Page 80 of Ruin Me Gently

In my car.

I swallowed hard, eyes locked on the road ahead, refusing to so much as glance in her direction. But I could feel her looking at me. Not speaking. Just watching. Like she could see how much I was unravelling, even when I was doing everything in my power to keep it together.

I needed to get her home. That was it. That was all that mattered. Didn’t matter why she was out here. Didn’t matter why she hadn’t answered me. Didn’t matter that she was so damn close I could hear the shift of fabric when she moved.

“So… are you going to explain to me what the fuck you’re doing?” she asked.

My grip on the wheel tightened. I didn’t answer, because I didn’t have a legible one. Not one that would make sense. Not one that wouldn’t make this worse.

She let out a sharp huff. “Hello?”

Still nothing, every muscle was coiled to the point of bursting, but I kept my eyes fixed on the asphalt.

“Can you answer my question?”

I took a slow, steady inhale. “No.”

Her breath caught, a little uneven, a little unsteady, like she was catching herself before she said something else. But when she did, her voice was edged with something sharp. “Oh, so youdospeak? Fantastic.”

I swallowed hard, throat tight. Still said nothing.

“How did you know where I was?”

Fuck.

“Hello? Are you going to explain yourself or are we just gonna sit here in creepy silence?”

If I opened my mouth, I wasn’t sure whether I’d speak or throw up. Neither felt like a great option right now.

“Are you serious right now? Can you at least pretend to be a normal person for five seconds and answer the damn question? How the hell did you know where I was?”

I exhaled hard, fingers curling tighter against the wheel.

“Were you already watching me?”

I snapped my head toward her. “No.”

The glow of the streetlights flickered through the windshield onto her face. She looked sunken in. Pale and drained.

“Let me out.”

“No.”

“Right. Cool. Can you actually say anything else other than ‘no,’ or are we gonna keep this one-word mystery act going all night?”

My lips parted, the word already waiting. “No.”

A sharp sound left her—not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. “Oh myGod.”

I needed to saysomething,needed to fix this, needed to know what was wrong, but my tongue was heavy in my mouth, words catching somewhere in my throat before I could push them out. But I tried. “You didn’t respond to my texts.”

There was a beat of silence, then movement, the shift of fabric and the soft glow of a screen.

“That’s irrelevant right now. How did you even know I’d left?”

For the life of me, I had no idea what I was supposed to say.

“Do you have a tracker on my phone?”

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