Chapter 13
Jul 18, 2025
The car was cold. Not just in temperature, but in energy. I sat curled in the passenger seat with my hoodie pulled over my knees, the kind of posture that screamed defense without saying a word.
The windows were fogged from our breath, though neither of us was really breathing. Chase stared through the windshield like it owed him answers. I watched the digital clock shift from 12:02 to 12:03 and still, no one spoke.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
“What is this?” My voice cracked on the last word. He didn’t look at me. His jaw flexed once, then again. Silence.
So I pushed. “That night wasn’t fake. So tell me. What are we?”
His laugh was short, humorless, like sandpaper dragged over skin.
“You tell me.” The way he said it—low, sharp—made something in me collapse. I pressed my nails into my palm just to stay grounded.
“You think I used you?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer right away. When he did, it was a shrug, slow and surgical.
“You used me. I used you. Worked out great… until people started reading the fine print.”
The words sliced straight through me. “That’s not fair.”
He finally looked at me, but his eyes were unreadable. “Isn’t it? You were spiraling, and I was there. You needed a distraction. I fit the bill.”
My throat tightened. “You think I kissed you for show?”
“I think you kissed me because you were trying to forget him,” he said. “And I let you. Because for a second, it felt like I could forget myself too.”
My chest burned. “You think I don’t care about you?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I think you care just enough to hurt me and not enough to stay.”
I stared at him, stunned. “I’m not like that.”
“You don’t know what you are anymore,” he said. “You’re writing lists to figure it out. Meanwhile, I’m out here getting caught in the crossfire.”
“I never meant for you to get hurt,” I said, voice trembling.
“Too late.”
The silence settled like ash. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.
“You’re not nothing to me,” I finally said.
He turned back to the windshield. “Then make me nothing.”
“What?” I blinked hard. “Erase me, Zoey. It’ll be easier that way. For both of us.”
My fingers curled into the sleeves of my hoodie. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? We both got what we needed. You proved a point. I played along. The end.”
His voice was detached, too calm for someone who had kissed me like I was the only thing keeping him breathing.
“You’re lying,” I said. “You don’t mean any of this.”
He met my eyes again. “Don’t tell me what I mean.”
“You don’t just turn off feelings like that,” I said.
“Sure you do,” he replied. “You bury them under enough betrayal, and they die quick.”
I felt the tears press behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “You’re not disposable.”
“Then stop treating me like I am.”
“I never did!” I snapped. “I was figuring things out, and you—”
“Used me,” he cut in. “Say it.”
“I won’t.”
“You already did.”
My whole body felt like it was shaking under my skin. “You mattered.”
“Then why do I feel like a prop?”
I flinched. “You don’t get to rewrite what happened just because it scares you now.”
“What scares me,” he said, voice low, “is thinking none of it mattered to you.”
I opened the door. The cold air slapped me hard, but I didn’t care.
“If I leave, are you going to stop me?”
“No.”
“Not even a word?”
He said nothing.
“Not even to say I’m worth staying for?”
He still didn’t speak. My throat burned. I climbed out and slammed the door behind me, harder than I meant to.
The sound cracked through the quiet like a warning shot. I didn’t look back. I walked into the dark, each step pulled from something heavier than legs. The streetlight stretched my shadow long and thin across the pavement, flickering under the wind. It looked smaller than it felt. But it still moved forward.
I hated how he did this—let me come close, only to pull away like none of it mattered. Like it was a game and I was too dumb to understand the rules.
Why chase me if he didn’t want to catch me?
Why pull me in if he was just going to leave me gasping for air?
I walked faster, trying to outrun the silence I’d left behind. Trying to convince myself I hadn’t just let go of something that might’ve saved me. His words echoed, cruel and raw—Make me nothing.
But he never was. Not even close.
