Page 176 of Broken Breath
Fuck. What the fuck did I just do?
I didn’t ask. I didn’t check. For all those words I spewed, I didn’t ask the important thing, and now I’ve taken something from her, something she’ll never get back, while standing in a goddamn gondola with a clock hanging over us.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Alaina…” It’s all I can manage.
Becausefuck, this wasn’t what she deserved, not what she would’ve ever dreamed about.
She trusted me with something thatmattered, and I treated it like it didn’t. I just took what she gave me and ranwith it like some starving idiot with no sense of what itmeant.
No prep, no softness, and no idea what this moment was for her.
Another goddamn point for the scoreboard.
Finn Greer: Wrecking shit since 2009.
Jesus-fucking-Christ.
“Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that.”
The words come out flat, too small for what I mean.
I open my eyes to face what I’ve done, only to find her gaze already on me, and itbleedswith hurt. A hurt so visceral it hits me straight in the chest.
My gut twists so violently I almost stagger back, and that’s when the gondola jerks against the dock. The world hasn’t stopped, even if everything inside me has.
Alaina grabs her helmet with jerky, shaky movements, then pauses, eyes fixed on the crushed cornflower. She stares at it for a heartbeat longer, then looks up at me, eyes glassy and shining with unshed tears.
She throws itat me, and it hits me square in the chest, broken petals sticking to my jersey like an accusation I can’t outrun.
One Idon’tdeserve to outrun.
“Fuck…no!” I breathe, everything slamming into place at once.
What I said.
What she thinks I meant.
“I didn’t mean…”
But she’s already out of the gondola and hauling her bike from the rack.
“Alai…” I start, panic climbing up my throat, but I manage to cut myself off just in time, following after her. “Al!”
I jump out of thegondola station, and the rain slams into me, but I barely feel it.
An official runs up to Alaina ahead of me, waving frantically. “Come on! You have one minute!”
She nods, mounting her bike in one fluid motion, riding off toward the gate without a backward glance. Wheels slicing through the mud, she has barely made it to the starting gate when the timer begins to count down, giving her no time to prepare or get her head in it.
A screen is mounted under the race tent near me with a few officials crowded around it. I approach it quietly, and we all watch as the last beep rings out and Alaina barrels out of the start gate like a bullet.
Too fast, baby girl.
Way too fast for these conditions.
Mud flies from her tires in bursts as rain slices sideways across the camera’s lens. She’s attacking the course, not riding it, not dancing with it the way she usually does. She’swayout of rhythm, and it’s my fault.
The first split time flashes on screen.
