Chapter 17 Guess Who
GUESS WHO
The nails were my idea.
Four of them, pushed into the rubber at an angle so they’d hold air just long enough for her to drive a few blocks before the tire gave out.
I wanted her stranded. I wanted her standing on the side of the road with no spare and no plan, feeling helpless and small and desperate—the way she makes other people feel every single day of her miserable life.
What I didn’t plan on was him.
He wasn’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t supposed to pull over in that car and crouch down next to her tire and make phone calls on her behalf and open his passenger door for her like she was something worth rescuing.
She’s not worth rescuing. She’s not worth any of it—the dinner, the attention, the way he leaned against his car waiting for her to stop being stubborn.
I saw all of it. I saw his patience with her and it made me sick because I have never been on the receiving end of that tenderness. Not once.
And then they drove off together.
I sat in my car for a long time after that, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles ached. I had wanted her stranded and alone and scared. Instead she ended up in his passenger seat, riding away from me into whatever the night was about to become for the two of them.
I went home and poured a glass of wine and sat in the dark and thought about what it felt like to watch someone take what belonged to you and not even know they were doing it.
He didn’t know. She didn’t know. Neither of them had any idea that I was the reason they were together tonight, and the irony of that was so sharp it could cut glass.
I created this. My four little nails put her in his car. My plan backfired and gave them a night they wouldn’t have had without me.
That won’t happen again.
Next time I take something from her, I’m going to make sure he’s nowhere near it.