Chapter 14
My hands won't stop shaking.
The pen trembles between my fingers like I'm coming down from something. Maybe I am. When did I last eat? Tuesday? Wednesday? Everything's blurred together—heat and silence and Holt not looking at me, not speaking, just existing in the same space like I'm not even here.
Grant's text glows on my phone.
Still on for tomorrow? There's a great coffee place in town.
Two hours old. I should answer. Should feel something about it. But there's just this hollow space where feelings are supposed to be, like someone reached in and scooped everything out.
The door crashes open. Fan rattles in its cage.
"Okay." Maeve's standing there in a sundress that's too bright for this dusty shop, sunglasses pushed up into her hair. "Nope. Get your bag."
"I'm working—"
"You look like death warmed over and left in the sun." She's crossing to my desk already, not asking, just moving. "Get. Your. Bag."
"Maeve, I can't just—"
"Yes you can." She plucks my phone off the desk, drops it in my lap. "Finn!"
He appears from the bay, grease-stained rag in hand, and god, the relief on his face. "Thank god. Take her. Please. She's been sitting there for an hour staring at that pen like it personally offended her."
"I have been not—"
"Scout." He crouches next to my chair and all that usual Finn brightness goes serious. Heavy. "Go. We're fine here."
Metal scrapes. The creeper rolls and Holt slides out from under the Chevelle just enough—I see his face, grease-smeared, those blue eyes finding mine for half a second before he looks away. Doesn't say anything. Hasn't said anything to me all week.
My chest tightens. Of course he's not going to stop this.
"See?" Maeve's got my bag from under the desk. "Even the stoic mechanic agrees. Come on."
Somehow I'm standing. Walking. The shop floor under my feet, the doorway, the blast of heat outside. Then I'm in her passenger seat and she's peeling out, gravel spitting, windows already down.
"Where are we going?"
She cranks the volume. Music hits, bass vibrating through the seat into my bones. "Away. Far enough that nobody knows us and nobody cares."
The wind tears into my hair, hot and relentless, and—oh. Oh god. I can breathe. When's the last time I took a full breath? The shop's falling away behind us, getting smaller, and the tightness in my chest is cracking open. Not breaking. Opening.
"Thank you," I say, but it's lost in the wind and music.
She glances over, grins wide. "What?"
"I said thank you!"
"For kidnapping you?"
"For showing up!"
"That's what I do, honey!" She reaches over, squeezes my knee. "Now stop talking and just breathe!"
So I do. Eyes closed, head tipped back, wind shredding through my hair and sun burning my face.
The music's so loud I'm wearing it, vibrating in my ribs, and Maeve's singing along—off-key, enthusiastic, not giving a single fuck.
The desert flies past and I'm not drowning anymore. Not for right now, at least.
The road hums under the tires. My hair whips across my face and I don't fix it. Just let the wind do what it wants, let the music be too loud, let myself exist outside that suffocating silence for the first time in days.
Maeve's still singing. Drumming on the steering wheel. The sun's brutal but it feels good, feels real, feels like maybe I'm still alive under all this hollow.
A diner squats in the heat, looking like it hasn't been updated since the seventies. The kind of place that smells like old coffee and bacon grease before you even open the door.
"Perfect," Maeve says, killing the engine.
We slide into a corner booth. The vinyl squeaks, sticks to my legs. A waitress materializes—older woman, tired eyes, coffee pot already in hand. Doesn't even wait for us to open the menus before she's pouring.
"Pancakes," Maeve says. "Two orders. Extra bacon. And keep this coming." She taps the mug.
The waitress nods like she's heard it all before and disappears through the swinging kitchen door.
"I didn't order—"
"You need to eat." Maeve dumps cream into her coffee, white swirling through brown. "When's the last time you had an actual meal?"
I try to think. "Tuesday?"
"Jesus Christ, Scout."
"I wasn't hungry."
"You're never hungry when you're miserable." She takes a sip, watches me over the rim. "Trust me on this one."
The kitchen door swings. The waitress returns faster than seems possible, sliding plates onto our table—stacks of pancakes golden and steaming, bacon crispy at the edges, butter already melting into yellow pools. The smell hits me and—
Oh god. My stomach clenches, sharp and sudden. I'm starving. Actually starving.
I pick up my fork. Cut into the pancakes—they're soft, give easy under the knife. First bite and the taste explodes—sweetness, butter, that perfect doughy center. I'm shoveling it in before I can think, syrup on my tongue, bacon salty-sweet, coffee burning my throat.
