Page 140 of Sparks Fly

His jaw tightened. “I don’t want that for you. So, if Addison can’t give you what you need, I’ll understand if you have to walk away. She’s my sister, but that doesn’t mean you have to let her hurt you.”

I shook my head and rubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t want to lose her.”

“Then don’t disappear.” His expression softened. “but hold your boundary.”

I nodded slowly.

“Let her meet you in the middle,” he continued. “Not just in private. In her real life.”

Something in my chest shifted. Less panic. More resolve. “Okay.”

Benji straightened. “Also, if she ever brings you to dinner with my mother, I’m faking my own death and moving to Vermont.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Deal.”

He clapped a hand against my shoulder. “And you can always text me if you need anything.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I will.”

* * *

By the end of the day, my body felt wrung out.

Not from work. Work was the easy part. It was holding everything from last night inside my chest and refusing to let it spill that exhausted me.

I hadn’t texted Addison.

I opened her contact more times than I wanted to admit. Typed messages. Deleted them. Tried again.

Nothing sounded right.

So, I did the one thing I always did when my head got too loud.

I got on my bike.

The air had cooled by late afternoon, sunlight slanting gold across the street as I pulled on my helmet. The world narrowed to my breathing, the engine, and the familiar vibration beneath my hands.

As soon as I started moving, some of the tension left my shoulders. Movement helped. It always did.

I took the long way home, cutting toward the waterfront and letting the wind scrape some of the noise from my head. Traffic was thick but steady. The city looked the way it always did. Impatient. Alive. Completely unaware of the storm inside my chest.

I came up on an intersection I had ridden through a hundred times.

The light was green, I went through it.

Then something moved to my right.

Too fast.

Too close.

A car tore into the intersection like the red light wasn’t there.

My brain caught it in pieces. Headlights. A grille. The sudden certainty that there wasn’t enough space. I jerked the handlebars. The bike wobbled beneath me. The back tire caught for half a second before sliding out.

My shoulder hit the pavement first. Then my hip.

I felt pain run though me.