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The next thing I hear is the fast click of her high-heels, clipping across the cement floor, away from me.
She’s leaving.
Shit.
Panic jerks my head up and I stand so fast I slam the back of it into the hood of the truck. “Fuck,” I shout, winging the wrench in my hand at my tool bench. It skips off the brushed metal surface before pinging across the floor.
Exactly what my sleep deprivation needed to keep it company. A goddamned concussion.
She stops walking and turns to look at me. She still looks scared. She also looks concerned. “Are you okay?”
I reach up and touch my fingers to the back of my head, eliciting an immediate hissed curse. “Fine.” Pulling my fingers away, I look down at them, mildly surprised, and not a little bit disappointed, they aren’t covered in gray matter. “At least I don’t have to worry about falling asleep and slipping into a coma.” I say it out loud, laughing at my own joke, too far gone to care about how crazy talking to myself makes me.
She stands there, further away than she was before, watching me like I’m a junkyard dog. Like she’s trying to gauge exactly what kind of reach the chain I’m on gives me. If she’s close enough to catch her if I lunge at her.
“I’m sorry.” I shake my head, a desperation I haven’t felt in years seizing me so hard I feel my heart knock against my ribcage before fluttering its way up my throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. Just—don’t leave. Stay and talk to me, okay?” I don’t care if she’s real. I don’t care if I finally boarded the bus to Crazytown. She’s here. She’s with me.
That’s what matters.
It’s the only thing that ever did.
She doesn’t answer me. She just stands there and stares at me. I’m about ready to drop to my knees and beg when she turns away from me again. I watch her use the toe of her Chanel pump to push and kick the lever holding the roll-up garage door open. The hoist chain holding it in place rattle loudly and the door falls, slamming into the concrete in a matter of seconds.
Door closed, she turns to look at me again. “I’m going upstairs,” she says. She doesn’t look afraid anymore. She looks determined. “You can either work yourself to death or you can come with me. It’s up to you.”