Chapter 27 Carrie #2
Donovan tightens his grip on my thigh. My gaze floats over to him, but all I can see right now are the flames. I’ve been burying my head in the sand these past few days, but who was I kidding? Everything is just as fucked as it ever was.
“She set fire to your house. Don’t freak out, though,” he adds. “I was home when it started—I saw it happen. The living room is a little messed up, but it could’ve been worse.”
“Where is she now?”
“Home,” Grey says. “The fire department wanted to take her to the hospital, just in case. But she lost her shit. These two cops came by, I think they plan on filing a report.”
“Fuck,” I say slowly. “Okay… I should be able to jump on the last bus. I… Fuck.” I shake my head. “Thank you so much for letting me know, Grey.”
“I’m just next door if you need me. Let me know when you get in—I’ll swing by and pick you up from the bus stop.”
I nod. “Okay. I’ll call when we’re close.”
When Grey hangs up, I just sit there, the phone pressed to my ear, my arm stiff and throbbing, like my heart is slowing down. In a way, that’s exactly what’s happening here. The carefree Carrie from the past few days was just a mirage. Now I’m back to the old me. Back to reality as I know it.
“Carrie?”
It was all too good to be true, in the end. That perfect life I was living never existed—I just pretended it did, because I wanted so badly to see what it could feel like to be normal. I’m crashing back down to planet Earth, and I’m landing hard and fast.
“Carrie?”
The air is suddenly cloying. I feel trapped, sitting here like this, with my knees jammed under the dashboard, my elbow pressing into the door, Donovan fussing to my left, making everything feel so much worse. I need to get out of here.
“Can you drop me at the bus station?” I manage.
I’m sick to my stomach, rage flickering at the edges of me, pushing me to the brink of tears.
“Is there a problem with your mom?”
“I need to get on a bus. Now.”
He frowns. “What bus? Let me drive you.”
“No!”
The last thing I want is him coming home with me—seeing the state my mom has been in since Dad left.
Every time I’m back in Cincy, I do my best to shake off all the trauma he caused.
Every time I leave, the cycle starts all over again.
I run through the math in my head, realizing with a start that it’s been weeks since I was last back there.
Fuck. This is going to be a total shit show.
“It’s better if I just catch a bus. Greyson can pick me up from the station.”
“Greyson?” He tenses up. “As in, your neighbor? Your strip-basketball buddy?”
He remembers that? I shrug inwardly. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters anymore.
“It’ll take us less than two hours to drive—”
“I don’t want you to come with me!” I snap.
Unbuckling his seat belt, he shifts around to face me.
“What is going on back home, Carrie? What did your friend tell you?”
He spits the word friend at me, and there’s a light going out in his eyes. Something is flickering between us, but I’m too upset to figure it out. All that matters now is getting the hell out of here.
His phone buzzes—a request for a ride. He needs to work, and I need to go clean up one hell of a mess. Alone.
“You know what? Forget it. It’d be faster for me to just walk.”
I’m just about to unclip my seat belt when he covers my hand with his.
“Stop.” He leans over, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Tell me what’s going on. All those times you headed back to Cincinnati, I could tell something was up, but I didn’t want to overstep.” He sighs. “I wanted you to start trusting me, and now it’s time. You can let me in now, Carrie.”
I look at him. “Can I?”
“I’m your boyfriend. I’m here for you—like a boyfriend should be.”
What the actual fuck?
“Just breathe, and take it easy—tell me what’s freaking you out.”
I’m in shock.
“I don’t want to talk to you about it, Donovan.”
“But that’s what couples do.”
What has this guy been smoking?
“What the hell are you talking about?” I stare at him. “You and me, we’re not…”
I can barely say the word. I clench my jaw. He knows I’m not looking for a boyfriend. He knows we’re just… We’re… My brain hurts, and I’m suddenly so, so tired.
“You think that just because we have sex and I let you kiss me—right? That doesn’t mean we’re actually together.”
His eyes widen. The walls are closing in on me. I don’t know what I just said, exactly, but I do know I need to get out of this car as soon as possible.
He lets out a strained laugh. “Turns out I’m dumber than I thought. I guess since I like spending time with you and I thought the feeling was mutual, I just kinda assumed we were together. Stupid me.” He clears his throat. “So, enlighten me—what exactly are we?”
Game on.
“I’m just a girl who gives you shitty life hacks for dating, when I don’t even believe that total bullshit myself,” I bat back.
