Page 89 of Dirty Mechanic

I’ve got the scars, the truth, and the ledger you never meant for me to find. You want a war?

Come for me.

Just know—I’m done running.

I survived you.

And this time, I bite back.

I sign my name.

Not the fake one.

Not the version you painted in fear.

Just me.

Annabelle.

The rain has slowed to a whisper by the time I hear the truck.

At first, I think I’m imagining it. That I conjured the rumble out of hope or heartbreak or some twisted mix of both. But then headlights arc across the window, and I know it’s him.

I hide the journal and the gun back in the bench seat, stand slowly, heart lurching like it’s bracing for impact.

Thunder murmurs somewhere distant, like even the storm isn’t sure what comes next.

I move to the door, fingers hovering at the latch. I don’t open it. Not yet.

Not until I hear him call my name.

“Annabelle!”

He’s standing across the yard. His shirt clings to him, soaked straight through, and his hair’s plastered to his forehead. He looks older somehow. Weathered. Like the last hour aged him a year.

Standing in the doorway, buffeted by the wind, I don’t wave. I don’t speak. I freeze.

For one suspended moment, our eyes lock across the rain-slicked yard. Mine full of everything I haven’t said. His too clouded to read.

Because I don’t know if he’s come back to forgive me…

Or to say goodbye.

The storm hits like judgment.

Thunder cracks overhead as I steer the truck into the darkness. My wipers struggle against sheets of rain, water streaking in thick veins across the glass, turning the road ahead into a blur of wet blacktop and smeared reflections. My knuckles are white on the wheel. I don’t even know where I’m driving anymore.

Anywhere but home.

Anywhere but back to her.

I don’t have a destination. I just drive. Fast and reckless, like maybe if I outrun the ache in my chest, it won’t catch up.

But it always does.

It’s in every mile I chew up on the odometer. Every lie rattling through my head. Every fucking time she looked at me and didn’t tell me the truth.

And I can’t decide if I’m more furious at her for lying or at myself for falling so hard that I never saw it coming.