Page 21 of Dash

I swallow past the lump in my throat. Why do I feel as if he has cracked my chest open and is peering at all the secrets I keep locked in my heart?

“Why would I be scared of you?” I keep my voice light, as if what he said is stupid. As if I didn’t recoil like I feared he’d hit me. “I just didn’t want you to mess up my hair. I spent an hour curling it for tonight.”

Light, breezy, a deflection that is so second nature to me, I don’t even realise I’ve done it until the words are out of my mouth.

His eyes narrow and I avert my gaze behind the smile. He sees too much. Thinks too much, and that scares me. Dash has this way of peeling back my layers that no one else has ever managed.

Not even Ivy or Katie.

My breath gets lodged behind my ribs. He’s going to say something, to call it out and demand to know why I reacted like that, and I am not nearly drunk enough for that conversation. Besides, he doesn’t need to know about my psychotic mother and her hands-on approach to parenting.

He doesn’t need to know anything.

In fact, it’s better he knows nothing about me at all. He’s already too close, too deep.

Relax. When he finds out how much of a fucking disaster I am, he’ll disappear anyway and none of this will be an issue.

That thought makes me feel sick.

I squeeze my pain into a box in the vaults where I keep the rest of my trauma and issues.

Get ahead of it. Make the first cut before he can.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say before he can open his mouth and deliver words that will leave me bleeding on the pavement.

Idon’t want you.

You’re not worth it.

You’ll never be anything.

Each one hits like a bullet, and I force a smile to hide my pain.

“Also,” I continue, “thanks for the heroic save. I’ll tell everyone how brave you were.”

Walk away. Get inside. Die of mortification. Never speak of this night again.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” he says.

My chest seizes. “Do what?”

“Act like you’re not bothered by what happened tonight.”

Shit.

Abort. Abort. Abort!

He thinks he can fix me, can paper over the cracks in my broken piece. I see it in his eyes, but he’s wrong. There’s nothing worth fixing here and we both know it.

Cut this shit off before it gets too deep.

I tilt my head to the side, adopting an amused look that carves a jagged cut through my chest. “Oh, please don’t tell me you’re one of those.”

He frowns. “One of those what?”

“A man with a hero complex.” Hurt flashes in his eyes, only for a second, but I see it. I feel it like I’m bleeding myself. My heart is thumping so fast, even though I keep my expression almost bored.

“I’m not.”

---