He waits a beat. “It felt like we were getting pretty deep to me.”
I shrug. “It was just physical. I guess my boundaries slipped a little.”
My head is totally scrambled—I’m as messed up as the shitstorm that’s probably waiting for me back in Cincy. I unfasten my seat belt, grab my bag, and duck out of the car, lurching down to the main street, my vision a blur.
I fish out my phone and start ordering an Uber, when suddenly, there’s a hand on my arm.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Catching a bus,” I say. I sound like a robot.
I snatch my arm back and turn away, but Donovan strides in front of me and puts his hands on my shoulders, rooting me to the ground.
My temper flares. “Get out of my way!”
“Not until you tell me why you’re throwing a match under all this.”
I stare at him. “You really don’t get it, do you? I have bigger shit than this to deal with right now.”
“You’re right—I don’t get it.”
Tears of anger well up in me. “This is a family emergency, Donovan!”
“And I want to help!” he yells. “That’s how this works! You helped me—let me do the same for you.”
“I don’t need your help!” I spit. “I’m sick of this whole situation! Things are good with your sister now. Yay!” I pump the air. “So, let’s just drop the theatrics. Okay?”
He gives me a hard look. “I get it—you’re stressed. But don’t talk shit. Look at us!” He gestures at the space between us. “Why are you acting like there’s nothing going on here? Sure, at the start it was just about sex. But don’t tell me things haven’t changed—you fucking know they have.”
Wrong. My mom is still a thorn in my side. And I’m still the same old Carrie.
“You made me lose sight of the end goal for a minute there. Slow-clap,” I say coldly. “You should be proud of yourself, Donovan. I’m pretty sure you can pick up any girl you want now.”
“I don’t give a shit about anyone else. You’re the only one I want, Carrie. And I’ve been sure of that for weeks now. I was just waiting for you to see it, too.”
I blink. He’s just bared his soul, and all I can think is how messy and fucked up it gets when you let a guy worm his way into your heart.
I feel so trapped. He forced me to help him, back in the day.
If he hadn’t, I’d never have spoken to him.
Looking back, I have no clue what prompted me to say yes—but what I do know is that I have so much to lose by continuing down this path.
“Waiting for me to see what, exactly?” I cock an eyebrow. “We’ve been playing games for way too long, and I have no idea who you even are, deep down. All you’re doing is copying shit from books. I can’t tell which parts are really you, anymore.”
And just like that, I realize how deep I’ve cut him with that final swipe, the hurt blossoming across his face. Too far, Carrie. Too far.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he spits. “I was more myself with you than I’ve ever been. Why are you making this into such a big deal, Carrie? It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me.”
“I don’t want a boyfriend,” I say simply. “I don’t want you in my life.”
Point of no return—unlocked.
Of all the millions of things he’s ever said to me, nothing has ever hit me harder than his silence right now.
He steps to the side to let me pass. And though every atom in my body is yelling at me to stop, I walk on by, leaving him there by the roadside as I make a beeline for the main street, biting back on the rush of emotions swirling inside me—hollowing myself out until I feel nothing at all.
THE NEXT THREE HOURS SLOPE by in a numb blur.
Greyson is there to greet me off the bus.
As we drive, he explains, but I’m hardly listening.
As soon as we pull up outside the house, I fling open the car door and leap out onto the sidewalk, heading straight for the porch.
The door is wide open, the smell of smoke and embers hitting me in the back of the throat.
Bags litter the entrance, and I stumble on a pile of brochures.
The past two years have served me well, though—I brace myself against the doorway that leads through to the living room, but what I see rattles me to the core.
It’s worse than I imagined—it’s worse than anything she’s ever done before.
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
I drag my eyes away from the charred walls and my gaze lands on Mom—sitting on her sofa bed, hugging her knees to her chest. I press my lips together, trying to still my beating heart.
She looks like a madwoman, perched in the middle of all the chaos.
All this stuff… How did she even have time to find all this crap since I last came?
A mishmash of cans and cardboard boxes, plastic crates and random junk is strewn across the room.
I want to scream—to run away and never look back.
I never want to set foot in this house again.
“What have you done?” I murmur.
“I don’t know what h—”
“What have you done?” I repeat, louder now.
She flinches, and even when she bursts into tears, I’m unmovable. My empathy has run dry—she’s wrung every last drop of compassion out of me, burying it deep under all these piles of shit.