Inside I was counting backwards from one hundred. Over and over again. What makes you think you're special?

No matter how loudly I counted, I couldn't drown out the sound of that question echoing in my brain.

Her face was red, with angry tears falling fast and silent in two rivers down her cheeks. My hands clenched at my side, and I had to suppress the instinct to turn to her, rummage in the glove box to find some tissue to clean her face with, wet it from her water bottle and brush it over her forehead. I wanted to hold her, quiet her sobs and make it right again.

What makes you think you're special?

But I was too damned angry at her to do anything other than listen as she raged at me.

"I never asked you to do that!" she repeated for what might have been the fiftieth time. The scratch from her father's dirty nails stung painfully under my eye. I pulled down the visor and glanced in the mirror. Between the healing gash on my forehead and the new one under my eye, I was looking as sorry outside as I felt on the inside.

How had this gone so wrong?

"...Worst place in the world!" she was saying, barely taking a breath. "I used to have nightmares about it, Niall, do you understand me? Sometimes I still do!"

I was baffled how angry she was. It made no sense to me. "It's where you're from though, right?" I asked, trying to break in through the flood of words. "And I'm with you, yeah?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Yeah," she hissed. "I sure thought so."

Momentarily stung, I pressed on. "So, I have a right to know where you came from, and what made you into you."

"And what gives you that right?"

I spread my hands, moving them in the space between us. "You do. Us! Being... Together! Me loving you!"

She threw up her hands then slammed a fist down on the steering wheel. "Why do you think I've been living on the road for five years, huh?" she demanded. Hysterical laughter bubbled at the edges of her words. "It's because the moment I stop moving, I'm terrified I might end up back there."

I shook my head. "But it's what made you who you are. Don't you see why I wanted to know that?"

She stabbed a finger in the center of her chest. "No. I made me who I am." She shook her head slowly. "You're never going to let this go, are you?" Her words came as fast as her tears. "You can't possibly know what it's like to be ashamed of where you're from, of what your father's name means in your town. You're proud of your family. Your mom adores you. You have money, and a big fancy house waiting for you with open arms if this whole rock 'n roll thing fails." She swung her hand around, gesturing in the direction we'd left behind. "I have... that waiting for me."

I pressed my lips together, still not quite understanding, but at least knowing that she felt justified in her anger. I held my hands up. "Okay," I told her. "I get it." Even though I really didn't. "I would have never made you come with me, I would have never meet you relive all that. If I had only known."

"Well, now you know," she spat, glaring at me.

"Right, darling."

"Don't call me that now."

"Very well. Right, Reese," I singsonged like a brat, but I couldn't help it. "But in all the time we spent together, you never thought to mention that you're from a rusted out coal town and that your father is the town drunk?

Her whole body jerked, including the hand on the steering wheel. I held my breath as the white lane lines disappeared under the center of the truck. "Reese," I said quietly.

She yanked the wheel back. "Can you blame me?" she said and there was something low and dangerous in her voice. A threat under the words. "Look at what happened as soon as you found out." She looked at me. "You pity me,"

"I don't -"

She waved her hands. "You're judging me. I can see it. Right now, that wheel is turning in your head as you start to realize what I really am. The trashy redneck daughter of an addict father, right?" She laughed a sound I'd never heard from her before. "Well fuck you for never having anything go wrong in your life, Niall Penrose."

I could taste bitter anger in the back of my throat. We drove in silence as I tried and failed several times to say something that wouldn't hurt her forever. Finally I clenched my fists and took a breath. "My fiancée," I told her quietly, through clenched teeth. "The woman I trusted. She stole from me."

"But you have enough money so that doesn't matter and -"

I held up my hands. "And then," I went on, over her objections. "I opened my heart, ready to trust another woman. I found someone I was desperate to get to know better."

She closed her mouth, listening.

"But this beautiful, tough girl," I went on. "The one who's stolen my fucking heart? She doesn't think enough of me to let me into her life. She's hiding the most important parts of her from me. She's keeping her secrets. "

I crossed my arms over my chest. "I'd say I've had a lot go wrong."