“I didn’t mean to?—”
“You didn’tmean to?” His laugh is short and sharp, like a snapped branch. “You left me at the altar, Faith.”
My throat tightens instantly. My eyes burn.
He keeps going, still calm, still measured, like he’s presenting quarterly results.
“You didn’t just leave. You humiliated me in front of everyone that matters.”
There it is. The word.
Humiliated.
Like I’m not a person. Like I’m a press release that went wrong.
“I didn’t do it to you,” I whisper. “I didn’t leave to hurt you.”
Evan finally turns his head. His eyes are bright, furious, and somehow offended, because I’m refusing to keep playing my part.
“Do you have any idea what people are saying about us?” he snaps. “Do you know what your father is dealing with because of you?”
My stomach drops. My father’s name always does that to me, like gravity lives inside it.
“I don’t… I don’t want to know.”
“Well I do,” Evan says. “Because I’m the one cleaning up after your tantrum.”
Tantrum.
I flinch like he hit me, because that’s the word my father uses when I have an emotion that inconveniences him.
Evan’s hand lifts off the wheel for half a second, palm up, like he’s explaining something simple to a child.
“You don’t get to do that,” he says. “Not when there are real consequences.”
The car makes a turn I don’t recognize. The streetlights thin out. My palms go damp inside my gloves.
“Where are we going?”
“Home,” he says.
My pulse spikes. “My mom’s house is home.”
He smiles without warmth. “Don’t be dramatic.”
I look down at my phone in my lap, thumb hovering. My mom. Dallas. Someone. Anyone.
Evan notices. Of course he does. Evan notices everything that affects him.
“Don’t,” he warns.
I freeze, my thumb suspended above the screen.
My whole body goes cold.
I hate this part.
I hate the part where my nervous system turns into a small animal, and the world becomes a list of exits and threats and thoughts on whether it would be better to scream now or wait until there are other people around.
