“What?” The car swerves as we go over a large tree root, and it takes both hands for him to right the vehicle again.
I repeat, louder this time, “This is a dead end!” I reach across the console and grab the wheel while simultaneously pulling on the hand brake. “You’re going to fucking kill us!” The tires skid along the dirt, and I struggle to keep the steering wheel straight as we get jostled from side to side.
The truck stops only feet away from the Dead-End sign attached to the barrier with reflective markers. If I’d waited a second longer to lift the hand brake, we’d be through the barriers and down a twenty-foot cliff.
Chest rising and falling, I sit back, my breaths shaky. “You’re an idiot!” I spit.
Leo’s looking down at his lap, his head lowered, but he doesn’t say a word.
“I don’t know what the heck got into you, Leo, but you can’t—”
“That motherfucker bet his friends ten dollars that you’d...” He trails off as if it pains him to continue.
“That I’d what?” I demand.
He lifts his head, the back of it against the headrest as he rolls it to the side, faces me. His eyes are red, raw, desolate. “He said he’d have you on your knees with his… his—”
“I get it,” I whisper, my stomach turning at the thought.
Leo removes his cap, throws it on the dashboard, and rubs at his eyes. His voice is rough when he says, “I could’ve killed you, Mia.”
I know this, but hearing him say it, the way he says it—my anger fades, replaced with a hint of pity. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” he murmurs, then sucks in a breath, looks out the windshield. “I don’t know what happened.” His mouth barely moves as he speaks. “I mean, I do, but I don’t… I don’t know how to explain it. How to verbalize it. I heard him say what he said and when I saw him touching you, I just...” He licks his lips, cracks each knuckle one by one.
“You just... protected me?” I offer.
He shakes his head. “That’s the thing, Mia. I don’t know if that was all of it. That guy—he just… he reminded me so much of Laney’s ex; so cocky and arrogant and… I don’t know. I snapped.”
So, it wasn’t about me.
It was about her.
When I was younger, I thought I was competing against Laney—the beautiful, creative girl who was always around. The one all the Preston boys adored. It took three summers for me to realize that I’d never be her. I wouldn’t even come close.
“I need to get some air,” Leo mumbles, pushing open his door. I watch him walk to the front of the truck, to the barrier. He starts shaking it. At first, I think it’s out of anger, but when he leans against, almost sits on it, I’m proven otherwise. Arms outstretched, the muscles in his forearms shift as he grips on to metal, his head bowed, legs kick out in front of him. I wait a minute. Two. And when he looks up at the sky, his mouth moving, I wonder who he’s talking to, what he’s saying. My curiosity gets the better of me, and I get out of the truck, sit beside him.
It’s as if he was waiting for me, because as soon as I’m seated, he says, “The other day, when you took me to that milking place, you said something…”
I look down at the ground, at the dirt beneath my feet. “I said a lot of things.”
He huffs out a breath. “You said that you don’t hate anyone. And I guess I’m just wondering how that’s possible. After that night, how can you not hate me? …Or my brothers? What they said—”
I clear the giant knot in my throat, stopping him from saying more. I don’t need a reminder of what they said. I live and breathe it every day. Heat pricks behind my eyes, and I blink, blink, blink, until they’re gone. I swore I’d never shed a single tear over that night again, and I’m determined to see it through.
“I ask because…” Leo starts, and I look over at him. He’s looking up at the stars again. “Because I think I have a lot of hate in my heart, and I don’t know how to get rid of it.” He pauses a beat. “And I want to. Because I know it’s destroying me. I can see that it’s happening, and I don’t know how to stop