ADAPTATION

Shay

There’s a certain kind of adaptation to pain that almost nobody talks about. Not the kind where you cry until your eyes are swollen, lock yourself in your room, and stop answering messages. That would almost be easier. At least then everyone knows you’re hurting, and sometimes you don’t have to explain why.

Sometimes it happens differently. You just get quieter. You stop telling people what’s going on in your head because every time you try to find the words, everything sounds either too complicated, too frightening, or somehow not even real. So when someone asks how you’re doing, you automatically say, “I’m fine.” Sometimes you even smile, just to keep them from asking another question.

Eventually, you get so used to staying quiet that you no longer know what to say when someone actually decides to dig for the truth. I think I learned that a little too quickly.

Tate sat across from me at a scarred wooden table, talking about something. His lips moved. Every now and then, he paused, frowned, ran a hand through his hair, and started again, but hardly any of his words reached me. They sank into the dull hum of the half-empty pub, the clinking of dishes at the neighboring tables, the muffled music coming from somewhere deeper inside, and the steady beat of my own pulse throbbing in my temples.

I watched him, trying to figure out when I’d stopped listening.

Maybe it was when he said:

“We need to end this, Shay.”

Or:

“We just can’t make this work anymore.”

I wasn’t even sure anymore exactly what he’d said. Somehow, the words had blurred together in my memory into one short sentence, after which nothing particularly remarkable happened.

I didn’t feel like I’d been punched. My breath didn’t catch. I didn’t feel the urge to grab his hand and tell him he couldn’t just end things between us like that. I simply kept looking at him, trying to find some kind of reaction inside myself that matched what was happening.

But there was nothing.

I looked at his familiar face, the one I’d wanted to study for hours not so long ago, at the fingers now tapping nervously against the table, at the dark T-shirt I’d seen him wear dozens of times. There was a time when I thought I knew Tate better than anyone. Now, I couldn’t even bring myself to ask why he’d decided to leave.

I slipped my hands beneath the table and ran my thumb along the inside of my wrist. I dug my nails into the skin, lightly at first, then harder. The pain was small, dull, and real. It made a lot more sense than anything that had been going on inside my head over the past few days. I kept pressing until my skin began to sting, and only then did I loosen my grip.

I wanted to feel something. Not because I wanted to hurt myself. I just needed to know that something could still reach me.

“Shay.”

I looked up. Tate had apparently been quiet for a few minutes, just watching me.

“Were you even listening to anything I just said?”

“Yeah,” I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected.

“Then say something,” he asked, frowning.

I looked at him and, for the first time during the entire conversation, actually stopped to consider what he wanted from me. He wanted to know why I’d barely been answering his texts over the past few days, why I hadn’t been telling him anything, and why every question he asked got the same response: “It’s complicated.”

His attempts to get through to me were obvious, but I didn’t know what to say. How was I supposed to explain something I could barely bring myself to think about, let alone say out loud? For the past few days, my life had felt like a nightmare I couldn’t find my way out of. And apparently, he took my silence as a refusal to let him get any closer.

“I’m tired, Shay,” Tate exhaled heavily, leaning back in his chair.

This time, I heard every word.

“I don’t know how to help you when you won’t even tell me what’s going on,” he said, dragging a tired hand down his face. “I keep trying to figure out what happened. I ask you, and every single time, you shut me out. And now your mom has suddenly decided to send you to this goddamn Dayton in the middle of your senior year. Why? What the hell happened? Why did you just agree to it? Why didn’t you try to talk her out of it? At least for us, Shay.”

His voice dropped on those last words, and somehow that made them hit harder.

At least for us.

I lowered my eyes to the table. Two almost untouched drinks sat between us, and mine had gone cold a long time ago. His probably had, too.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I admitted.

That was probably the most honest thing I could give him right now.

Tate fell silent. He looked at me as if he were still waiting for me to finally speak, to explain what I’d been so carefully hiding over the past few days, and somehow give him a reason to stay. I could see it in his face, and it made me feel even worse, because even now, when he was practically begging me to let him in, I couldn’t do it.

All my stuff was already waiting in the car outside the pub: a suitcase, a backpack, and everything else I’d managed to cram in before leaving. All I had to do was walk out, get behind the wheel, and start the engine. In a few hours, I’d be in Dayton, and somehow the thought of that felt much more real than anything happening at this table.

“I love you, Shay. But I can’t do this anymore.” Tate kept looking at me as though he were still waiting for me to stop him. To say something, anything, that might keep him from ending things between us.

This time, I didn’t even bother looking for the right words. I just gave a slow nod. Confusion flickered across his face for a moment, but I didn’t try to explain. I had nothing to say to him.

The person I’d been so afraid of losing only recently had just decided to walk away, and the only thing I felt was exhaustion.

