Chapter 59 - Torrin
"Tell me how it's not black or white that you not only abandoned her but all of us too… your fucking family. How is that not black and white? Fucking tell me, you absolute cunt!"
Mars flinches under my words, his face crumbling like a house of cards in a windstorm. He can’t even meet my eyes. He just sits there, hunched and sunburned and worn down like a man who’s already bled himself dry.
His voice is barely more than a whisper when he finally speaks. “Luna and me… we were together.”
I whip my head toward him so fast it sends a twinge down my neck. My stomach clenches.
“I fucking know that,” I snap. “Spare me the details if you don’t want to find your arse right back out on the road.”
Mars lets out a sigh that’s more like a sound of surrender and nods once, slow and heavy. “The accident… it was my fault.”
I blink and blink again, not understanding. “What?”
He finally looks at me. Not angry or defiant, just flat out ruined.
“I told Atlas that night about Luna and me. We were gonna make it official. We were going to be something real. He flipped out and said I wasn’t good enough for her.
That I didn’t deserve her. We fought hard.
It was a screaming match right outside the arena with his parents waiting for him in his car. ”
I suck in a sharp breath when I see the storm of broken pain behind his eyes.
“He left after that. Got in the car with his parents and I saw him… I saw the way he drove off, all reckless. He was fucking furious, Tor. I know he was the one behind the wheel. I know I’m the reason he was upset. I lit the fuse. It’s all my fault that they’re dead.”
My throat closes as I start to shake my head. Mars doesn’t even seem to notice.
“I stayed behind and let him go. I was going to go after them, but I thought… maybe it’s better if I give him space.
Maybe give it some time and then make things right, but then the call came about the crash, and they were just…
gone.” His voice cracks on the last word.
He shakes his head, jaw clenched so hard it trembles.
"How the fuck could I stay after that? How could I look her in the eye when I killed her whole fucking world? Her brother, her mom, her dad. All of them dead because I wanted to be selfish and love her. I wanted something I didn’t deserve, and she paid the price for that. "
Silence swells between us, thick and burning as I stare at him with my hands still clenched on the wheel.
I want to scream again. I want to punch him.
I want to grab him by the shirt and drag him out onto the gravel and pound on him until my fists give out and then hug him with everything I’ve got.
But all I do is slump forward and rub my face with both hands.
"You are the biggest fucking idiot," I mutter, barely loud enough for him to hear.
I can’t look at him and see the devastation that I know is all over his face, so instead, I put the truck back into gear.
He killed himself the day they died. That’s what I see now. The Mars sitting beside me is a ghost. He’s been walking around carrying that shit in his chest for the last two years. Alone, like a goddamn martyr.
And Luna… sweet, stubborn Luna. She never said a word to any of us. Not about what they had together, not about Mars. She’s been holding all of it alone, too. No wonder she shattered.
I grip the wheel tighter, my heart breaking for all of us.
I still want to beat Mars bloody for what he did, but I can’t lie to myself and pretend he’s the only one who needs punishment.
We all do because we failed him, our friend, just as much as he failed us.
In our anger and grief, we just let him go.
None of us ran him down and forced him to tell us why.
None of us fought for our friend who lost just as much as us if not even more.
Because it wasn’t his fault. That accident that fractured all of us, that he's been blaming himself for and punishing himself over, had nothing to do with Mars at all.
The rest of the drive is made in silence. Heavy and cracked at the edges. Two hours later, just outside of our town, a car flashes its lights to wave us down. I slow, pulse ticking in my neck, and ease the truck over. Time to face whatever comes next.