"What are we going to do about my car?"

Matthew didn't want to answer me, eyes steeled to the road ahead of us while trying to nonchalantly double check on me and my 'head wound' as he'd so aptly described it.

"I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out where the nearest urgent care is."

I showed him my phone with the GPS already pulled up and en route.

"Just follow this. I'll call Eli and see if he can have someone come and get it for me, or maybe I can ride back up with Phoebe later this week and give Miller a piece of my mind about what he did out there."

"Wait. Hold up. Put this shit in reverse--you want to go back?"

The look on Matthew's face was incredulous, like I'd just told him that my favorite food was burned cabbage leaves.

"Uh...yeah? Why wouldn't I want to go back?"

I was surprised that he didn't pull over and immediately accost me instead of pinning me with a stare he reserved for Evie when she did something wrong, and the shrinking shameful humiliation in my gut threatened to wrap me in an eviscerating snake hold and never release me.

"Because it's dangerous, and you've already been hurt! What do you think will happen next time?"

"I guess I don't really care."

This time, Matthew really did pull over, although it was because we'd already arrived to the clinic that would treat my head injury, although I'd hardly call a cut barely a centimeter deep an 'injury'.

"You don't really mean that," he condescended to me, which in the end just pissed me off.

"Yes, I really do."

He regarded me as a rebellious teenager, a little sister that he needed to straighten out to the good path, but that was the problem-there was no right path for me, not anymore, and the sooner he and my brother figured that out, the better.

"You can't keep doing things like this, Elodie. You know how much your brother worries about you, and multiply that by ten and that's how much V worries."

"What, you're not going to patronize me about how much you worry, too?"

I couldn't help it. Maybe I was a glutton for punishment, or maybe I just wanted to see what he would say, but that didn't mean that when the words fell out of his mouth that they didn't sting all the way down to my bones.

"Of course I worry about you! You and Eli are the closest thing to family that I have besides my actual family, but all they want is my money. You're like my little sister, Ellie. You can't keep doing this risky shit, it's not worth it."

How could I explain to him that it was, in fact, completely worth it? Worth every death defying stunt that I sunk headfirst into, that it was worth every blood curdling scream, every heart skipping moment where I was suspended in reality, seconds from death, from escaping the reality that so maliciously stomped me into the ground day after day...

"When I'm free climbing, or paragliding, or bungee jumping, dirt biking, fighting in underground tournaments, it's like I can finally breathe, like I can be someone else and escape my own skin for a second, just a second, and then it's like I'm back to being me again, same old little Ellie, the little girl who everyone sees as this damaged flower who has to be sheltered and protected from the rest of the world, well guess what? No one sheltered me the first fifteen years of my life, so I know damn well how this shit hole works, I definitely don't need to be protected from it when I can very well do it myself."

Matthew blinked back his shock, most likely realizing with a start that this was the most I'd ever spoken to him in one go, always shrinking back underneath his gaze and watching from afar, hiding behind a shy facade and naive faux innocent eyes.

In truth, I was the farthest from innocent someone could get, but he didn't need to know that, and neither did my brother or his wife.

"We all love you, and we just want to make sure that you don't die out there doing all this crazy shit. That's the point I was trying to make, not that we think you're not capable of defending yourself."

A stray raindrop splashed against the dark tinted window of the car, rolling down a lazy path to the bottom, and I focused on that one raindrop until it doubled, splitting off into multiple different veins of water basking the car in an eerie yellow dim light, flashes of it bouncing and jumping off of the interior of the car and landing in the specks of green in Matthew's eyes.

The soft patter of water hitting the roof of the car insulated every breath, every ragged, dry inhale of oxygen into my starving lungs, desperate for a moment alone and away from his searching eyes, seemingly burning their way down to my deepest depths and searing me from the inside out at the same time.

Matthew had never seen me, not really, not through the lens of an adult, someone that he cared about who was hurting in a way that he'd never considered before, because all he could see was Eli's little sister, battered and bruised and damaged from a childhood no child should ever have to see.

So, when he leaned closer towards me, hand inches from mine and buzzing with an electric sensation that sent a trilling warmth swelling through me, instinct immediately took over my body as I leaned in to him as well.

It was something so simple, so sweet, but oh so electric and magnified by a forbidden desire that had run rampant through me since I'd learned what was underneath his t-shirts one day while he was playing a pick up game with Eli in the neighborhood.

I closed the distance between us, and suddenly we were kissing, like the proximity of the car had pushed us together and like magnets we'd gravitated towards each other, unable to pull apart.

The rain outside blossomed into a thunderstorm, spears of lightning flashing behind my eyelids as his tongue entered my mouth and his hands tangled in my hair, my torso stretched across the front console as I tried to find a way closer to him.

Wild and careless, his mouth unbidden tore a percolating desire into my veins, the gentle and soft caress of his lips against mine a tune that I'd only been gifted once before that night in the club, but it was only in the soft glow of the streetlights and dim interior lights of the car, hidden in a blacked out parking lot did the true capacity of the moment weigh heavy against my mind.

Wasn't this exactly what I'd wanted for so long, since my first crush had developed into full blown love from afar? Did his heart beat a staccato rhythm unbridled and untamed inside his chest like it did mine, desperate for something I couldn't even put into words?

My head angled to the side as his hands wound their way around my head and down my neck, fingers flexing slowly and tantalizing as further he delved into my mouth, tongues dancing in a melodic beat and the kisses both frantic and smooth and full of leisure at the same time.

There was something taboo in the fact that I knew I had kissed him before and he had no idea that it was me from that night in the club, but as his teeth nipped my lower lip and I bit out a sharp groan, he seemed to finally come to his senses.

He pulled back, wild and bewildered, flushed and shocked, like he couldn't believe what he'd done, like I was a crime he'd committed willingly and one that he wouldn't mind committing once more, but his morals got in the way.

Wide eyed and out of breath, I couldn't help but notice the guilt permeating the air around us, as if he were ashamed at kissing me.

"I- that was a mistake."

His gruff tone sent a chill skittering down my spine.

Yes, apparently it was, but I couldn't find it in myself to regret it.

"Was it a mistake in the club, too?"

Confusion morphed into knowing, but then he cast me a harsh glare, like it was my fault he was attracted to me in the club.

"You let me kiss you knowing that I had no clue that it was you?"

"Didn't seem like it bothered you just now when you knew it was me."

He didn't care for my deflection as his eyes darkened and his hands rested against the steering wheel once more, tightening enough to showcase his veins.

Outside the interior of our own little bubble, thunder clapped overhead and shook the inside of the car.

"Put your seatbelt back on."

He had the Tesla in drive before the buckle had even clipped into place.

"What about getting me to the doctor? Because I could have a 'concussion'," I asked, holding my fingers up and putting air quotes around the 'concussion' part, because it was obvious that there was nothing wrong with me besides a little cut.

"You seem fine to me," he replied offhandedly, verifying my earlier thoughts, but without his concern for me flowing through his actions and words, I felt strangely empty and numb, like he never cared in the first place.

Fine. Was that what I was?

I didn't feel anything, really, but maybe 'fine' was a sufficient answer, for now at least.

We didn't say a single thing the rest of the right home, though I could've sliced through the tension in the air with a spoon.

My skin still tingled where he'd touched me.