Page 115 of Before You Fell

“Well,” I say. “I guess it’s time.”

Phoenix takes my suitcase. “Car’s parked out front when you’re ready, Wills.”

He turns and leaves, giving me time to say goodbye to Mom and Dad.

“I love you,” Mom says, pulling me into a hug. She sniffles against my shoulder and I grasp this is killing her.

“I love you too, Mom.”

Dad’s hug is stiff at first, before his arms close around me, and the side of his face briefly presses against my hair. “I’m proud of you.”

He has always told me that. Even when I came in last at a school science fair because my volcano refused to erupt until three minutes after judging ended and then spat baking-soda lava all over Mrs. Henderson’s shoes.

Mom kisses my cheek one more time before I walk out, leaving them behind in my apartment.

I get into the rental and we pull away from the curb.

Phoenix drives with both hands on the wheel.

I glance out the window because looking at him is a terrible idea when I have things to say.

For a while, neither of us speaks. The silence sits between us, filling every inch of the car.

“I’m sorry,” he manages to say.

I keep my gaze out of the window, watching the street. “Sorry is too small for what you did, Phoenix.”

“I know.” His hands flex on the wheel. “I know.”

“You fucked me and then treated me as if I were disposable.”

“You weren’t disposable.”

“Don’t tell me what I was not,” I say. “I’m telling you how you made me feel.”

He nods. “Okay.”

The car stops at a red light. He looks straight ahead for a second before turning his head toward me as we wait for the light to change.

“I was a selfish prick,” he says.

I don’t answer.

“I could say I was scared and that would be true, but it would also be bullshit dressed up as an excuse.” His jaw clenches. “But I was scared and so I made it your problem.”

“Scared of what, Phoenix?”

“You.”

His fingers curl tighter around the wheel. “I fucking wanted you and I hated that wanting you felt bigger than anything I knew how to control. Then I acted like a cocky asshole with a God complex and the emotional range of a broken amp.”

My chest aches.

He glances back at the road as the light changes and moves the car forward.

“I fucked it up before it could fuck me up first,” he says, glancing my way. “I thought you were going to fucking die, Willow.” He swallows and I watch his Adam’s apple bob. “I sat beside that hospital bed and kept watching your chest because I needed to see it move. That was my whole fucking world. Your chest moving. Your hand in mine. The next beep. The next breath. And for once in my life, I had no joke or filthy little comment to get me out of it.”

My throat burns.