𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 • Neil Perry

Chapter 10

WITH her hands on the steering wheel, Milly handled the situation. Knox's bicycle was pushed into the backseat, the same way she managed with Neil's one time too many.

He sat with his face buried in his hand, elbow pressed against the arm rest. "That was a disaster." He flailed his arms, "A car crash."

Milly quirked a brow, "Poor choice of words."

"A train wreck, then? What does it matter? There are no words in the English language to articulate how completely and utterly embarrassed I am."

She glimpsed over from the road, "It wasn't that bad."

"I had my ass handed to me."

"But she wasn't repulsed by you," Milly says hopefully.

"What are you talking about?"

"Afterwards, she held you. In her arms. She held you and cried for you." She looked over briefly, seeing the words processing in Knox's head. "One or way or another, she does care about you."

"She did do that, didn't she?"

"I saw it. With my own two eyes."

"I felt it," Knox enthuses. "With every inch of my aching body, I..." He gently laughs, in an evident state of disbelief. "She cares."

Milly nodded, happy that he was buying into her nonsense.

Suddenly the boy was turning in his seat, glancing through the back window and into the darkness of the night. "We gotta turn this car around."

"Okay, okay—"

"We gotta go back!"

"Settle down," Milly keeps both hands on the wheel, attempting to mediate. "Baby steps, alright?" She laughs through her nose as the boy cowers back into his seat. "Remember what I said about pushing her away."

"I don't know, Milly. I've never felt this way before."

She pulled a face at the road. "I can tell."

"I know I'm thinking irrationally, but I also know that if I can't be with her..." he muses, "I might die."

A tad melodramatic.

"Being without her wouldn't be living, it'd be..." he racked his brain for a suitable finish. After a short pause, his eyes finally flash with an answer. "It'd be a vacancy in hell."

"Poetic," Milly says flatly.

"You've gotta know what it feels like," Knox turns to her. "What with Neil and everything."

She looked like she might laugh in his face, "What about him?"

"He was all mopey, you know? When he put two and two together about the party."

Milly looked between him and the road once, "Wait, what are you talking about?"

"He told us you've been shutting him down when he asks you out, and this time it's because of a party at a friend's house Friday night. Then Chris invites me, he figures it's the same joint. None of us could talk him out of it. He was torn up."

"Why?"

"Why?" Knox asks as if the question is laughable. "Because you didn't ask him to be your date."

Because I can't change the narrative, god damn it! He has to be at the cave. Everything has to stay the god damn same or else who knows what could happen!

Milly rolled her eyes, "I didn't even want to go to that thing. I'd be a terrible person if I put him through it too."

"He's not mad or anything, he was just a little," he winced at the pain of his bruised nose, "bummed." He began to rub at it, hoping to ease the soreness as he stretches his face around.