Chapter 28 Lewis #2
“You bailed on every single one of our sessions,” I start, keeping my voice as steady as I can. “You’re supposed to be joining the Campus Drivers—and this is what’s been keeping you ‘busy’?”
Why him? Why not me?
She laughs in my face.
I don’t get it.
“Yeah… You could say I’m a little tense lately. Esteban is helping me blow off some steam.”
What? But that’s my job!
“How long has this been a thing?”
Amy just shrugs. Pins and needles are buzzing in my legs. Any minute now, I’m about to explode, I can feel it. And there I was, wondering whether she felt the same. What a loser.
I hear footsteps behind me as my friends catch up.
I stare at Amy. I don’t even have the headspace to be surprised—all I feel is blinding jealousy with a dusting of rage.
“What is wrong with you?”
“With me?” Her eyes widen. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I haven’t felt so in touch with myself in ages.”
In touch with what, exactly? Your New York roots?
I can feel my grip on myself loosening as Esteban holds his wrist up, pretending to check the time.
“You done here? Because we got places to be.”
He pulls Amy into him.
“Why don’t you go on ahead?” I shoot Esteban a leveling look. “I need to talk to my—”
I cut myself short. I was about to say “my girlfriend.” I wince inwardly. I’ve fallen harder than I thought.
“My mentee,” I finish.
“I’m good to wait.”
Suddenly, the floodgates open, and the rage comes pouring out of me.
“Get the fuck outta here, man.”
Esteban’s eyebrows shoot up. “Go fuck yourself, amigo.”
“Not your amigo, buddy.”
He takes a step closer. “Like I said, amigo… I’m chilling with my girlfriend. Watch your fucking mouth.”
I look at her helplessly. “Amy, I need you to come with me—I need to talk to you.”
I reach for her wrist, but she snatches it away and shoves me back.
“Hey!” Adam pipes up. “Cool it, you guys.”
Lane sidles up beside me. “What is going on here?”
“Lewis is having a meltdown,” Amy hisses.
Don appears to my right. “What’s the problem?”
“That’s our business,” I say.
“Nope.” He shakes his head. “You guys have a problem, it becomes our problem. Amy, you—”
She looks him dead in the eye. “I slept with Lewis.”
Don turns to stare at me. Lane does the same.
“Fuck, dude!”
Amy glances back and forth at the three of us. “Don’t sweat it, Donovan—all part of the training plan, am I right?”
I don’t care that she just let that slip—what I care about is how bitter she sounds. She’s snarling like a wounded animal.
“You wanna talk about your training plan?” I glare at her. “You think the way you’re acting right now is worthy of a Campus Driver?”
“Good news—I quit.”
“Great news,” I bat back.
“That way you can pick your next mentee yourself.”
“I can’t wait. I thought we were back on track, but hey—I guess you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, right?” I shrug. “You haven’t changed a bit. Still just looking for gangsters to ride…”
Adam gasps. “Lewis…”
I’m being hard on her, I know—and it’s not like me. But I don’t care. Not even my oldest friend can stop me now. All I can think about is how Amy looked with her tongue in Esteban’s mouth.
“Since when do you give a fuck?”
Her voice rings out clear and calm, and the betrayal cuts me deep.
Without thinking, I go in for the kill, unleashing a torrent of abuse on her, hammering her with words, and even when I see the hurt etched into her face, I don’t stop.
“I give a fuck now that I know you get around, yeah. I nearly barebacked you, remember? You make me sick.” I spit. “Still—good job. You stopped me before I went there. Fuck knows what I could’ve caught.”
The slap she delivers rings out, my cheek burning from the sting.
This whole conversation is a hot mess; an ugly mash-up of Campus Drivers stuff and blind jealousy.
I look at her. Amy is as cool and calm as ever, swinging her backpack around to her front now, zipping it open to fish out the pink tee I made for her, shaking it out and pulling it tight, flashing me a glimpse of what she’s scrawled over the back in black marker.
She’s crossed out the “Property of Lewis Conley” and replaced it with “Fuck You.”
