ʟɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴅ | 𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙧

2. 𝙉𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙏𝘾𝙍𝘼𝙒𝙇𝙀𝙍

002, 𝙉𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙏𝘾𝙍𝘼𝙒𝙇𝙀𝙍

.⋆𐙚 🍒

THE WORLD KEPT SPINNING.

Everyone moved on. But I was still stuck in that night. Unable to escape no matter how hard I tried.

It had been a week since the race.

Seven days of pretending I hadn't nearly drifted into the side of a shipping container. Of pretending I hadn't seen him—whoever he was—with those impossible eyes and that look—one that cut through me completely.

No one had ever looked at me like that before. 

At some point in the past week, I'd convinced myself that I was deluded. It was a few seconds, but it was like I could see everything so clearly in his eyes: the surprise, the awe, the unexpected softness. But most of all, it was the way he looked at me like he already knew me, like he saw something in me I had never been able to see in myself.

Seven days of no sleep. Not really. Not the kind that makes you feel rested, but rather the kind that has you waking up feeling even more exhausted than you had when you closed your eyes. I closed my eyes and saw headlights. Felt the wheel twisting beneath my fingers. I heard the crowd screaming praise for us like we were gods instead of fools playing with death.

Even now, I was lying on the couch in our dorm's shared living space, my legs sprawled out in front of me, a hoodie wrapped around my body like armor. My laptop sat on my thighs, the screencasting a faint glow across the room, the cursor blinking in a blank Google Doc like it was mocking me.

I was supposed to be writing a psych paper. 

I hadn't typed a single word.

Instead, my mind kept spinning around that turn. That screech. That stare that had managed to branded itself onto my soul.

And every time I remembered it, I didn't feel fear. I felt a pull.

Like I'd left a part of myself back on that road, and it hadn't found its way home to me.

It made me tired in a way coffee couldn't fix. School felt like white noise now—assignments stacking up like bricks, unread emails taunting me. Everything was loud and blurry except for that moment. That feeling.

My thoughts are ready to continue their endless spiral when the door bursts open.

"Get up."

I blinked, dragged back into the present like someone had yanked me up by the ear.

Hitch stood there, breathless and grinning, cheeks flushed, a bag in her hands. The sight had my stomach in knots, already knowing where this was going.

With Hitch, things either ended with wonder or chaos. Usually both.

Her eyes sparkled with that specific kind of mischief that only she had. Like she'd just dumped gasoline on the world and was about to ask if I wanted to help light the match that would burn everything down to the ground.

"No," I muttered, an automatic response I had developed over the past few years of knowing her. "Whatever it is, the answer is no."

She ignored me, striding in like she owned the room and dropped the bag onto the edge of the couch by my feet. "There's a party," she announced, hands on her hips.

"Yeah, absolutely fucking not." I shoot her an overly sweet fake smile, before turning my attention back to my laptop.

If there was one thing everyone who knew me knew about me, it was that I didn't like parties.