Chapter 3: No Promises
1432 Words
"You live here?"
I stare at the wreck in front of me. And I mean wreck — cracked siding, rusted gate hanging off one hinge, windows so dirty they look painted black. The yard is less of a yard and more of a situation. Trees overgrown, weeds chest-high, something moving in the bushes that I am choosing not to identify. The whole place sits off a road that GPS probably doesn't even acknowledge, surrounded by nothing and nobody.
I take one step back toward my car.
"Of course not." Blake sounds offended on behalf of his dignity.
"Then why are we here?" My voice does this embarrassing little wobble and I hate myself for it.
He turns to look at me, and I see it — that slow, deliberate grin crawling up his face. His eyes drag down my body and back up.
"I'm going to—"
"Don't."
"—bury you under the bushes." He leans in, dropping his voice to this low, horrible whisper. "Nobody's going to hear you, Muffin."
I take three full steps back. My brain is running full survival calculations — scream, run, or go straight for the
kneecap?
My brother's voice surfaces from somewhere in my memory: If all else fails, Jade — straight to the groin. Hard.
My eyes drop to his crotch for exactly half a second.
Blake jumps back like I electrocuted him. "WOAH. Hey. Chill. I'm joking — I am joking, okay? I like my anatomy
exactly where it is, thank you."
"Then talk faster."
"We're studying here." He says it like it's obvious, already digging keys out of his bag. "It's quiet."
I look at the haunted-house jungle situation surrounding us. "It's a crime scene."
"It's peaceful."
"Those are not the same thing!"
He jiggles the key in the lock — left, right, left, right, left — for an actual eternity before the door groans open. He
steps aside and does this ridiculous mock-bow.
"Ladies first."
"What a gentleman," I mutter.
"You say something?"
"Nope."
❖❖❖❖❖
The inside is dark and freezing cold — like walking into a basement that gave up on itself. The door clicks shut behind me and my heart rate spikes immediately.
"Where are the lights?"
"Stay there." He disappears into the dark.
I stand completely still, arms wrapped around myself, counting seconds like my life depends on it. Forty-six seconds
later, the fluorescent tubes start their panicked flickering — on, off, on, off, on—off—
"Do they work?"
"Give it a second."
Fifty-seven more seconds. Then stillness. Light.
I exhale.
And honestly? The inside isn't terrible. Dusty, sure — the couch looks like it hasn't been touched since 2015 — but
it's tidy. A cracked wooden table. A covered TV nobody's watching. A painting of trees and a river hanging crooked
on the wall. A blue vase with cobwebs wearing it like a hat.
And on the floor beside the couch: Oreo wrappers.
Multiple Oreo wrappers.
I almost smile. The baddest bad boy in Northside Academy stress-eats Oreos in an abandoned house alone. Noted.
❖❖❖❖❖
I find him in the kitchen, drinking cold water straight from a bottle, not offering me anything.
"You know, most people say 'help yourself' when a guest walks in." I open the fridge myself.
"You just did."
"That's not the point—"
"You're annoying."
"You're rude."
"Never said I wasn't." He walks out.
I stare at the empty doorway. "I genuinely hope his future girlfriend has the patience of a saint," I mutter, putting the
bottle back, "because nobody else is surviving this."
"All women are bitches." His voice floats back from the other room.
I walk out slowly. "That's your whole personality, isn't it? Just that one sentence on a loop."
"Works for me." He drops a textbook on the table. Topic closed.
I pull out my math notebook, a pen, a pencil. I raise an eyebrow at him — yours? He scowls, digs through his bag,
produces a pen, clicks it. Nothing. Dead.
I hand him mine without a word.
He takes it without a thank you.
Of course.
"Where do we start?" I ask.
He shrugs. "You're the tutor."
Lord give me strength.
❖❖❖❖❖
"You multiply both sides by x — not divide. We've done this three times."
"It doesn't make sense!" He throws the pen down.
I pick it up. "It's algebra, not interpretive dance. It doesn't need to make sense, it needs to get done."
"This is torture. You know what M-A-T-H stands for? Mental Abuse To Humans."
"Bold take from someone who isn't technically human."
He slow-blinks at me.
"Solve the sum, Blake."
"Why do we even look for x?" he says, leaning back in his chair. "Maybe x left because math is obsessive and
controlling. Maybe x is happy being in English. Maybe x doesn't want to be found."
I open my mouth. Close it. "...That is genuinely the most unhinged interpretation of algebra I have ever heard."
"Makes more sense than integration."
"Solve. The. Sum."
He picks up his phone and opens a game.
I sink deeper into my chair and contemplate every decision I've ever made that led me to this moment.
❖❖❖❖❖
Twenty minutes later my stomach growls loud enough that Blake looks up from his phone.
"You got anything to eat?" I ask.
"You know where the kitchen is."
I go back to the kitchen. Open the fridge with hope. Find: three water bottles, one ancient half-empty Coke,
chocolate wrappers, Oreo wrappers, and one sad, lonely piece of lettuce.
I shut the door hard. The bottles rattle.
"Don't break things." He hollers from the other room. "Not your house."
I grip the counter and breathe through my nose.
I check the cabinets — coffee, sugar, no milk. Fantastic. I slam the cabinet.
"Finding anything?" His voice appears directly behind me and I spin around with my hand over my heart.
"Don't do that." I glare at him. "And no. Nothing. I'm starving and when I'm starving I skip past angry and go straight
to unhinged."
He looks at me for a second, playing with his motorcycle keys, spinning them around one finger.
"There's a diner down the road."
I stare at him. "You watched me search every cabinet in this kitchen and you're telling me now?"
The corner of his mouth twitches. "It was entertaining."
"You are the most infuriating person alive." I push past him and grab my bag. "Which direction?"
"Opposite from your house."
"So we take your bike, grab food, you drop me back here and I drive myself home." I say it briskly, logically, like a
person who has a plan.
He steps in front of his motorcycle like I just suggested we sacrifice it. "You're not getting on my bike."
"It's efficient—"
"No."
"It saves gas—"
"No."
"Blake. I have an older brother who restores motorcycles for fun. I am not afraid of your bike, I am not going to
break your bike, and this is not a big deal. Use your brain."
"Oh, says the girl tutoring the idiot."
"That's — you know what, yes, exactly, which is why you should listen to me when I tell you the logical solution is—"
"Most good girls don't ride bikes." He crosses his arms.
My eyes narrow to slits. "Who told you I was a good girl?"
Something shifts in his expression. Just slightly. A recalibration.
"You're class president," he says.
"And you apparently run a criminal empire. Didn't stop you from eating Oreos alone in an abandoned house." I
gesture at the front room meaningfully. "We contain multitudes."
A beat of silence.
He looks at me for a long moment — that unreadable dark-eyed stare that does absolutely nothing to my heartbeat,
I don't know what you're implying. Then he looks at his bike. Then back at me.
"You fall off," he says finally, "that's on you."
"Noted."
"No rash driving?" He raises an eyebrow, his mouth starting to curve.
"Please."
He swings onto the bike, kicks the stand up, revs the engine once — just to be dramatic — and looks back at me
over his shoulder.
"No promises, Muffin."
And every single brain cell I had left told me to get in my car, drive home, and never look back.
Instead I climbed on behind Blake Carter, grabbed two fistfuls of his jacket, and held on.
- Writer