I got up from the table, pulled a bill from the back pocket of my shorts, and dropped it onto the table. Tate immediately shook his head, but I didn’t bother explaining. I grabbed the jacket lying beside me on the seat and slipped it over my shoulders, trying not to spend another second in there.

It was easier to leave first than to stay and watch him walk away from me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, not even sure what I was apologizing for.

Then I walked out of the pub without looking back.

The drive to fucking Dayton turned out to be surprisingly uneventful. For some reason, I’d expected traffic jams, impatient drivers, and endless lines of semis that would crawl along in front of me for half the trip, forcing me to keep slowing down. But the highway gave me almost no trouble.

Mile after mile slipped by as the light outside gradually changed. At first, the low sun still shone straight through the windshield, making me squint whenever it peeked out from behind the trees at just the wrong moment. But then the light slowly began to fade, until all that remained of the day was a gray dusk, the occasional roadside light, and the red taillights of the cars ahead.

“Midnight in NM” by Scott Ruth was playing through the speakers. Without really thinking about it, I turned up the volume, letting the music drown out, at least for a little while, everything that had been running through my head for the past few hours.

I still couldn’t believe I was actually driving to Dayton.

Not for a couple of days, not for a visit, and not even for a vacation after which I could pack my things and go home. I was going there for an entire senior year. To a city I’d never have chosen for myself, to Heidi and Colin, who I’d never been particularly close to, and to Daisy, whom I’d known my whole life but had never imagined having around every single day.

And all of this had to happen now, of all times. When normal people were busy thinking about college, parties, prom, and all the other shit that usually seemed like the most important thing in the world. Meanwhile, I was sitting behind the wheel, trying to get used to the idea that tomorrow I’d wake up in someone else’s room and have to pretend my life hadn’t fallen apart in a matter of days.

The closer I got to Dayton, the more I wanted to turn around and drive back, even though I knew perfectly well there was nowhere for me to go.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, and my gaze instinctively dropped to my hand. Just above my wrist was a small tattoo of a devil with a tiny pitchfork.

Tate always said there was no way anyone could mistake me for an angel. A saint, either. According to him, a little devil suited me much better—cocky and smug, always getting into some kind of shit, fully aware of it, and not the least bit sorry.

I ran my thumb along the edge of the tattoo, and something twisted unpleasantly inside me. Just six months ago, I never would have imagined that one day I’d look at it and think about how the person who’d left it on my skin could simply disappear from my life like that.

Fuck, Tate.

I still loved him. Not “I used to love him” or “I had a good time with him.” I loved him. That was the worst part. Even now, when I was angry with him for giving up, when I wanted to blame him for everything and tell myself he just hadn’t been able to understand me, all I wanted was for him to be there.

We could have gotten through this. The move, the distance, fucking Dayton, the hundreds of miles between us. It could’ve been shitty, complicated, inconvenient, but it wasn’t impossible. I could’ve visited him, he could’ve visited me. We could’ve spent hours on the phone, argued over stupid things, made up, and missed each other all over again. We could’ve hated the distance until it finally came to an end.

But now the distance wasn’t even the worst part.

The worst part was that Tate didn’t want to go through it with me anymore.

If only I could rewind that conversation by a few minutes. Make myself open my mouth and say something, anything, instead of that pathetic “I don’t know what to tell you.” Maybe he would’ve stayed.

I drove into the city after it had grown completely dark. My phone, with the navigation running, lay on the dashboard, and every now and then I glanced at it to check the route. After a few turns, small houses, shops, and gas stations began appearing around me, followed by quiet residential streets. I barely looked at my surroundings, too caught up in the thought that tomorrow I’d have to wake up here and somehow start living as if the past few days had never happened.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed, and my heart gave such a violent jolt that I stopped breathing for a second.

What if he’d changed his mind? What if he was replaying our last conversation too, realizing he hadn’t wanted things to end that way? Maybe we could still fix this.

I grabbed my phone and quickly glanced at the screen, already reaching to open the message. But instead of Tate’s name, my mother’s appeared.

The disappointment was almost physical. I stared at the screen for a moment, trying to figure out why she was texting me now.

When I looked back at the road, red brake lights suddenly flared right in front of me.

“Shit!”

I slammed on the brakes. The car lurched, the seat belt dug painfully into my shoulder, and the tires screeched against the asphalt. The phone slipped from my fingers and disappeared somewhere between the seat and the center console. A moment later, there was a dull thud, and the car jolted from the impact with the bumper in front of me.

For a few seconds, I just sat in the dark interior, staring blankly at the steering wheel and trying to collect myself. Everything inside me was stretched to the breaking point, and my thoughts were so tangled that I couldn’t even focus on what had just happened. Eventually, staying in the car became impossible. I fumbled with the seat belt buckle, shoved the door open, and jumped out wearing nothing but a tank top.

