didn’t like. In a way I recognized. She’d looked at me like this before. Pity.
“Blair,” she sighed, reaching over and gently pulling the empty beer can from my hand.
She straightened where she sat, tilting her head as she looked at me more closely.
“I know I said you didn’t have to tell me what happened until you were ready, but…
I think you need to tell me now. You’re worrying me. ”
I hesitated for only a second. Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because the concern in her eyes hurt worse than the truth itself.
“Austin sold drugs,” I said quietly. I hated how simple it sounded.
Cherry wasn’t expecting that. I could tell by the flicker of surprise that crossed her face. “I thought he sold weed?”
“No,” I said. “He sold pills. The worst kind. All the things that almost killed Holden. He sold those.” I leaned back on my hands as I spoke, tearing my eyes away from Cherry and lifting them toward the moon instead. It hung there, bright and indifferent, like it had nothing to do with us at all.
“Fuck,” Cherry muttered after a moment. “Okay. I get why you’re hurt. Did he tell you at the party?”
“No.” I rubbed my eyes hard. “Some guy let it slip. Austin tried to tell me before. I just… didn’t want to listen.”
I rolled my eyes at myself, the memory sour and humiliating. I reached for another beer, half expecting Cherry to stop me. She didn’t. That surprised me more than anything else. Maybe she understood more than she was letting on. Or maybe she could see that this wasn’t about the beer at all.
“So you’re done with him,” she said carefully. “I get it, Blair. I really do. He wasn’t who you thought he was. But…” She hesitated. “I don’t think that’s all that happened. Is it?” I wondered, suddenly, how transparent I really was.
“He told me fate was crap,” I said, taking a drink.
Cherry blinked. “So what? I tell you fate is crap all the time.”
“I know,” I said quickly. “But the way he said it, Cherry…” I paused, exhaling slowly. “The way he said it made me believe it. It made me question everything. It made me question life. It made me question who I am. Who I was.”
I trailed off, the words dissolving before I could organize them into anything useful.
Cherry didn’t interrupt me. She didn’t rush to fix it.
She just looked at me. It was the same look she’d had the night Holden overdosed.
The same look she’d worn when she realized my relationship with food wasn’t just a phase. Like she could see straight through me.
“I’m not even sure who I was,” I said finally, my voice quieter now. “I’m not sure about anything.” The defeat in my own words startled me more than the confession itself. And Cherry heard it too. “I’m not even sure who I was,” I said. “I’m not sure about anything.”
“What does that have to do with who you are?” Cherry asked gently. I took a breath, searching through the fog in my mind for something solid.