Keep the damn truck, too. It smells like you now.

“Fuck you, Knox!” I screamed in retort as I barreled out of his driveway in said Damn Truck. “Fuck you!” I knew it was childish and that he couldn’t even begin to hear me, but it felt good to say. How had things fallen so far off track? How?

The road was a blurry mess in front of me and all logic told me to pull over until my stupid tears dried up. Had I been in the city I would’ve done just that for fear of ramming into someone after missing a stop sign. Here, they had a total of four and those were all in town in the opposite direction. I was fine.

Reaching in my pocket, I dialed Rhi. There was no way I was going to discuss the evening with her, but she would worry if I just didn’t show up. Or not worry if she found her own entertainment, but given the entire town spit fire, my guess was she was alone. She picked up on the first ring, the sound of music blaring in the background. Her music. She had to be in the car.

“Where are ya?” The background music lowered. Car it was. Please let her not be drinking. She usually had some sense when it came to that, but we were usually within walking distance, too.

“Hello to you, too, Rhi.” I forced myself to smile as I spoke hoping it would somehow miraculously hide the complete and utter meltdown that was brewing inside me. “I’m in the truck.”

I wasn’t about to admit I was wandering aimlessly, completely lost on what to do next with my life. A life I had completely planned out and ready. A plan that now seemed pointless because he was gone. Someone who I knew for a nanosecond in the scheme of things. No, that little tidbit was all for me. Some things are too embarrassing, even to admit to a best friend, especially when your best friend had been acting not so normal as of late.

“You sound awful.”

Okay so maybe she was a little bit back to the old Rhi that I knew and loved.

“Yeah, well Knox and I had a fight.” Explosive end. Whatever. I still hadn’t fully processed what the heck had happened. He wanted me and then once he got me… boom, see ya. I knew this was a classic boy getting in a girls pants tactic, but he didn’t even want in my pants, where I probably would have let him go because apparently he turns me into someone other than myself.

“He wanted some and you put on your good girl breaks. Am I right?” She started humming her bow chicka wow wow annoying song. Normally it would have had me chuckling as I saw her accompanying dance in my head, but even that couldn’t break through the torture I was feeling.

And it was torture. Rejection stung, true. But this, this was more. I physically hurt being away from him. Knowing he was miserable and that I was the cause of hurt on a level that defied logic. Why didn’t he let me stay? His words just didn’t add up. I heard them, understood them and applied them to the situation like any good lawyer would, but I still came up missing something. If he truly loved me as he said, letting me go was the antithesis of what he should be doing.

That was the crux of it though, wasn’t it? He didn’t love me. Not truly. Not that anyone could love in that short period of time. So why did his non-love hit me so freaking hard?

“More like I wanted more.” I admitted like a fool. I didn’t want to talk about any details even the non-dragony mate-ish ones. Or did I? I had called her. I was a stupid hot mess. Arrrg. Knox, why did you have to be so smexy and funny and talented and such a good kisser and ride a motorcycle and more importantly why did you have to reject me?

“Gay.”

Leave it to Rhi.

“I don’t think that is the problem.” Nope, I felt exactly how much that wasn’t the problem when he was pressed against me, owning my mouth, stealing my ability to do anything more than feel.

“I’m still calling gay.” It was her go to reason for all things male. Dude didn’t want to dance with her, it had to be he liked guys and not that she was an annoying drunk. Guy breaks up with her, had to be he had the same taste in gender. Goodness forbid it be her fault. No one buys her a drink—you guessed it—all gay. One day she was going to take a good long look in the mirror. No doubt today wasn’t going to be that day. Or was it tomorrow, already?

“I was sure you were his,” she mumbled. That was the second time she said something like that. Something was off. Could it be she was a dragon? No, that was just my ridiculously overactive imagination. I would’ve known if my roomie could fly around and spit fire.

“What?”

“I said, he’s GAY,” she lied. I mean she did say that, but I could hear in her voice that she was covering up what she knew I heard. One crisis at a time, I reminded myself. I could deal with Rhi’s fiery secret in the morning. For now I needed to pull myself together, get some answers, and figure out a plan. My plan would have to include Knox fitting in my life, even if he wasn’t currently game.