It’s happening, then—this is really happening. Her time with the Campus Drivers is over.
“Guess you’ll need to find yourself a new outlet,” she drawls, before turning to Carrie and Lois. “How did he put it, exactly? Oh, that’s right—‘a cheat day.’ ”
“What the hell are you talking about? I never…”
My mouth snaps shut. Now I remember. That’s word-for-word what I told Adam when I got back from Atlanta, and hearing Amy echo the line back to me makes my stomach churn.
Why did I even say that? I know my best friend would never have told her what I said, which can only mean one thing.
We were meant to meet up, and I thought she’d left—but she was there all along.
“You were there that day?”
“Surprise! I was right there at your front door. Front-row seats. I came by to ask what the deal was with us. I guess you could say I sure as hell found out.”
I glance at Carrie and Lois. All three of them were there that day. Now I get why they were acting so shifty—and I finally understand why Amy is spitting with rage.
She nods at me slowly. “Guess we’re finally on the same wavelength.”
Before I have a chance to reply, she’s scrunching the tee into a ball and throwing it in my face, and it burns more than a slap ever could. She jostles past me, shoving me aside with her shoulder and striding off down the parking lot alone, leaving Esteban standing there beside me.
Now that the pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place, I feel like the world’s biggest asshole. That’s why she seemed to have a personality transplant overnight. Because I hurt her. Worse still, I hurt her with hollow words I never meant.
“You didn’t mean what you said, did you?” Carrie asks quietly.
“I…”
I don’t even need to wonder.
No.
I didn’t mean a single one of them. Amy matters so much more than I pretended she did to Adam. I was bullshitting him, all so I could feel like I was in control of the situation, but now I’ve lost her—and I only have myself to blame.
“You are such a clown.” Carrie sighs, shaking her head. “What are you waiting for? Go fix this.”
“Amy, hold up!”
I gaze desperately across the parking lot, but without looking back, she raises her arms above her head and flips me the finger—a double “fuck you.” Next to me, Esteban chuckles to himself.
“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, jockstrap.
Me and Amy… What we’ve got is special, you know?
And when I first got here, my plan was to get her back to Brooklyn—back where she belongs,” he adds.
“I never imagined she’d be crushing on some uptight, shitty basketball player.
” He waits a beat, dead-eyeing me. “Yeah. Surprise, bitch—as crazy as it sounds, Amy Hitman fell hard for you. And you don’t even give a fuck.
She’s a fighter, you know? Her plan was to hang on in there and ride it out.
I thought I was gonna have to go home alone like a loser.
” He shakes his head sadly, before glancing up at me, flashing me a grin.
“But I’m a patient guy. And I’m a fighter, too.
I hung on in there and rode it out. And it was all worth it in the end. ”
He sounds so casual. So cocky. And all that does is fan the flames flickering inside me, dissolving all the self-restraint I had been clinging on to until now.
I strike without thinking, sending my fist flying into his cheekbone, and when he crumples to the ground, I lunge for him, feeling arms wrap around me, pulling me back.
Esteban staggers to his feet, shaking his head. When he lifts his eyes to meet mine, they’re full of loathing.
“Get the fuck outta here,” Don snarls at him.
Esteban spits at my feet, rubbing at the blood streaming down his cheek.
“Let me tell you something, asshole,” he says, stepping closer. “Some wasted guy came after her. Fucked up her eye. That was Wednesday night.”
“What?”
“Yeah. You know—the night she spent waiting for you at the bar. The night you never showed. He was hitting on her, and she didn’t like that. She blew him off… And he came after her.”
Is he talking about the Java? I frown. I don’t get it—I messaged to cancel; told her I was heading to Charlotte.
I rummage for my phone and scroll through the conversation, but I can’t find the message I’m looking for.
Fuck! I was in such a rush, I must’ve forgotten.
Did she stand there waiting for me? And then get jumped?
But if that’s true, then why didn’t she call me?
I turn to the girls. “Did you two know about this?”