"There she is," Maeve says, and there's something smug in her voice.
I look up mid-bite. "What?"
"Nothing. Just good to see you acting human again."
Another bite. The bacon's perfect—crispy and greasy and exactly what my body needs. I drain half my coffee, burn my tongue, don't care. Three bites. Five. My stomach's waking up, screaming for more.
"Slow down," Maeve says, laughing. "It's not going anywhere."
"Says you." But I do slow down. A little. Force myself to taste instead of just inhale. "This is really good."
"Everything's good when you're actually eating it." She spears a piece of bacon. "So. Now that you're not in danger of passing out. You wanna tell me what happened?"
My fork stops halfway to my mouth. "What do you mean?"
"Scout. Come on. You look like you haven't slept in a week. Finn said you've barely left your desk. And Holt—" She makes a face. "Holt looks like someone kicked his dog. So. Spill."
I set down my fork. Wrap both hands around my coffee mug. The ceramic's hot enough to burn but I hold on anyway.
"I slept with him."
Maeve doesn't even blink. "And?"
"And it was—" How do I even say this? "It was perfect. I asked him to be rough and he was, and it was exactly what I wanted, and then I woke up and he was gone."
"Gone gone?"
"Gone. Left the apartment. I don't know where—Finn's maybe.
Because I had a bruise. On my hip. From him holding me during completely consensual sex that I literally begged him for.
" The words are spilling faster now, tripping over each other.
"And he saw it and panicked, and now he thinks he hurt me, and I've told him a thousand times I'm fine but he won't listen, he won't even look at me, and maybe—" My voice cracks.
"Maybe Evan was right. Maybe I am too much. "
Maeve's coffee cup hits the table. Hard. Coffee sloshes.
"Okay, first of all, fuck Evan." She leans forward, eyes blazing. "Second of all, you are not too much. You're exactly right. And third—Scout, honey, this isn't about you."
"How is it not—"
"Because Holt's scared." She says it like it's obvious. "He's terrified he hurt you. Terrified of what he's capable of. And that's his shit to work through, not yours to fix."
I press my palms into my eye sockets until I see stars. "I don't know how to make him understand."
"You can't. Not if he's not ready to hear it." Her hands close over mine, pulling them down from my face. "Look at me. You asked for what you wanted. You trusted him with that. And it was good, right? You said it was perfect."
"It was."
"Then that's the truth. Everything else is his fear talking." She picks up her coffee again, takes a long sip. "You know what my ex used to do? Not the physically abusive kind—the subtle kind. He'd make me feel like my needs were inconvenient. Like asking for anything was being demanding."
"Maeve—"
"No, listen. It took me two years after I left him to ask for what I wanted in bed.
Two years. Because I'd internalized this idea that my desires were too much, too complicated, too whatever.
" She's looking at me hard, holding my gaze.
"You're not broken for knowing what you want, Scout. You're brave."
My throat closes up. I grab my coffee, take a sip just to have something to do with my hands. "What changed? For you?"
"I met someone who listened. Who trusted me to know my own mind." A small smile crosses her face. "Who didn't treat my needs like a burden to manage. He'd ask me what I wanted and then he'd—" She waves her hand. "He'd just do it. No judgment. No making me feel weird about it."
"What happened to him?"
"He moved to Nevada for work. We're still friends." She grins. "And he taught me that the right person doesn't make you smaller. They make space for all of you."
Holt's hands on me. The way he'd looked at me before everything went wrong. How he'd listened when I told him what I wanted, given it to me without hesitation. Until he saw the evidence on my skin and decided he knew better than me what I could handle.
"So what do I do?"
"What do you want to do?"
"I don't know. I want—" I stop. Pick up my fork again, push pancake through syrup. "There's this guy. Grant. He asked me for coffee."
"And?"
"And he's nice. Uncomplicated. Normal." The word tastes wrong in my mouth. "I'm thinking about saying yes."
Maeve goes quiet. Studies me like she's reading something written on my face. "Why?"
"Because maybe I need normal. Maybe I need someone who doesn't look at me like I'm about to break."
Maeve's quiet for a second, studying me. "You're running."
"I'm not—"
"You are. And hey, sometimes running makes sense. But don't call it normal when what you mean is safe." She takes a sip of coffee. "Safe's fine. Safe has its place. But safe doesn't make you feel like your heart's trying to crawl out of your chest every time he looks at you."
"Maybe I don't want that anymore."