Crash Into You

Chapter 64

Rachel

ISAIAH HUGGED BETH.

Beth—the strong girl, the beautiful girl, the girl who twisted Isaiah in knots. He smiled at her. He hugged her. And they looked perfect together.

I’ve watched Abby and Isaiah for weeks, and never once has he touched her, much less hugged her. And Isaiah doesn’t smile easily. It’s a rare gift and he gave it to her. Our fight must have opened his eyes. The crash must have revealed his true feelings.

And his feelings aren’t for me.

I yank my keys out of my purse. They fall through my fingers and clank on the blacktop. Abby, I should go back for Abby, but I can’t stay. She went to pester a nurse for news on Logan and never returned. Isaiah can drive her home. Or Noah can. Or Beth.

All people who belong together. I don’t belong in their world. I’m weak. They’re strong.

Beth is strong.

I snatch the keys off the ground, and they clink together in my hands. I’m shaking, and it’s not because of the chill in the evening air. The guy I fell in love with never loved me. Never.

“Rachel!” Isaiah calls out.

I glance over my shoulder, gripping the keys tighter in my hand. My breathing hitches. I can’t do it. I can’t hear him say the words. Not with the memory of him holding her so fresh. Not with her probably observing through the glass door. A girl like her would enjoy watching me break.

My thoughts become a distorted mess, and my stomach hollows out as if I’ve been pushed over a ravine. I feel the sickening weightlessness like I’m falling, my arms flailing to stop.

I should run, but I’m paralyzed by the sight of him. Even moving slowly, Isaiah possesses the prowess of a panther. His muscles pronounced in the easy way he strides. The set, determined gaze on me as his prey. This only proves how weak I am. Like the animal on the verge of being devoured in the wild, I stand here stunned by his dangerous beauty.

Isaiah touches me. His warm palm to my face. A soft slide of his thumb. My body has memorized the motion. I lean into his hand and close my eyes. I’ll miss this. I’ll miss everything about him. A tear escapes and creates a wet trail down my face.

Isaiah has always been gentle, and he is again as he wipes it away. “Why did you leave?”

Hundreds of pounds of weight stack on top of my chest, restricting air. I open my eyes, not daring to meet his stare. “Are you okay?”

“Some stitches and bruises, but yeah, I’m fine.”

“And Logan?” I ask with as much strength as I can muster. I fight the tingling in my blood, a reaction to the shortage of oxygen. I have seconds before I lose control. Breathe.

“Stitches, too. But fine. Rachel, look at me.”

Because his hand on my cheek prods me to face him, because I’ve hardly ever been able to defy him when he speaks to me in such a deep, soothing voice...my eyes rise to meet his. Confusion and hurt swirl in a murky storm in his gray eyes. I’d do anything if that pain was for me, but it’s not. It can’t be.

I don’t want to hear his words, not yet, so I ask, “Your car?”

His head drops as he presses his hands to his face. “Totaled.”

Pain for him, pain for me, rips at my heart. Another tear escapes. The car was his—a part of his soul. The sorrow he must feel—there has to be a better word than mourning.

Yearning to touch him, longing to comfort him, my fingers instinctively brush against his temple. Isaiah takes my hand and knots our fingers together, squeezing a little too tight. “This is why I didn’t want the system in your car.”

We’re back to this—so easily. His words are a sandblaster against my soul, decimating my insides, crushing my bones, leaving me as a completely empty shell. “Because your car, your life, is worth less?”

“Yes,” he answers with stubborn resolve.

The hospital doors open, and Beth steps onto the sidewalk. My throat thickens, and the warning contortion of my stomach tells me my time is up. I yank my hand from his. “She’s waiting for you.”

He glances over his shoulder, and I take advantage by fleeing. Quickly. Turning into the maze of cars. Hoping to disappear. Words fly in my head—all related, yet not; all tangible, yet slipping through my fingers: Eric and debt and Isaiah and love and Beth and strength and weakness...

And my mother and my brothers and my father and Colleen...

All of us dominoes on a board where one event results in chaos. One tip of a piece and everything scatters. There’s no control. Like everyone else, I’m a piece to be overturned. I will never control my destiny.

My hand grabs at my coat, jerking it off as heat consumes me and chokes my neck. At the intersection of four parked cars, I fall to my knees and convulse with the first dry heave. Searing pain cuts through my throat and I become light-headed.

“Rachel!” Isaiah lifts me upright, wiping my hair from my face.

“No hospital.” They can’t know...they can’t know...they can’t... “Promise they won’t know....”

My stomach cramps, and I roll away from him with the blast of heat rushing through my body.

“Jesus!” Isaiah scrambles beside me. “There’s blood.”