Page 27 of Charmed By the Next-Door Neighbor
*The best thing that's happened to me since I moved here.*
She'd said it so convincingly. Looked right at her father with her chin up and her voice steady and said it like she meant every word.
And for a few seconds, a few stupid, dangerous seconds, I'd let myself believe it was real.
That she wasn't just selling a story. That she actually meant it.
Hope kills.
I learned that a long time ago, in a burning building when I'd hoped my captain would make it out and he didn't. Learned it again when I'd hoped my body would hold up for a few more years and it gave out instead.
Should've learned it well enough not to hope that Claire Taylor could ever actually want someone like me.
"You okay?" she asks, breaking the silence.
"Fine."
"You're quiet."
I'm always quiet. But I don't say that.
The road stretches out ahead of us, dark except for the sweep of her headlights. Fields on either side. No other cars. Just us and the hum of the engine and the weight of everything I can't say sitting heavy in my chest.
"Thank you again," she says. "For tonight. I know that was probably awful for you."
"It was fine."
"My parents were—"
"They care about you. They're worried. It's not a crime."
She glances over at me. "You don't have to defend them."
"I'm not defending them. I'm just saying I get it." I look out the window at the darkness. "You're their daughter. They want what's best for you. They think that's the city and a corporate job and someone who—"
I stop.
"Someone who what?" she prompts.
*Someone who's not me.*
Someone younger. Richer. Someone with a future instead of a past. Someone whose body isn't held together with scar tissue and whose nightmares don't wake him up at three a.m. in a cold sweat.
"Someone they approve of," I finish.
"Well, they don't get to decide who I date," she says firmly. "Real or fake."
Real or fake.
There it is again. The reminder. The line I'm not supposed to cross.
"No," I agree. "They don't."
More silence.
I should say something. Make conversation. That's what normal people do when they're stuck in a car together for forty-five minutes. But I don't trust myself right now. Don't trust that I won't say something I can't take back.
Like how sitting next to her at dinner was the best part of my week. Like how when she stood up to her parents, I wanted to pull her into my lap and kiss her until she forgot they existed. Like how paying for dinner wasn't about playing a role, it was about the fact that no one talks to her that way while I'm sitting right there.