“Fuck…”

The curse slipped out before I even took my first step. I looked at the SUV in front of me, and a fresh wave of panic hit. What if someone was hurt? Shit, why the hell hadn’t I been watching the road?

I hurried around the front of the Camaro, barely feeling the cold air against my bare arms, and finally saw the crumpled front end. I froze for a second, staring at the damage, then let out a sharp breath and ran a hand through my hair.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

I tried to force myself to think clearly, but my thoughts kept jumping from one thing to another. First, I had to make sure the driver was okay. Then I had to deal with the car. Everything else could wait.

“God, I can’t do this anymore,” I muttered, kicking at the asphalt with the toe of my boot. “Just fucking perfect, Shay. Exactly what you needed right now.”

I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave Tate. I didn’t want to explain things to my mother when she wasn’t going to listen anyway. And now I’d managed to wreck my dad’s car and possibly injure some completely innocent person in the process.

I looked at the SUV again. Still, no one had gotten out, and that was starting to seriously freak me out.

“What the hell is going on in there?” I muttered, heading toward the driver’s door. “Hey! Are you okay?”

There was no answer. I took another step closer, feeling my anxiety grow.

“I’m so sorry! I... This is completely my fault. Are you alright?”

Silence.

“Shit, I got distracted,” I blurted out, knocking on the window again. “I didn’t mean to... God, please open the door. Can you hear me?”

I kept knocking, peering into the dark interior and growing more certain that something was wrong. I cupped my hands against either side of my face to block the reflection, and only then could I get a proper look inside.

A guy was sitting behind the wheel, leaning back against the seat, his head lowered and his face covered by his hands. For a few seconds, I just stared at him, unable to figure out what was going on. Then he slowly dragged his hands down his face, as if trying to pull himself together, and I instinctively held my breath. He must’ve hit his head.

“Do you need medical attention?” I asked, knocking on the window again, more gently this time. “Are you hurt?”

He lowered his hands and turned his head toward me. Our eyes met, and I immediately realized he wasn’t just annoyed. There was so much fury in his eyes that I felt a sudden chill.

He abruptly reached for the window controls and lowered the glass just a few inches.

“What the fuck do you want? Get lost,” he snapped.

I didn’t even have time to respond before the window rolled back up. I stepped away from the SUV, staring at the dark glass, and froze for a moment. What if he called the cops?

“Shit...”

The thought threw me into an even greater panic. I had no idea how long they’d take to get here or what they would do once they arrived.

“Please!” I called out, addressing the driver again. “Can’t we just work this out between us? I’ll pay for everything, okay? All of it!”

The silence only made me more nervous.

“I really will pay for everything. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just got distracted for a second...”

The words died in my throat. Just for a second. Great. What a fucking excuse. Maybe I should also tell him that the past few days had been especially shitty and that’s why I’d decided to test the strength of his bumper?

I walked back to my car and looked at the crumpled front end again. Just yesterday, I probably would’ve been ready to fix every single scratch with my bare hands if I had to. But now I stood there feeling nothing but exhausted. This car was the only stable thing left in my life, the last thread connecting me to the days when at least something still felt normal. I’d held on to it for years—its steering wheel, the smell of leather and metal, the feeling that as long as I could start the engine and drive wherever I wanted, I still had somewhere to run.

And now even it seemed to be giving up on me.

“Fuck...” I breathed.

My hands curled into fists, and I slammed them against the hood as hard as I could. Pain shot through my wrists, but I hit it again before I could think better of it, no longer feeling the metal beneath my hands or the cold night air. Everything inside me was boiling over, and I wanted to smash the fucking car, along with everything else that was still somehow holding together.

I kicked the tire, stumbled back a step, then kicked it again.

“How the fuck did I end up in this mess?!” I shouted, not even knowing who I was asking. “When is this goddamn day going to be over?!”

My own voice echoed off the dark storefront windows and came back sounding strangely unfamiliar. Then silence settled around me again. I clenched my teeth, feeling my anger slowly give way to helplessness.

For the past few days, I’d kept telling myself I could handle it. That I’d somehow get through one more conversation, one more move, one more fucking problem. But now even this ridiculous accident felt like the last straw.

Slowly, I lowered myself onto the asphalt and leaned my back against the car. Despite the cold night and the thin tank top I was wearing, I barely felt the chill. The adrenaline still hadn’t worn off.

Let that guy call the cops. Let this whole fucking evening go to hell. Right now, all I needed was a few minutes when nobody expected anything from me.

And for the first time in a long while, I stopped trying to make excuses for the way I felt.

I really couldn’t handle it anymore.