The space between us is smaller than the lie we’re both pretending not to tell.
The garage is barely a room—more like a scar beneath the city. Concrete walls sweating cold. A single hanging bulb flickering like it’s nervous we’re here. The Mustang sleeps ten feet away, hood popped, engine cooling with soft metallic ticks that sound too much like a countdown.
Between engines. Between breaths. Between truths.
Adrian sits on the far edge of the narrow cot we dragged in from somewhere forgotten. I’m on the floor, back against a tire stack, jacket pulled tight around me like armor. We’re not touching. We haven’t since the run—since the alley, the snow, the way his hands shook when he checked me for blood like he was afraid I’d disappear if he blinked.
The silence is loud.
It’s always loud
