Chapter 3
They pulled into the gas station under a wash of harsh overhead lights. Everything inside the car looked different in that sudden brightness—the rain still streaking the windows, the dark stain spreading further across the pink fabric wrapped around Riley’s arm, the tired set of her mouth.
The frown had softened. It was still there, but the sharpest edge had dulled into something closer to irritation than fury.
Paige noticed the blouse first. The blood had turned it a dull, ugly brown, and the smell of it was starting to rise in the closed space. Then her eyes caught on something else, something she had seen before and somehow still wasn’t used to.
“Your eyes still sparkle like that,” she said quietly. “One hazel, one gray. Even under these lights they don’t match and look universes apart.”
Riley’s gaze flicked toward her, surprised for only a second before it settled into something flatter.
“You’ve known that,” she said. Not a question.
Paige didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Three years of shared classes should have been enough of an explanation, but they both knew it wasn’t the only reason. She put the car in park beside the pump and reached for the door.
“Stay here. I’ll get the gas.”
She locked the doors behind her before Riley could reply. The rain had eased into a fine mist, cold against her face. She fed the pump, watching the numbers climb, trying not to think about how long the night had already become. When she climbed back in, Riley was watching her with a different expression—less angry, more reluctant.
“I’m sorry,” Riley said. The words came out stiff, like they cost her. “For the birthday thing. For reading the messages. For making you drive all the way downtown in this rain.” She hesitated, then lifted the bloodied arm slightly. “Can I borrow a few dollars? I need a clean shirt. This one’s done.”
Paige dug into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled bills left over from lunch. A few dollars. She held them out without a word.
Riley took them, pushed the door open with her good shoulder, and stepped out into the mist. Paige watched her cross the wet pavement toward the bright entrance of the station. A couple of people glanced at the wrapped arm and moved aside. Someone held the door. Riley didn’t look back.
Five minutes passed.
Then another five.
The car felt larger without her in it. Quieter. Paige’s phone still sat in the cup holder, screen dark. She picked it up without really deciding to. The messages were still open—the ones Riley had seen.
Naomi Cross.
“Hey, I know it’s been a while.
Would you maybe want to get coffee sometime? No pressure. A nice date.”
“Or lunch after school. Strictly whatever you want it to be. If not a date then just a hangout.”
“Ignore that last part if it’s too much. You don’t have to answer. I’ll get it.”
Three messages, sent hours ago, right after the final bell. Paige had left them unanswered on purpose. Seeing them again now, knowing Riley had read every word, sent a slow heat up the back of her neck.
Embarrassment first. Sharp and immediate. Riley had seen her ex asking to get back in a relationship together with her. Something that Paige had never wanted anyone to find and especially not her. Aggravatingly enough Riley had seen the soft, uncertain way Naomi still reached out for Paige.
And then the quieter question underneath it:
How had she felt when she saw that?
Paige stared at the rain-blurred windows and tried to picture Riley’s face when the messages first appeared. There had been no explosion. No sharp comment. No visible reaction beyond the quiet scrolling. If the same texts had arrived while they were still together—while things were still fragile and new and secret—Riley would have gone cold in an instant. Or worse. She had never been good at sharing what she thought was hers.
But today she had said almost nothing.
When they were together…
For so long Paige was trying to not think of that part of their life but she could no longer hold her thoughts or emotions back.
Paige’s thumb hovered over the screen, not typing, just resting there. The memory rose without permission: late practices, the smell of the soccer field still on Riley’s jacket, the careful way they had kept everything off school grounds and out of sight. It hadn’t lasted long. A few weeks of something that felt too big for the space they were willing to give it. Then the quiet ending neither of them had really explained.
She had told herself it was finished. That they had both moved on.
Yet sitting alone in the car with Naomi’s messages still open and Riley somewhere inside buying a clean shirt with her money, Paige couldn’t stop the thought from forming.
Did it bother her at all to see someone else asking?
Or has she already let it go completely?
The fluorescent lights of the gas station hummed against the wet dark. Riley still hadn’t come back but thoughts of when Riley was her girlfriend now submerged Paige’s mind.