Page 61 of Riot’s Revenge

Maria folded her arms tightly against the cold morning air. “Go away, Riot.”

The silence stretched between us while I changed the tire beneath pale dawn light.

“You really moving away?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the tire.

“None of your business.”

I stopped working on the tire and forced myself to look into her tired eyes. She held my gaze for a while before rolling her eyes. “No. I was looking into it. It wasn’t right for me,” she replied and looked away.

I nodded and tried not to let the relief show on my face. If she was sticking around then I had time to make things right.

I could feel her watching me the entire time. She didn’t look angry, she looked . . . broken, and it hurt me worse than yelling would have.

When I finally stood again, Maria stepped forward and held out cash.

A sharp pain stabbed at my chest. “I’m not taking your money.”

“I’m not your responsibility anymore,” she replied quietly, her voice breaking at the end.

Christ.

I stared at her for a second too long before shutting the trunk harder than necessary. “Tire’s done.” Then I walked back toward the bike before she could see how badly those words got to me.

After that, I started noticing things about her car because it was the only thing still letting me close.

One brake light went out, and I replaced it while she was inside the clinic. A week later, one of the wipers split from the cold, so I changed those too.

Maria definitely noticed because she spent nearly a full minute staring at the new wipers one morning before looking straight across the street at me.

One freezing morning I found her outside scraping ice off the windscreen with some shitty little loyalty card while snow drifted lightly through the parking lot.

I walked over silently and took it from her hand.

Maria sighed instantly. “You cannot keep appearing like some emotionally constipated Batman.”

Despite myself, my mouth twitched slightly. “Batman’s richer.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

I started the engine before she could stop me and turned the heat on full blast. Warm air pushed against the windscreen while Maria stood beside me in scrubs and an oversized hoodie, looking exhausted enough to collapse where she stood.

I missed her. I missed her voice and her laugh. I missed the way she got bitchy when she skipped meals and the way she stole my shirts while pretending she was not doing it. The apartment felt dead without her in it.

Maria crossed her arms tighter against the cold. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I do.”

I watched her lips tremble, but it wasn’t from the cold. I looked away from the tears building in her eyes, because I was a fucking coward and couldn’t bear to see her hurting because of me. “You can’t just fix things because you feel guilty.”

I leaned back against the car and watched snow settle slowly across the hood. “Wasn’t trying to fix it.”

Maria laughed softly at that, but there was no humor in it. “That’s the problem, Riot,” she said quietly. “I genuinely don’t think you understand what you broke.”

I had taken punches easier than that sentence.

She took the card scraper back from my hand gently. “Thank you for helping with the car. But, please, just leave me alone.” Then she climbed inside and drove away before I could figure out how to answer her.