Control

22 - Unlearning

a/n - Hi lovelies!! Thank you for all the love you've shown me as I returned to this series! I forgot how fun it is to write these amazing characters :) Also, Chapter 23 & 24 are on my Patreon, you can see a bit of it for free before paying like $5 a month. Chapter 25 will likely (which means definitely) be smut, I know it seems all drab right now, but it gets better soon, trust me ;)

The car ride was quiet.

Well. Mostly quiet. Eddie was talking, which helped, because if he wasn't talking then I'd probably be thinking too hard, and that didn't seem like a good idea right now.

He was telling Enzo about the sleepover. About how big the apartment was. About how the elevator went really fast and how he thought it might drop but it didn't. He asked if sleepovers counted if you fell asleep before midnight, and if that meant you could do them on school nights too.

I nodded a lot. I said "yeah" and "maybe" and "we'll see." I don't remember if any of those were answers to the right questions.

I kept my eyes on Eddie, because if I looked out the window I'd see my reflection, and if I saw my reflection I'd probably spiral again, and I didn't have the energy for another one of those. I already felt like my brain had been doing laps since this morning.

Enzo drove. He didn't talk much. That was probably on purpose. He adjusted the heat at one point, just a little. I noticed. I didn't say anything.

By the time we pulled up in front of the bakery, Eddie had gone quiet. His head was tipped forward, dinosaur tucked under his arm like he'd dropped it mid-thought. I felt guilty for waking him up when Enzo opened the door.

The bakery looked the same as it always did. Dark windows. The sign off. The street empty in that way it only ever is early in the morning.

"Wait here," Enzo said quietly.

I nodded, even though I wasn't sure what I'd do if he hadn't told me that. Sit there anyway, probably. I didn't feel capable of much else.

He picked Eddie up like it was nothing, like this was a normal thing he did all the time. Like he hadn't just lifted my entire life out of a penthouse and deposited it neatly back where it belonged ten minutes ago. Eddie shifted against his shoulder, mumbled something about juice, then went slack again, trusting in that loose, unquestioning way kids have when they're too tired to be afraid.

I watched them go inside, Enzo's shoulder blocking the door for a second before it closed behind them. The sound of it shutting felt louder than it should have, echoing in the quiet street, and then there was nothing but the inside of the car and the low hum of the engine.

I stayed exactly where I was, staring straight ahead, hands folded awkwardly in my lap because I didn't know what else to do with them. The space felt wrong all of a sudden, like there was too much of it and not enough at the same time, and the silence pressed in where Eddie's voice had been just moments ago. The engine kept running, steady and patient, like it was waiting for me to make a decision I didn't feel capable of making.

That was when everything I'd been holding back finally hit.

My chest tightened hard enough that it almost hurt, and I sucked in a breath that didn't seem to do anything. I leaned forward slightly, my chin dropping toward my chest, my body giving up on pretending it was fine even though my brain was still trying to keep up.

I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my lips together to keep myself quiet.

I didn't want to think anymore, but my thoughts kept coming anyway, piling up faster than I could sort through them.

When I opened my eyes again, I was staring straight ahead at the dashboard, my reflection faint in the windshield if I focused too hard on it. My hands were twisted together in my lap, knuckles tight, like if I held still enough everything else might settle too. I tried to count the freckles on my hands, the little dots all along my body, like I would when I was a child in that stupid basement, trying to stay quiet.