“No!” Lois shakes her head. “She said it happened at the shop.”
“Lucky for her, I was there to protect her. A shoulder to cry on.” Esteban winks. “I should be thanking you. You did all the hard work for me, and now she’s sure—she plans on leaving town.”
People are gathering around us, rubbernecking.
A smirk flits over Esteban’s face. As he slopes off, I can feel my rage falling away, replaced by a thick fog of confusion, when suddenly, the familiar rumble of Amy’s Pontiac shatters the silence.
I jerk my head up. There she is, pulling out of her parking spot.
Carrie yanks on my sweater. “You can’t let her just leave like that.”
“Run,” Lane urges.
I don’t need to be told twice. I go bolting across the parking lot, my heart pounding in my chest, slamming both hands down on her hood when I reach her, feeling the metal throb against my palms.
“Get out.”
Her eyes narrow behind the windshield, and though the engine roars, I stay exactly where I am, my eyes locked on hers.
“Get out.”
The car bounds forward, the bumper grazing my knees—once, and then a second time. The third time is a warning shot. She’s threatened to run me down before, and this time I’m sure she means it. I thump on the hood with my fist and leap to the side, watching as she goes flying down the street.
“Fuck!”
Hang on. Ride it out.
I glance over at my Dodge, thanking my lucky stars that she parked right next to me, reaching for my phone as I hit the gas, but it’s no use.
She’s not picking up. I call again. And again.
I overtake everything that stands between me and her, closing the gap between us and pummeling the horn, trying to pull ahead—anything to get her to stop and listen.
I hit dial again, and when her voice comes booming through the speaker, my heart skips a beat.
“Leave me the fuck alone, Lewis!”
“Stop!”
She’s not slowing down. If anything, she’s going faster and faster now, and if she doesn’t cut it out, this could get dangerous. She flips me the finger.
“You need to stop!” I yell, pulling closer behind her. “We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
I breathe in sharply. I need to get her to hear me out. What she heard—what she thinks she heard… My world has been turned upside down, and I can’t even think how to start. I feel… What do I feel, exactly? Helpless. Guilty. Full of regret that I let things get this far.
“You’re mad!” I yell. “I get that—and you’re right to be. But you need to slow down. This is out of control; you can’t drive like this.”
She doesn’t reply. I glance down at my phone to check, and she’s definitely still on the line.
“Say something, Amy!”
“There’s nothing I want to say. I just want you to forget all about me.”
We’re approaching an intersection, and as the light turns red, this is my one shot at catching up to her.
Why won’t she just slow down?
“Amy, don’t do this…”
She doesn’t listen, and I watch in horror as the Pontiac blows straight through.
“Fuck!”
I close my eyes for the smallest split second. And then I follow.
“You’re fucking insane!” I yell. “This isn’t worth risking your life over. You want to end up like your dad? You could kill someone!”
“Shut the hell up!” she screams. “Who the fuck do you think you are? If I’d known the real you, I would never have opened up to you about my dad!”
She sounds different now.
And that’s when it hits me.
She’s crying.
Something inside me breaks, my heart filling with everything I was so sure I never wanted to feel.
She heads for the freeway, veering off at the next exit onto a wide, empty road.
The distance between us is stretching wider and wider as she pushes the Pontiac hard, and with every inch I fall back, the sense that I’m losing her deepens.
I’ve never chased a girl before, but that’s exactly what I need to do now.
I can’t let her go. I just can’t. It finally happened to you, too, Conley.
“I fucked up. But I thought—”
I don’t have time to finish my sentence. A spine-chilling bang echoes across the line, and my blood turns to ice. The tires. What did RJ say about the tires…
I hear Amy call out, and a second later, my worst nightmare comes true when the Pontiac lurches left, Amy wrestling with the steering wheel as her head snaps to one side; the air fills with screams and the whole world stands still.
I feel nothing. Hear nothing. Goose bumps inch across my skin. Nothing exists anymore. A black hole opens up in front of me as I watch the Pontiac bounce and tumble and roll, over and over, and everything is silent.