Miles starts the engine, and we drive. The air in the car is stale, like regret and rage has made a home in it, because it’s made a fucking home in me.
My mind goes to her and the way she whispered sorry. Like it fixes anything.
It doesn’t. And I don’t think it ever will.
Even if I forgive her, I don’t ever think sorry will be enough.
The ride to the garage was quiet. Miles and Mason talked about another school party, but I didn’t take part in the conversation. Getting out of the car, the smell of oil and burnt rubber hit me hard.
I nod at Logan and Travis who are both working on a car, Travis knows what he’s doing, but Logan he must be fucking learning, because I’m sure he knows nothing about cars.
Blake meets us as we walk toward him, wiping his hands on a rag. “Someone wasn’t happy with your girl,” he says, and I shake my head.
“Not my girl,” I snap before I can stop myself, but it’s true, she’s not my girl and never will be.
Blake raises an eyebrow. “Alright. Just saying. Every tire was sliced open, Hayden. Clean cuts. Someone knew what they were doing, and the brakes…they’ve been tampered with. They still work, but barely. She’s lucky.” I stare at the floor, jaw locked, still not understanding what’s happening and who'd want to hurt her. Blake keeps talking. “At first I thought it was just a shitcar. But no, someone wanted her to crash, maybe not to kill her, but definitely to scare her.”
I try not to think about it too much. I can’t let her take over my life again. I was ready to give her everything, and she threw me under the bus, I won’t let her do it again.
“How long until it’s fixed?” I ask, changing the subject.
“You want me to fix everything?” Blake asks, and I look over at Logan and Travis joining us.
“Yeah,” I say, letting out a sigh. I shouldn’t help her, but I also know she needs her car to take her mom to hospital, and there's no way I’m having something happening to her in my head. I exhale slowly. “Are there fights tonight?”
Blake nods. “The usual place, it'll be a fun night.” Blake smiles, and I glance over at my brothers, before saying, “Good. I want in.” I don’t fight much at Blake’s club, Cain taught me how to fight, how to kill, and I never have any anger in me to want to take it out on anyone. Not like Mason anyway, but now, now I do.
Having Olivia back makes me want to hit someone, take out my anger I have for her on someone, fucking anyone.
We talk about the fight club, who’s making noise, who’s got banned, the latest drama in that underground world where people bleed to remember they were alive. I need that. I need pain. I need to feel something that isn’t her.
When we get back in the car, the silence is back, but I can feel my brothers looking at me.
Miles is the first to talk, always the one to poke at cracks. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
Mason turns in his seat. “Hayden… we all know how you felt about her.”
“Shut up,” I say coldly. “She’s the one who did it. She broke it. She made her choice.” My voice has become louder, I don’t even know who I’m angrier at, her or myself.
“But—”
“There’s no ‘but’!” I snap, my voice echoes off the roof of the car. “How the hell do you forgive someone for that?”
They don’t reply, because they don’t know what to say, because there's no answer, and maybe that’s what hurts the most.
Even when I hate her, I’m still asking the wrong questions.
Can I forgive her?
Can I love her again?
I don't know the answers, but all I know is, she’s all I can think about, and I don’t know if I want it to stop or have her back in my life.
After stopping at the garage, I didn’t want to go to class. Couldn’t stomach sitting in the same room as her, pretending to care about textbook pages when my head is a war zone. Kissing her was a mistake. The worst kind, the kind I knew would haunt me. Yet, I want to kiss her again.
So now I sit on a weathered bench, the iron armrests cold beneath my forearm, a coffee in the other hand. As I watch my target across the street in a five star restaurant, with windows all the way around so you can see straight through it, I watch my target, he’s a middle aged fucker, in expensive suits, and a smug grin which I want to punch off his face. I watch everything he is doing, the way his body moves, the way he talks in his business.
