Carter #3
Suddenly, his fingers snap shut, his hand curling into a fist so tight the knuckles go bone-pale. He brings it down toward the bench, but stops just short, the tension in his arm vibrating through the air. The haze is gone, replaced by something dangerous and unsteady.
"So," he says, the word a twisted edge. "Are we done? Have I scared you off yet?"
I take a half-step back, my pulse jumping into my throat. The air in the garage suddenly feels heavy, charged with a violence that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
"No," I mutter, though the lie feels thin even to me.
"No?" he echoes, the expression on his face all mockery and teeth. He somehow crowds closer until the air feels too thin to breathe. The warmth coming off him should feel human. Instead, it feels dangerous—like standing too close to exposed wiring.
"You’re a better actress than I thought, Shortcut," he sneers, his voice low and splintered around the edges.
"Most people see the wreckage and start looking for the exit before they even get to the good stuff.
Is that why you're still here? You finally got your front-row seat to the collapse.
You finally got in my head enough to find the cracks, and now you want to watch them spread. "
He tilts his head, his eyes scanning me with a clinical, freezing distance that makes me feel exposed.
"Or is this just some sick kind of research for you?
Collecting data on the dying star so you can write the perfect report on the failure I am in the making?
" He invades every inch of space between us until I can’t tell where my breathing ends and his begins.
"Because let's be clear—you didn't just 'see' me, Carter. You’re telling me you took a look at the disaster I am, really thought it all through after today, and decided to stay for the show anyway? You’re lying. You’re lying to me, and you’re lying to yourself. "
"You're reacting like this because you're afraid," I snap, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "You're lashing out at me because you can’t control the fact that you're losing control, and you hate it. Why are you being like this?"
He doesn't just snap; he explodes, the sheer impossibility of my care hitting him like a physical blow.
He snarls, his hand sweeping across the workbench in a blind, furious arc.
He sends a metal tray of bolts and washers crashing to the concrete floor.
The sound is deafening—a chaotic roar that echoes off the walls and makes me jump, my heart leaping into my throat.
I stare at the scattered metal, my chest heaving, and I feel it—the hot, unwanted sting of tears threatening to brim in my eyes, but I don’t dare let them win.
I am scared. I’m scared of the noise, but mostly I’m scared for him, because beneath the anger, I can feel his absolute, helpless despair.
It’s the sound of a person drowning who is shoving away the hand reaching for him.
He sees the pink rim of my eyes no doubt. For a second, his expression falters, his features softening into something that looks almost like regret. But then he catches himself. He sees the truth in my eyes—that I’m still here, that I’m not running—and it terrifies him.
The cruelty returns like a reflex, sharper and uglier than before. It’s his only defense left.
"Don't do that," he hisses, reaching out as his fingers catch my chin, his grip firm and uncompromising as he forces me to look up at him.
"Don't you dare look at me with pity. I don't need whatever you think this is, and I definitely don't need you crying like you plan on staying. We both know the second this place stops benefiting you, you’re gone. "
I jerk my head away, pulling out of his reach.
"You're right," I breathe, my voice shaking as I turn away. "You really are alone in this. But it’s because you won't let anyone be anywhere else."
"Good," he snaps, his back already turned to me as he reaches for a tool. "Go tell your father the car is fine. That’s the only part of this you’re actually here for, right?"
The cruelty of it—the way he just reduced everything I feel to a status report—hits like a physical blow.
"You’re such an asshole, Dominic," I breathe, the words shaking as I turn away.
"Tell me something I don't know," he calls out after me, his voice echoing in the vast space of the garage.
I storm toward the exit, my footsteps frantic against the concrete.
I leave him alone with his tools and his silence, but the heaviest thing I carry out with me is the realization that the version of him I’d started to think was more—the person I thought was letting me in—was just a lie I’d told myself to feel like I mattered.
I’d been fighting for someone who didn't want to be saved, and worse, someone who had already decided I was temporary.
That was the part that stung the most. He’d thrown my departure in my face like an inevitability, and it wasn't until that moment that I realized recently I’d stopped planning for it.
Somewhere between the late nights and the quiet moments, I’d stopped telling myself this was just a stop on the way to somewhere else.
I’d started to build something here, only to realize I was the only one standing on the foundation.