“I gotta go. I just didn’t want you to worry.” I took a deep breath as I waited for her response. A good fifteen seconds later I added, “And he’s not gay, just a jerk.”

“Where are you?” Her response didn’t match my words nor did her intonation. “I’ll meet up.” Yeah that wasn’t going to happen. My gut told me no good could come of it. Maybe she was a evil dragon. Were there such things? Or worse, maybe she wanted Knox. Not that that should be worse than her being an evil dragon, but at the moment I could think of nothing worse.

“Just driving.” I flipped the turn signal, hoping the added sound effect would give credence to my lie. “Go. Have fun. I’ll see you when I clear my head a bit.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure. Night.” I hung up before she could add anything to the conversation. It needed to be over because I just couldn’t. Not tonight, not after all that had already happened.

I was a sadist. That was the only explanation for the four bazillion times I replayed the fight with Knox as I drove in what amounted to a ginormous circle around the town again and again. If I had had my wits about me, I would’ve altered my route by now to avoid the chances of town security thinking I was planning some kind of attack. That was not what I needed.

Parts of it just didn’t make sense. If I was his one and only, that should be the way it was. Not I’m your one and only but buh bye. Not when I could be the thing between him and whatever would happen to him if I said no. Why didn’t I have the courage and chutzpa to call his bluff on leaving?

You need to leave as soon as possible before I change my mind.

Those words echoed in my mind. If I had stayed, would things be sunshine and roses now? Of course not, but maybe this hole in my heart would be smaller. I didn’t want to be that girl. The one who won the guy by being available. For him, maybe for him it was worth it. Scratch that, all things were worth it. I felt it to my marrow. Why didn’t I tell him that? Because I sprouted feathers like a loser.

The tears began to flow freely again as I thought about all the things I should’ve said, but didn’t. How I loved him, too, even if all logic told me it was impossible. How I wanted to be with him, for him, and not just because he needed me. How him needing me did fill me with purpose, but only because it was him and not all the things I now realized he worried about. How I would find a way to make my current path blend with him, not as a sacrifice, but as a way to actually have a life worth living at the end of my five and ten year goals. How the idea of little dragon babies didn’t freak me out, even though I was far too young to have them now. How he, how… darn it, my eyes were not able to see more than a few feet in front of me and a dead me would never get him back.

I pulled over using a runaway truck lane that was perfectly placed for my meltdown. There was no way I wanted to be here in winter if they needed those bad boys. Looking at the clock, I knew my mom would be just about home from work. Her hours were one of the reasons I spent so much time focusing on my future. I wanted to not be forty something and schlepping drinks for drunks, all with the hopes of filling in the holes left by a dead end day job’s salary.

One thing still didn’t come close to making sense, and that was how Gran knew about me. Or did she? She was so off the wall by then that the entire breakdown might have been a coincidence. But… what if it wasn’t? What if she had been of right mind when she flipped out on me? The only person who knew Gran with any depths was my mom, and I had a feeling I was about to pull the scab off the wound by asking her what I needed to ask her. If my brain could conjure any other way of finding out, I’d have been going that route, but alas none did. All I could think of was Mom.

Hi Mom Home yet?

She hated it when I sent texts. She never texted, only called, and true to form, the phone rang moments later.

“Why are you up?” She sounded tired. My mom was always tired. She had never been what anyone would call a perfect mom or even a good mom, but she tried her hardest so that worked for me. In many ways her inability to parent made me stronger and more self-motivated than any of those “perfect” moms I envied my classmates having growing up. Heck, on paper Rhi’s parents looked great and they were certified assholes.

“Spring break.” I reminded her. She knew I was working on my thesis during spring break. I may have left out a few details, but I hadn’t lied.

“You drinking?” Because of course that would be the only logical thing her college daughter could be doing this late at night.

Not that I wanted to tell her the truth. Na, ma, I was just breaking up with a dragon and figured I would call and shoot the shit while I let my eyes get unfuzzy from the bucket of tears I’ve been shedding. Because that would go over well and was as far from delusional sounding as you could get.

“No, mom.” I gave my best exacerbated sigh hoping to guise my now weak voice. “I just was wondering something. Was Gran crazy at the end?”

