Page 137 of Broken Pieces
I flinch.
She lowers her voice, eyes on mine. “And he’s been drowning in you the whole damn time. So whatever this is, it’s not done.”
I don’t answer.
She bumps her shoulder against mine, softer now.
“Come on. Let’s go fail math together.”
I bailed on the last period.
The walk home feels longer than usual, my chest heavy, my head loud with thoughts I don’t want to face.
The apartment is too quiet when I open the door.
The kind of silence that crawls under your skin and settles in your bones.
I drop my bag beside the couch and collapse onto the cushions. Pull my knees to my chest. My arms wrapped tight as if that’s going to hold me together.
The clock ticks.
The fridge hums.
Hours crawl by, slow and cruel.
I don’t eat or move. I sit there instead, chewing at the inside of my cheek until it stings.
Every minute that passes beats against me, a steady reminder that he’s downstairs in the workshop, choosing engines and pretending last night didn’t happen after the way I gave him all of me.
Cassie’s voice keeps circling through my skull, loud and relentless.
“Talk to him, Sky. Don’t do that thing where you shut down.”
Too late.
I’ve already sunk so far into the silence, I can’t remember what it feels like to be seen.
By the time the last bit of daylight bleeds out of the sky, I’ve had enough. The waiting is a weight pressing into my ribs.
I move to the internal window that looks down into the workshop. Push the curtain aside.
The glass is smudged, but I can still see him.
Zane, the only one left down there. Hair falling into his eyes. I watch the muscles as he wipes sweat from his neck.
I tell myself to stay upstairs. To leave him be. To pretend it doesn’t matter.
But I can’t.
My chest pulls too tight, thoughts crashing into each other, too loud to ignore. My pulse is a steady drum in my throat, and before I can stop myself, I’m moving.
One step.
Then another.
Down the stairs.
Toward him.
