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“You should have said that up front,” Beckett retorted “Getting to go home is never a given. I haven’t been home since my mom died.”
My heart clenched. Beckett was losing it. All those black, roiling emotions he kept pushed down deep were bubbling up to the surface. He was imploding, and all he had was me to help hold back the blackness – and I had no idea how to do it.
He took a sharp turn, and the force of it threw me against the door, seatbelt or not.
“You want me to stop?” he goaded. “Is this enough now? Now that you’ve heard Colette’s poison? My ugly, disgusting past…Are you done with me?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat at his words. “You were just a kid,” I couldn’t help but say.
He chuckled darkly. “So, you really did hear everything.” He pressed down harder on the accelerator, and the car leaped forward.
I closed my eyes.
“You want me to stop? Just say the word, and I will.” There was something in his tone that told me if I did, he’d just drive off and continue this death race alone.
“Will you come home with me?”
“I don’t have a home, Eve. I’m tired of pretending I do.”
“So, you’ll drop me off and then take off and get into an accident. I’ll hear in the morning that the billionaire student of HHU smashed into a wall somewhere?”
“A wall?” Beckett shook his head. “No, that’s too ordinary. Don’t worry, I have the spot all picked out on the coast road.”
We were driving so damn fast, I couldn’t look. I didn’t know how Beckett was managing it. It clearly wasn’t his first-time risking death like this. He was a practiced hand at it. It hurt my heart to think of him putting his life on the line like this, broken, angry. Alone. Always alone.
“Then I’m coming with you. I’m not leaving.” My voice was suddenly calm.
I put my hand on top of his, resting on his gearshift. The car had a manual transmission, and he was in top gear.
“Until you think about all the things you know about me now…Until you understand who I really am, right?” His voice was so full of self-loathing.
I tightened my hand around the back of his and shook my head. “I heard it all. I’m not leaving. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“You didn’t feel that way over summer. You’ll change your mind about me again, just give it time.”
“I never changed my mind! I messaged you when I thought you’d gone away for treatment. I messaged the number that Colette gave me, and you responded… you broke my heart.”
He glanced at me, confusion piercing through his self-loathing for a second.
“I worried about you all summer. I was glued to my phone, waiting for a reply, and then it came, and it was awful. It hurt.”
“You never messaged me, Eve,” he ground out.
I nodded quickly. “I know. I just figured out it was Colette. All summer, you were waiting for me to contact you, and I thought you hated me. She messed with us, Beck.”
He let out a bitter chuckle. “Of course she did. She’s messed with me my entire life… but if you ask her about it, she’ll turn around and tell you I liked it… that Icausedit.”
Just then, we hit a slippery patch on the road, and the car drifted for a second, the wheels losing traction. I held onto Beckett, shutting my eyes, pure fear filling my chest.
“Shit,” Beckett swore, turning into the drift and catching a dry piece of road.
The wheels engaged again, and we surged forward, back in control.
A tear escaped my eye and dashed down my cheek. I couldn’t see. I wasn’t brave enough to open my eyes, but I felt the car slow beneath me. He was pulling in somewhere.
When we stopped, it felt so odd after the terrifying drive that my knees were weak. Beckett got out of the car and strode away. I unbuckled my seatbelt and scrambled after him. The sound of the sea filled my head as soon as I left the car. We were on one of the roads above the harbor. There was a barrier, and beyond, a drop and the same cliffs that continued along to Cliff Point.
Beckett was a dark outline against the horizon.
