Lucky For You

15 | Lucky & Bruised

Chapter Fifteen: Lucky & Bruised

"I won't pretend that I'm not broken,
~ mimoza

━━━━༻❁༺━━━━

"You look constipated."

Jared's eyes lingered out the windshield for a moment before quickly glancing to me, eyes narrowed. "I do not."

I nodded aggressively. "You totally do." A laugh bubbled out of me when I kept my attention on his flexing arms. "You doing good, Jay?"

"I'm fine," he defended. "Do I need to worry about your eyes, Lucky?"

"Deflecting," I sang.

"That's what you do," he matched my tone before throwing me a look. "And I'm just thinking."

I snorted and stared out my window. "Sorry, I forgot you're the stubborn one. What are you thinking about? Clowns?"

"Ha. Funny." There was a pause. "You didn't miss any classes, right?"

"No. I don't have classes on Monday," I yawned, arching my back against the seat before peering back to him. My eyes met his, and I felt my heart soaring.

It was Monday now, only two days since he'd gotten drunk. We were driving back to campus now, with the sky being void of clouds, but the weather dipping closer to seven.

It's also been three days since we last kissed—but both of us seemed adamant in avoiding the following conversation:

What happens now?

My eyes lowered to my lap, where I was pressing my palm against my left, outer thigh, right above my scar. A reminder of what I lost—what we both lost.

The memory of the metal of the car scrapping against me was enough to make me close my eyes tightly. I began to take soothing breaths to avoid another panic attack.

"Lucky?" Jared said, his voice inching closer to alarm. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," I choked out before raising my head to tightly smile in his direction. "I'm just thinking," I repeated his excuse, but he didn't find amusement in it.

He glared, using a hand to brush his messy hair back before turning back to the highway. "Clover," his voice lowered, and I shivered, hearing my name roll off his tongue. "You want to tell me, or do I have to guess?"

"Don't guess," I breathed out.

After swallowing slowly, I blinked. "I was thinking about the accident."

He said nothing at first, to the point where I began to shuffle in my seat to do something. When his eyes finally whirled to mine, I nearly sighed in relief when he didn't appear angry.

"I don't... I don't want you to think being with me isn't safe," he trailed off, his pupils dilating as he watched me, clearly upset. "I wouldn't..."

My hand moved over the console to grab his. "I don't think that."

His eyes were glazed over before he blinked rapidly, facing the road in front of him. "Yeah," he cleared his throat, releasing my hand—only to curl it into a fist on his lap.

We sat in silence for another few minutes, until he was pulling onto the ramp. But I noticed we were getting off one too early. "Where are we going?" I questioned, twisting in my seat. I curled my legs under me as I did so.

He gave me a small smirk. "Thought we'd get breakfast food. Down?"

"At one in the afternoon?" I grinned, rubbing my hands together. "Hell yeah." He was amused by my expression. "What?"