Page 13 of My Fault

I approached it with a feeling of alarm, wondering who the insane but very opportune individual was who had decided to help out a girl who could easily pass as a prostitute.

I felt relieved when I saw that the person getting out of the car was a boy, more or less my age. The lights gave me a glimpse of his dark hair, his stature, and his evident (but just then extremely welcome) air of a pampered rich kid.

“Are you okay?” he asked, walking toward me just as I walked toward him.

When we were in front of each other, we each did the same thing: his eyes looked my dress up and down, and I checked out his expensive jeans, his name-brand polo, and his gentle, worried eyes.

“Yeah. Thanks for stopping. This idiot just left me here hanging.” I felt embarrassed, stupid, for letting something like that happen.

The young man seemed surprised.

“He just left you here…here? In the middle of nowhere at eleven at night?”

So it would be okay if he’d left me in the middle of a park at lunchtime?I asked myself, feeling a sudden hatred toward any and all beings endowed with a Y chromosome. But still, the kid seemed like he wanted to help. It was no time to pick fights.

“Any chance you’d mind taking me home?” I asked, not bothering to answer his question. “As you can tell, I really just want this night to end.”

The kid smiled. He wasn’t ugly. He was easy on the eyes, in fact, with a kindly face, probably the type to help anyone out of a jam. Either that, or my mind was trying to sell me a parallel reality in which everything was the color of roses and boys treated women with the respect they deserved instead of throwing them out on the roadside in high heels in the middle of the night.

“You sure you don’t want to go to a wild party at a mansion on the beach? That way you can have all night to thank me for the way this little misfortune allowed you and me to meet each other,” he said, tickled.

I don’t know if it was hysteria, suppressed rage, or the fact that I just wanted to kill someone, but I laughed right in his face.

“Sorry, but…all I want to do is get home and put today behind me. I’ve had enough of this city for now.” I uttered these words more calmly, not wanting to appear crazy for laughing before.

“No worries. But at least you can tell me your name, right?” He seemed awfully amused in this situation that had nothing amusing about it. But since he was my savior, I felt I should be nice to him if I didn’t want to end up sleeping with the squirrels.

“My name’s Noah. Noah Morgan.” I put out my hand, and he immediately squeezed it.

“I’m Zack,” he said with a radiant smile. “Shall we?” He pointed at his gleaming black Porsche.

“Thanks, Zack. Seriously.”

I was surprised that he walked me to the passenger side and helped me get in, just like in an old-fashioned movie. It was strange. Strange and refreshing. Despite what all the statistics seemed to say, chivalry was apparently still not dead, even if people like Nicholas Leister might make you think so.

As soon as Zack got in the driver’s seat, I knew he wouldn’t be like Nicholas. He was evidently a good guy, educated, reasonable, the typical boy a mother would die for her daughter to go out with. I put on my seat belt and sighed with relief, knowing that the worst had been avoided.

“Where to?” he asked, putting the car in gear and taking off in the same direction Nicholas had more than an hour before.

“You know William Leister’s house?” I asked, assuming everyone in that neighborhood of rich people knew each other.

“Yeah, of course. But what do you want to go there for?”

“That’s where I live,” I responded, feeling a jab in my chest as I realized that however painful that was, it was true.

Zack laughed, unbelieving.

“You live at Nicholas Leister’s place?” I ground my teeth as I heard that name.

“Worse—I’m his stepsister.” How disgusting to have to admit I was related to that dimwit.

Zack looked away from the road a second to turn his surprised eyes toward me. I guess he wasn’t the responsible driver I’d imagined.

“You’re not serious…or are you?”

“Oh, I’m serious. He’s the one who left me stranded here.” It was humiliating to admit.

Zack laughed sardonically.