21 #2
I accelerated onto the highway. Kimball Falls stretched behind me as streetlights gave way to darkness and the road opened ahead.
Flint was almost two hours away. I could be there before midnight if the weather held and the cops found somebody else to bother.
The apartment key still felt like it was cutting into my palm.
“I told her once that I had lost worse than her,” I said. “Before Thanksgiving, when she cried over them like it would keep me from leaving. I told her I knew how to survive losing people.”
“What are you saying, Decker?” Cade asked.
My voice broke when I tried to answer, and clearing my throat didn’t hide it. “I don’t know if anything has ever destroyed me like this.”
The admission changed the air inside my truck and probably inside their car.
My throat closed around my next breath, but I forced it through. I wouldn’t pull over. I wouldn’t break down on the shoulder of the highway while Charm was probably crying in Aura’s arms and wondering why I couldn’t give her one more chance.
Charm had received more chances from me than anyone ever had, and she still hadn’t stopped long enough to hear my warning.
She had every fucking part of me, and it hadn’t been enough.
“I hate her,” I said.
Nobody argued.
“I fucking hate her, Cade. Fuck me, I love her so much that I feel her beneath my skin, and I hate her for it.” My voice rose over the engine. “I want her out of my life, my apartment, my head, and my fucking body. I want to peel her off my skin so I can breathe without tasting her in mi alma.”
The final word broke as I said it.
Briggs quietly translated. “My soul.”
Bliss cursed.
I tightened my jaw and stared at the lane ahead until the yellow lines sharpened again.
“She made me believe I could have something,” I continued. “That’s what I hate most. I was fine before her.”
“Were you?” Briggs asked quietly.
I gripped the wheel. “Not tonight.”
“All right.”
There was no argument or joke. He let me keep the lie because he understood that I needed it.
“I knew what I was.” My eyes went wet, and that pissed me off even more.
“I had hockey, Flint, and you assholes. I knew how much of myself I could give people and still walk away whole. Then she got inside everything. My apartment, my fucking books, my heart. Every plan I made had her standing in the middle of it, and now I can’t rip her out without taking half of myself with her. ”
Cade breathed slowly through his nose. I could picture him behind the wheel with one hand wrapped around Bliss’s while Briggs sat wedged into the back seat with his knees shoved against the passenger seat.
“You don’t have to be whole tonight,” Cade said.
I laughed, but the sound came out empty. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means we know you aren’t.”
My eyes burned, and I blinked hard enough to clear them.
“You don’t have to sell us the survivor shit,” he continued. “We already know you’ll survive. That doesn’t mean this isn’t allowed to destroy you first.”
“I don’t need permission to feel this ugly.”
“No. You need permission to stop pretending you don’t.”
My temper sparked. “I called you back, didn’t I?”
“I called you.”
“And I answered.”
“On the fourth try.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m not fighting with you, Ryan.”
“Then stop trying to tell me how to feel.”
“I’m not.” Cade’s voice remained maddeningly level. “I’m telling you I understand why you’re done.”
The anger faltered before I could catch it.
“I would be too,” Briggs said.
“Briggs,” Bliss warned sharply.
“What? She fucked up, Bliss.”
“I know she did.”
“Then don’t say my name like I’m kicking her while she’s down. Ryan is the one bleeding right now, and your girl held the fucking knife.”
I closed my eyes for half a second. “Keep me out of whatever the fuck is happening in that car.”
“Nothing is happening,” Cade said.
“Briggs is being an asshole,” Bliss muttered.
“I’m the asshole for calling it like it is? I’ll pick a fucking side, Bliss.”
“You can support Ryan without turning Charm into the enemy.”
“She made herself the enemy tonight.”
“Enough,” Cade ordered.
The command silenced the car.
I should have defended Charm. Even then, some fucked-up instinct inside me wanted to tell Briggs to watch his mouth. She wasn’t the enemy. She was scared, conditioned, and so desperate for love that she kept crawling back to the people who taught her she had to earn it.
I understood every part of what happened, and I hated her anyway.
“Don’t fight over us,” I said. “There is no us.”
Bliss made a small sound, and I refused to imagine her face.
“How cold were you?” Cade asked.
“Cold enough that she’ll never forget it.”
“Did you insult her?”
“Ni madres. I was mad as fuck, but I would never call her names.”
“Did you threaten her?”
My knuckles whitened around the wheel. “What the fuck do you think?”
“I think you were hurt enough to become somebody most people don’t know exists.”
Briggs shifted in the back seat. “El Cuchillo.”
I glanced toward my phone as though I could see him through it. “Yeah, she got my cutthroat, but my hands only ever hit men, pendejo.”
“What did you do?” Briggs asked.
“I severed the fucking tie.”
I passed beneath an overpass, and the sound of the engine came back from the concrete around me.
“I made it vulgar enough that she couldn’t turn it into poetry later. I took my key back, opened the door, and told her to leave.”
“In Spanish?” Cade asked.
“Some of it.”
“Did she understand?”
“Some. She understood the rest from my face.”
I could still see hers.
Charm had stood in the hallway with tears spilling down her cheeks, keys pressed against her chest, and disbelief widening her eyes. She kept waiting for me to soften. Every plea carried the expectation that her Ryan would return if she reached deeply enough.
I almost did.
When her knees weakened, my hand moved before I stopped it. I wanted to catch her, carry her to my bed, and hold her until the shaking ended, even if she woke the next day and chose them again.
That was why I had to make her leave.
I wasn’t strong enough to stay inside the same room and keep choosing myself.
“She looked at me like she had never seen me before,” I said.
“Maybe she hadn’t,” Briggs answered.
“No. She hadn’t.”
Everyone knew the story behind my nickname. Most people believed it came from how I played—the speed, violence, and way I cut through a defense before anyone recognized the opening.