“What brought this on?”

Shit. Her voice told me all I needed to know. She knew I knew something.

“I’m sort of in the town we brought her ashes to and it got me thinking.” Lies. All lies and my mom was great at sniffing those out. I crossed my fingers and toes my excuse sounded plausible. Not that it mattered. I needed to know.

“Why are you there?”

“Thesis mom. I told you that.” I hadn’t actually told her that, but after a shift at her day job, and a shift with the drunks, I figured she was tired enough that she would at least second guess. It wasn’t like I planned to never tell her. I just wanted to do this alone. Or alone-ish, as the case turned out to be.

“Sorry, I forgot.” And now she was the one with her pants on fire. Weren’t we the pair? “No, she wasn’t crazy. She just had a hard life.”

“She called me one of them.” I let slip out. In my head I had all the good questions to lead into this, but hearing the defeated acceptance of my grandmother’s awfulness to my mom had them flowing from my lips.

“I remember.” The sound of water beating off the wall now filled my ear. She had turned on the shower, her belief that the conversation was about to end evident.

“What did she mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mom. For serious. What. Did. She. Mean.” No more beating around the bush. No more trying to weasel it out of her. Those attempts had already gone south. I needed to know, and now I had every reason to believe she knew.

“She believed in true love and fate and all that crap.” She paused and I almost interrupted until I heard the rumple of her clothing. She was getting ready to actually get in the shower. Whatever I got from her in the next few moments would be it. She wasn’t one for discussing feelings. It would be a drop by and done. “You know that.”

“Uh hu,” I agreed, not wanting her to stop her flow. I could sense she was about to drop a bomb and I braced myself. “She and my dad were meant to be, and when he died, so did much of her.”

Okay, maybe not a bomb as much as what I already knew.

“That explains nothing.” Defeat soaked into me. Maybe it didn’t matter anyway. I picked at the polish on my nail, glad the dimly lit area didn’t allow me to see the destruction I was making to the fancy flowers Rhi had managed to paint on them.

“She thought you were going to be like him. Instead she said fate had you set to be half of a pair.”

Crap on a cracker. She knew about Knox. Gran freaking knew? How? And possibly more important, why did she think it so horrible?

“So, she didn’t want me married?” I fished for answers, hoping my faux confusion actually sounded sincere.

“You know what? I don’t want to talk about her. She might not have been crazy, but it didn’t mean she was nice.”

That was a truth bomb if I ever heard it. My Gran could be out and out cruel, and more than once I was sure she enjoyed it.

“So you’re not going to answer,” I clarified, more to myself than to her. It wasn’t a question. She was done.

“Fine.” And with that one word a bit of hope for answers grew inside me. “I think she thought you were going to end up like me.”

“That makes no sense.” I turned the ignition. I was good enough to drive, and after I hung up I was going to make my way back to Knox and… I didn’t know what, but I was going to make it right.

“Your father was my mate. He died. End of story.”

And there it was. The bomb I was expecting, and yet it was nothing like I could have possibly expected. All my life I knew my father freaking left me. My mom, the single mom by asshole, not choice. What the heck was I supposed to do with that information?

“Died?” I swallowed, the words bitter in my mouth.

“I’m sorry I never told you.” Sincerity flowed through the phone and right past me because this was not something to simply let slide by. My father, who I painted as this evil person all these years was dead. Not gone with some side chick in every town gone, but six feet under gone.

“Sorry?” My voice cracked. “Fuck you, Mom. Fuck everyone with all their stupid secrets. I need to go.”

It was all too much. The entire day was too much. I needed… I had no idea what I needed, but I needed it now. Actually I knew what I needed, and as stupid as it sounded to even my own ears, it was Knox’s arms wrapped around me.

“I love you.” I heard her say as I hung up the phone, threw it on the passenger side floor, and began to back out onto the road. If my inner navigation system was accurate, I could be in Knox’s arms in less than five minute. I didn’t care if begging was required. Whatever it took to get a second chance, I was willing to do it.

Unfortunately, in all my determination I forgot to do one simple thing: look for traffic. The last thing I saw before everything went black was a light blinding me as the sound of metal crumpling filled my ears.