Chapter 33 #2
I shift my face to the left, tracing Nox’s profile, and I know.
I feel it in the way my heart sinks, the visceral clench of my gut, the sudden fire scorching the back of my throat.
He’s got both hands on the wheel. His eyes are trained on the road.
He’s tense. It’s clear in his white-knuckle grip, the tight clench of his jaw, the sharp focus.
I’ve driven with him before, and I’ve never seen him so on edge.
It’s suddenly bizarre that he didn’t pull me into his arms for a hello kiss, didn’t come over to open my door, didn’t try to catch my gaze, as if he didn’t want me close enough to look him in the eyes.
“Stop the car,” I manage to say, hardly more than a broken whisper.
He doesn’t.
I don’t know if he didn’t hear, if he didn’t understand.
I swallow, trying to clear my throat even as I feel my body sinking into fight-or-flight mode.
Adrenaline and cortisol rush through my veins.
My pulse speeds, pounding in my ears. My muscles coil, preparing to respond.
I can practically hear my amygdala shouting, Danger! Danger!
“Stop the car,” I repeat, louder this time, the words crisp.
He wrings his hands on the wheel and ignores me.
I haven’t relived the accident in a year and a half, not once since that day Nox kissed me in the lake.
But as I take a deep, uncertain breath and catch the subtle hint of mint in the air, I’m transported back.
I’m there in that car with Mabel. I’m feeling myself ignore my gut instincts.
I’m listening to myself bury my hesitations.
I’m watching myself give in and do what she says, even as a part of me is screaming to stop.
Then the screech hits my ears, the crunch, the screams. I’m airborne, flying.
I smack the water in a blaze of agony and—
“STOP THE CAR!”
The scream rips out of me before I can help it, because I won’t do it again. I won’t overlook or deny or pretend for one second longer. I won’t desperately cling to something that’s already gone at the risk of my own life. Not again. Not even for Nox.
He slams on his brakes and swerves into the shoulder.
An eerie calm settles over me, as if I’m outside myself, as if my body is so overwhelmed my brain simply unplugged. My arms and legs feel disconnected. My voice detached. I feel nothing as I lift my hand up and say, “Give me the keys.”
“Clara—”
“Give. Me. The. Keys.”
Nox turns the car off and hands them over.
“Now, get out.”
He sighs and unbuckles his seat belt, resigned—for what, I don’t know. Another lecture? The fight we never had? To brush this under the rug and move on?
It’s too late for that.
I don’t think he even realizes how serious I am until he shuts the door behind him and hears the locks thunk into place.
“Clara?”
He runs around the back of the car and skids to a stop outside my window.
“Clara?”
He yanks on the handle, bangs on the glass. The confusion in his voice is replaced by panic.
“Clara! Look at me. Open the door. Clara! Please!”
I don’t do either.
I pull my knees into my chest and stare straight ahead as I lift my phone to my ear. It rings twice before Logan picks up.
“Hey, Clara. What’s up?”
“I need your help.”
I don’t know if it’s my tone or if he can hear Nox calling my name from the other side of the window, but the carefree boy I know is gone when he speaks again. “What happened?”
“I’m parked about five minutes from our exit on the side of Route 9. I need you to come get Nox. Bring Grant. I’m not sure he’ll go willingly.”
“On my way.”
He hangs up.
My phone slips through my fingers and drops to the floor. I hug my arms around my calves and rest my chin on my knees. I’m so far away, I don’t register that it’s tears making the world go blurry until I taste the salt on my lips.
Outside, Nox turns desperate.
“Clara!” He’s shouting now, the tone of his voice going raw as the fragile cells at the back of his throat start to tear.
He slaps the window, pulls so hard at the door I won’t be surprised if the handle snaps.
He tries anything and everything to get inside, and when he can’t, he finally drops to his knees and leans his whole upper body against the door.
Palms and forehead flat against the window, he stares at me, the weight of his gaze boring into my cheek.
His warm breath fogs against the cool glass, forming droplets of condensation that turn prophetic as wet flakes begin to pepper the front windshield.
It’s as if the world itself is weeping for us.
“Please,” he begs softly. “Please, just— Just look at me.”
I want to.
I do.
I just—
“I can’t.”
“Please, baby.” His voice cracks. Against the window, his fingers curl into fists, not banging or angry, more as if he’s desperately trying to hold on to something, but there’s nothing there.
All that’s left in his palms is air. They’re as empty as his promises turned out to be. “Please, don’t do this.”
“I didn’t do this.” My head turns then, of its own volition. Nox flinches as my gaze snags on his, struck by what he sees. Hurt, maybe. Pain. Accusation. But what I really want him to see is his own warped reflection. “You did.”
“It was one drink,” he clarifies, a brief flash of hope in his eyes, as if now that I’m looking at him, he’ll be able to make me see.
But I am seeing—clearly, for the first time.
I’m seeing what Nova tried to explain. I can’t fix this for him.
No matter how many times I check his location, or go through his drawers, or keep careful watch.
This is out of my control. The only one who can make him change is him.
“I thought I had a few more hours to sober up before we were leaving, but then you switched the plan. And I was fine to drive. I just knew you’d be pissed if you knew.
So I didn’t tell you. But I was fine. I am fine. You have to believe me.”
Does he hear himself?
Does he even believe it?
The scariest part is, I think maybe he does.
“You need help,” I say, forcing the words past the plug forming in the back of my throat. Because he does. He needs help I’m not qualified to give.
“Don’t say it like that.” He shakes his head, black hair starting to stick to his forehead, making him look so much like the boy I love—the boy in the pool who pushed me and held me and helped bring me back to life. “Don’t say it like goodbye.”
I press my forehead to his, a cool sheet of glass the only thing between us, a wall just like the ones we both built up in our minds, invisible but undeniably there.
I close my eyes, imagining his warmth, the solace in his touch, but it’s out of reach.
There’s something else there now, something I know I won’t be able to erase anytime soon.
“You’ve always felt safe to me, Nox. Ever since the first time we met, when you carried me out of the lake, when you held me in your arms. It’s why I pushed you away for so long.
Because even when I told myself I didn’t like you, I felt safe with you in a way that scared me.
But now…” I swallow, open my eyes, and meet his agonized expression. “Now, you’re just scaring me.”
“I would never let anything hurt you,” he begs.
“You hurt me.” I pull back, pull away, my voice rising as the emotions I’ve been burying threaten to break free. “This hurt me. And it could have hurt both of us a helluva lot more.”
“I know. I fucked up.” He shakes his head, as if he doesn’t want to acknowledge the truth. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll change. I’ll get help. This will never happen again.”