Chapter 14: Cracks

My lungs are screaming. I don't look back at the park. I don't look back at the black SUV or the boy whose touch is still burning on my skin. I just watch the cracked pavement beneath my sneakers, my legs moving on autopilot, pushing through the exhaustion.

Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. The mantra beats in time with my pulse.

I turn the corner onto my street just as a pair of headlights cuts through the dark, sweeping across the peeling paint of the neighboring houses. A white truck—Leo’s truck—is idling in our driveway. The engine rumbles like a growling beast, the vibration shaking the very air. The reverse lights flick on with a sharp, white glare. He is leaving. He is coming for me.

"Leo! Wait!" I yell, my voice cracking, thin and desperate in the night.

I wave my arms, stumbling toward the driveway, my shoes skidding on loose gravel. The truck screeches to a halt, the brakes let out a long, metallic whine. The door flings open, and Leo steps out. In the dim, sickly yellow glow of the porch light, his face is a mask of hard lines and dark shadows.

"Where were you?" he asks. His voice is low, vibrating with quiet anger.

"I... I was just..." I stop at the edge of the driveway, doubling over with my hands on my knees. I am gasping for air, my sweat turning cold and clammy in the night wind. "I told you. The notes. I had to walk to the corner to meet her."

"Don't lie to me, Maya," Leo says. He walks toward me, his limp more pronounced than usual. He holds up his phone. "I called Sarah. I thought maybe you’d walked to her place since it was taking so long. She said she hasn't seen you since you clocked out of the diner. She sounded confused, Maya. She sounded like she was covering for you and doing a bad job of it."

The world feels like it's tilting under my feet. Sarah. Of course. She’s my only real friend, the only person Leo would think to call. I forgot that in this small town, everyone is connected by a web of phone numbers and old history.

"I didn't say I was with Sarah," I stammer, my mind racing, reaching into the dark for a new story. "I said I was meeting a friend from biology. Someone from the other side of town. They were just passing through, Leo. They didn't have much time."

"What friend?" Leo steps closer, invading my personal space. He smells of stale coffee, engine grease, and the sharp, acrid scent of the cigarettes he only smokes when his nerves are shredded. "Give me a name, Maya. Give me one name of someone in this town who is worth you sneaking out into the dark at 9:00 PM."

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My brain is a blank, static screen. I can’t say Jaxson. If I say his name, if I even whisper it, I might as well light a match and drop it into a pool of gasoline. Leo would be at the Thorne mansion before I could breathe again, and he wouldn't care about his probation or his future.

"I’m waiting," Leo says. He crosses his arms over his chest, his shadow stretching long and jagged across the driveway. He looks at my face. His eyes travel to my jawline, the spot where Jaxson’s thumb had lingered only minutes ago. I feel like the skin there is glowing, branded by a touch that doesn't belong to a "biology friend."

"It’s just a girl from class," I finally whisper, my voice trembling. "You don't know her. She’s new. She lives over by the tracks."

"You're a bad liar, Maya," Leo says, his voice full of a sudden, sharp disappointment that cuts deeper than any shout. "You've always been a bad liar. Your eyes get wide, your breath gets shallow, and you start picking at your cuticles until they bleed. Look at your hands."

I look down. I am doing it. My right thumb is digging into the skin of my left, shredding the edge of the nail. I drop my hands to my sides, hiding them in the folds of my oversized sweatshirt.

"I was just taking a walk, Leo," I say, trying to force a different truth. "I’m stressed. I feel like I'm suffocating. The scholarship, the diner, the bills... I just needed to breathe without you watching me. I didn't want you to worry, so I made up a story. I’m sorry."

Leo stares at me for a long, agonizing minute. The wind whistles through the dead, brown leaves in the gutter. He looks at the dark street behind me, searching the shadows for a car, a person, a reason. He doesn't believe me. He knows there is a who and not just a why.

"If someone is bothering you," Leo says, his voice dropping to a whisper, "if one of those Thorne-types is messing with you because of the garage, you tell me. You don't handle that alone. You don't let them near you. Do you hear me?"

"No one is messing with me," I say. It’s the truth, but it feels like the biggest lie I've ever told.

"Go inside," Leo says, turning back to the truck. He slams the door shut, the sound echoing off the neighboring houses. "Go to bed, Maya. We’re going to talk about this in the morning. And you better hope your story stays the same when the sun comes up."

I don't wait for him to change his mind. I bolt up the porch steps, the wood groaning under my feet. I fly down the hallway, past the photos of us as kids when things were simple, and into my room. I lock the door and lean my weight against it, listening to the sound of my heart.

I am safe. But the walls are closing in, and the air in this house feels thinner than ever.

I pull my phone out of my pocket. My thumb hovers over Jaxson’s name in my contacts. I want to tell him. I want to tell him that my world is cracking open. But I can’t.

I sit on the edge of my bed, my legs shaking too hard to stand. I think about the look on Leo’s face—the protective rage, the broken trust. Then I think about the way Jaxson’s forehead felt against mine, the way the world had gone quiet for just one second.

Suddenly, my phone vibrates in my palm. I flinch, nearly dropping it. Is it Jaxson? Is it Leo from the other room?

I look at the screen. It’s an Unknown number. My heart stops.

UNKNOWN: Leo looks angry, Maya. You should be more careful. Family is the only thing that matters, right? It would be a total shame if he found out what almost happened under the bridge tonight.

There is an attachment. I click it with trembling fingers, the cold from the phone seeping into my skin.

It’s a photo. It was taken from the tall grass near the stone bridge, using a high-zoom lens. It shows me and Jaxson, our faces inches apart in the moonlight. His hand is cradling my jaw. Because of the angle, it doesn't look like a near miss. It looks like a deep, intimate kiss. It looks like I've chosen the enemy over my own blood.

I drop the phone onto the floorboards. The clack of the plastic against the wood is the only thing I can hear over the blood rushing in my ears.