I trail off. Now that I’m saying it aloud, I think it might be too much to dump on a stranger who’s already seen me at a pretty low point. I’m still burning from the humiliation of her seeing the fingertipbruises Doug had left on my neck yesterday. Luckily, she assumed it was a hickey.
But her eyebrows pull in and she asks, “What happened?”
Reluctantly, I explain, “So… this other guy was messing with me—the son to one of my stepfather’s friends—and all of a sudden, this guy jumps in the middle of it, picking a fight with him.” That’s an understatement, but I’m not sure how to describe it. The way he smiled so amicably, showing his teeth, even though his eyes were hard and frightening. The way his whole demeanor seemed to buzz and crackle like a live wire. The curve of his shoulders, twitching and impatient.
He wasn’t just picking a fight.
He was an addict looking for a fix.
I’d know it anywhere. I’ve seen it in Doug a thousand times—that gleam in his eyes that taught me how much control I didn’t have. That I could be good, quiet, as unobtrusive as possible, and that it would never matter. When Doug got that look, he wanted something to hit.
“He pretended like he was jumping in to defend me or something, but it was obvious he just wanted to get into it. Had a real smart-ass mouth on him, too.” I tug at my sleeves, covering my wrist and the tattoo. “Anyway, look. The thing is, I don’t like fights. Shit’s hard enough, you know?” She doesn’t. She can’t possibly know. But she offers a nod anyway. “I just fucking hate them. And this guy—this total bully—stepped in, making an already unbearable situation even worse. So I just…”
“You just what?” I look up and realize all Georgia needs is a bowl of popcorn. She’s into my drama like I’m describing a CW show.
“I jumped in to stop it.” I reach up to touch my jaw, still feeling a phantom twinge. “And the guy fucking decked me. Hard.”
It fractured my jaw, hurt for weeks, and still aches sometimes. But the worst part wasn’t the blow. It was the fear. It was the touch. I’d been shoving all this vicious terror into the back of my chest for years, piling it up, unknowingly molding it into something lawless and beastlike, but I’d done it. I’d kept it contained. Hidden. Confined.
Until that night.
One savage touch from him, and now I can’t even handle something as simple as a handshake without falling apart. That’s the real crime—something Georgia probably couldn’t understand. How could she, when even I don’t?
Georgia shifts to a sitting position, wrapping her arms around a pillow. “Wait. You’re saying this same guy works at the garage?”
I jerk a shoulder in a tense shrug. “Apparently. I walked in, and there he was. It took him a minute to recognize me, but he figured it out.” It didn’t take me long at all. I knew it the second his face emerged from under that car hood. Handsome—pretty, almost. The Devil in sheep’s clothing. He was exactly the same as I remember, buzzing and crackling, wired and unpredictable. I think I probably even knew it was him before I ever saw his face, the way my body reacted, beyond my control. My teeth clench in frustration at the memory. “Fucking asshole.”
“That sounds pretty terrible.” Georgia’s tone is sympathetic but somehow stilted. She looks a shade paler, so I figure maybe she’s not used to hearing about stuff like this. “But, you know, maybe there was something else going on with him. Or maybe he has his own problems that he’s dealing with.”
I gape at her, beginning to suspect that Georgia is painfully naïve and too optimistic for her own good. Must be a nice world she lives in, where people do kind things for the sake of it and bullies just need, like… what? Understanding?
Give me a break.
“Even if that were the case, that doesn’t mean his problems have to be my problems.” I clench my jaw. “Either way, I’m going to do everything I can to stay the hell away from him. The last thing I need in my life is another toxic, aggro dude who can’t control his temper.”
I glance back up at Georgia, worried I’ve revealed too much, but she’s busy staring down at her hand, twisting her ring around her finger. Like the car, I don’t expect this girl to