On the Edge of Love (CarlxAlan)

Chapter 38: Alan

I didn't cry until I was alone in the car.

It wasn't a bad kind of crying—not really. It was the kind of quiet tears that slip down your face when something inside you finally exhales. Relief, maybe. Or release. Or the ache that comes after you say something out loud you've been afraid to even think.

I loved Carl.

The air in his house had felt warmer than mine had in weeks, and the way he looked at me—so proud, so gentle—I could still feel it clinging to the sleeves of my jacket. I wanted to bottle that look. Keep it in my glove compartment. Take it out whenever I felt myself slipping again.

The streetlamps flicked past my windshield in slow rhythm, glowing in that lonely yellow way they only do at night. The roads were mostly empty. A few distant cars. Headlights like eyes.

I turned the radio on low. Just static and some folk song I didn't know, soft and scratchy like it had something to hide. My fingers tapped on the steering wheel out of habit.

The air smelled like fall—cold, dry, with that sharp tinge of leaves that had given up. A little like smoke, too, like someone's fireplace had been burning for hours.

Everything felt still.

I should've texted Carl when I left. I'd been too overwhelmed to think straight. But now, the weight in my chest had shifted. The fear was still there, but it didn't have claws anymore. Just fingers. Quiet ones, that I could maybe live with.

I even let myself smile.

I was halfway through planning the text—"Home safe. Thanks for listening tonight. I meant it. All of it."—when I turned onto the stretch of highway that led toward my neighborhood. The same turn I'd made a hundred times. Two stoplights. An empty field. A gas station on the left.

I saw the headlights before I heard anything.

They were moving too fast. Coming from the side. Cutting the red light like it wasn't even there. A blur of motion and speed and too-late.

I didn't have time to hit the brakes.

There was a flash—bright and white and all-consuming—and then the sound of metal folding in on itself like paper. A screech. A bang. A violent, splitting crack that didn't sound like it belonged on Earth. And then the world spun.

I remember the sensation of flying. Just for a second.

My body slammed sideways. Glass shattered. My head hit something—maybe the window, maybe the steering wheel—and then all of it was noise.

White, ringing noise.

And then—

Dark.