Page 12 of My Fault

“Well, I don’t want to die on the road with some maniac who doesn’t know how to read a road sign. That’s one problem,” I shouted. I was at my limit. Anything else and I’d start screaming like a banshee. I knew I was short-fused. One of the things I hated most about myself was my lack of self-control when I got angry, the way I could so easily raise my voice and turn to insults.

“What the fuck’s up with you? You haven’t stopped complaining ever since I had the misfortune of meeting you, and honestly, I don’t give a shit what your problems are. This is my home, my city, and my car, so shut your mouth until we get back,” he said, shouting just as I had.

An intense heat filled my body from head to toe when I heard those words. Nobody told me what to do…least of all him.

“Who the hell are you to tell me to shut up?!” I was beside myself.

Nicholas jerked the wheel and braked so hard, if I hadn’t put on my seat belt, I’d have shot right through the windshield.

When I got over the shock, I looked back and was scared to see two cars turning quickly right to avoid hitting us. Horns honked, and drivers shouted insults, and for a moment, I was stunned. Then I reacted.

“What the hell are you doing?” I shrieked, terrified someone might run us over.

Utterly unperturbed, Nicholas said, “Get out.”

It must have looked comical the way my mouth fell open.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“I’m not going to say it twice,” he warned me, his voice so composed it was chilling.

This was getting grim.

“Well, you’re going to have to because there’s no way I’m moving from here.” I tried to stare at him as coldly as he was at me.

He pulled out his keys, got out, and left his door open. My eyes bugged out as I watched him walk around the back and reappear next to my door.

I’ve got to admit, he was a scary bastard when he got pissed off, and at that moment, he couldn’t have been any angrier. My heart started pounding when I felt that sensation I knew so well: fear. Terror.

He opened my door and repeated the same phrase from before. “Get out.”

My mind was clicking at a thousand miles an hour. He was nuts; he couldn’t just leave me there in the middle of the road in the dark, surrounded by trees.

“I won’t.” I refused, and I cursed myself as I noticed the tremor in my voice. An irrational fear was gathering in the pit of my stomach. If that idiot left me here, I thought, looking out into the black night, some fool would run me down.

He’d surprised me again, and once again, it was not a good surprise.

He crawled up on my seat, unclicked my seat belt, and pulled me out of the car so fast I couldn’t protest.

“Are you out of your mind?” I shouted as he walked back to the driver’s seat.

“Get this straight,” he told me over his shoulder. He looked like a statue of ice. “You’re not going to talk to me like that. I’ve got enough problems of my own without putting up with your shit. Get an Uber, call your mom, I don’t care. I’m out.”

He got back in and put his car in gear. I could feel my hands shaking.

“Nicholas, you can’t leave me here!” I roared as the car started to roll and the tires squealed. “Nicholas!”

That scream was followed by a deep silence that made me worry my heart would stop.

The sky was just short of black, and the moon was far from full. I tried to control my fear and my irrational desire to kill that son of a bitch who had left me stranded here my first day in the city.

I held on to the hope that Nicholas would come back, but as the minutes passed, I was more and more worried. I took out my phone, but the battery was dead, and the damned thing had shut off. Fuck! All I could do—and this was as awful and as dangerousas just standing here—was try to thumb a ride and pray that a civilized adult would take pity on me and take me home. And if that happened, I’d take care of that bastard stepbrother and enjoy it. Things wouldn’t go on like this. That dickhead didn’t know whom or what he was playing with.

I saw a car coming from the direction of the yacht club, and I prayed it was Will’s Mercedes.

I came as close to it as I could without risking getting hit and stuck out my thumb the way I’d seen people do in movies. I knew that half the time a girl tried to do it she ended up murdered and thrown in a ditch. But I forced myself to push those little details out of my mind.

The first car drove past, the second shouted a series of insults, the third made a bunch of nasty sexual comments, and the fourth… The fourth stopped on the roadside five feet from where I’d been standing.