Chapter Nine #2
“No. You’re an asshole,” I say, grabbing my jacket from the floor and shoving my arms through the sleeves.
His shoulders tense, his whole body going stiff, as if I’ve hit a nerve he didn’t realize was exposed.
“Bells, I’m trying to be honest.”
“You’re trying to run,” I fire back. “There’s a difference between honesty and cowardice, and you’re sprinting toward the latter.”
That one lands. I see it hit. The way his breath catches for just a second. But he doesn’t deny it or try to defend himself. That silence tells me everything I fucking need to know.
I head for the door, my hand wrapping around the handle. I pause, looking back at him one last time—giving him a chance he doesn’t deserve to say something, anything that might make this hurt less.
He doesn’t take it. Of course he fucking doesn’t.
I open the door and step outside into the morning without waiting for him to stop me, because we both know he won’t. The trailer door slams shut behind me so hard it rattles the thin metal frame, and the sound echoes like a gunshot in the silence.
Good. Let it shake.
Let him feel the weight of what he just threw away.
Let him sit in that silence he loves so much and choke on it.
Cold air hits my face immediately, but it doesn’t cool the heat burning in my chest. I storm down the narrow driveway, boots crunching over gravel, fury pounding through me in steady, furious beats.
Asshole. Fucking asshole.
He looked me in the eye, kissed me slowly like he had all the time in the world, held me all night as if I were something worth keeping. Then morning comes, and suddenly I’m just another inconvenience he needs to handle.
I blink hard against the sting in my eyes, my vision blurring at the edges.
I will not cry over him.
Not when my dad is lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life. Not when I have real problems that matter more than whatever the fuck just happened in that trailer. Jace doesn’t deserve my tears. He doesn’t get to take up space in my head when there’s barely enough room to breathe as it is.
But my throat tightens regardless, betraying me, and I hate that even after he showed me exactly who he is, some stupid part of me still wishes he’d come after me.
He won’t, though, because that would actually require him to care.
The driveway extends in front of me, passing the manicured lawn that seems straight out of a lifestyle magazine. Flawless hedges. Shiny windows. Everything is pristine and calculated, as if someone meticulously measured the space between every blade of grass.
And then there’s Jace’s trailer sitting off to the side, like an afterthought. Something that doesn’t belong here in this perfect life. The contrast makes my stomach twist, bitter and intense.
That’s when I see her.
His aunt stands near the garden path wearing a wide-brimmed sunhat and tailored linen that likely costs more than my car.
Her posture is calm, every movement controlled.
She looks at me the way people look at something they accidentally stepped in—with mild disgust and the vague annoyance of having to acknowledge it.
Her eyes quickly glance past me toward the trailer and then back to me. Judgment and disdain all wrapped up in one perfectly practiced glance.
Something inside me breaks.
I’m already raw, bleeding from Jace’s carefully delivered rejection, and now this woman… this stranger who doesn’t know a goddamn thing about me is looking at me like I’m trash she needs to take out.
I come to a stop mid-stride and turn completely toward her, jaw clenched, hands curling into fists at my sides.
Fuck it. She wants a show? I’ll give her one.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” I bite out.
Her eyebrows lift above the rim of her sunglasses, perfectly arched.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I don’t lower my voice or soften it because I’m too pissed, too raw, too done with people today.
She straightens slightly, offended in that quiet, dignified way people do when they’ve never been scolded before, when the world has always bent around them instead of the other way around.
“I suggest you watch your tone,” she says smoothly, with each word clipped and precise.
I snap, “I suggest you mind your own fucking business.”
Her gaze cools instantly, ice settling behind those expensive frames. She scans me from my unbrushed hair to my wrinkled shirt and my half-laced boots in anger, cataloging every flaw like she’s building a case against me.
“That trailer is on my property. You shouldn’t be staying here. My nephew should not be having company over,” she says crisply, the word “company” dripping with implication.
“Nephew. That’s a fucking joke.”
Her expression tightens, revealing a crack in the porcelain mask.
“Young lady—”
“No,” I cut her off, my voice as hard as steel. “Don’t even start with the bullshit.”
I step toward her before I can hold back.
“He’s freezing out there,” I say, my voice shaking with uncontrollable anger. “You have this whole house with its perfect hedges and polished windows, and your so-called nephew is in that metal box while the wind cuts straight through it.”
Her spine stiffens.
“He is there because of his behavior.”
“And you think that makes it okay?” I demand, my hands trembling at my sides. “You treat him like he’s a stray you’re just tolerating, as if he’s something you can toss aside when he’s inconvenient.”
“That boy has caused this family more trouble than you could possibly understand,” she says, her voice cold.
“That boy,” I repeat incredulously, the words tasting bitter on my tongue. “You mean Jace? Your nephew? Your family?”
She doesn’t answer because it’s easier to see him as a problem than admit she helped create one. It’s simpler to punish than to understand.
I shake my head in disbelief, a laugh escaping that sounds more like a sob. “You’re fucking unbelievable.”
I don’t wait for her reply. Instead, I turn on my heel and stalk toward my car, every step driven by something larger than just my fight with Jace.
It’s everything—the hospital, the waiting, my dad’s machines beeping in sync with my breaking heart.
The way Jace pulled away this morning like I’d burned him.
The way she looks at him, as if he’s a stain on her perfect life, something to scrub away and forget.
I reach my car, yank the door open hard enough that it protests, and slide into the driver’s seat. My hands are trembling when I jam the key into the ignition, adrenaline and fury making my fingers clumsy.
The engine roars to life and I grip the steering wheel, breathing hard, trying to calm the storm inside me that’s threatening to tear me apart from the inside out.
I put the car into gear.
Jace steps in front of it before I get a chance to move.
He stands there, barefoot on the gravel, shoes hanging from his hands as if he grabbed them on the way out. He ignores his aunt yelling something from down the driveway.
For a moment, we simply stare at each other through the windshield.
My chest aches, a hollow, burning pain that spreads through my ribs like poison. Emotion claws its way up my throat. Rage, hurt, and something dangerously close to hope, but I don’t let it show. I won’t give that to him. Not after this morning.
He finally moves, stepping out of the car’s path and walking around to the passenger side. His bare feet must be freezing on the gravel, but he doesn’t flinch.
I don’t unlock the door right away.
I make him wait half a second, maybe longer, with my hand hovering over the lock as my heart pounds against my chest.
I press the button.
He opens the door and slides inside without a word, shutting it with a solid bang that echoes through the small space. The smell of him fills the car, something distinctly Jace.
I pull away from the curb, tires crunching on gravel as we leave the manicured house, the trailer, and his aunt’s judgmental stare behind.
Neither of us speaks.
The tension hums like a live wire neither of us knows how to calm. It crackles in the space where our hands rest—mine on the wheel, his on his thighs—close enough to touch but worlds apart.
I stay focused on the road.
He stares straight ahead, his profile like stone in my peripheral vision.
And somehow, even with the anger still simmering in my veins and the way he hurt me less than five minutes ago, the fact that he got in the car instead of letting me drive away suggests its own kind of answer.
It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t erase what he said or how he made me feel. But it’s something, at least. And right now, with everything else falling apart around me, something is all I have.