Chapter 16: A break
The car was a tomb on wheels. The lingering scents of popcorn and diesel fuel from the carnival grounds had been replaced by the sterile, recycled air of Allan’s luxury sedan. The two stuffed animals, the small panda and the garish unicorn, lay abandoned on the floor by Emma’s feet, forgotten trophies from a battle no one had openly declared.
Allan hummed along to the soft jazz filtering through the speakers, one hand resting comfortably on the steering wheel. He’d been recounting a story about one of his law partners, his voice a smooth, easy baritone that usually soothed Kai. Now, it grated. Each word was a brick being laid in the wall of the life she was supposed to want.
Kai stared out the passenger window, watching the streetlights blur into golden streaks. Her own reflection ghosted the glass—a pale, composed mask. But beneath the calm exterior, a riot was underway. The memory of the library kiss was a live wire against her lips. The pressure of Allan’s arm around her in the Ferris wheel gondola felt like a brand. The sight of Emma’s white-knuckled fist was a splinter in her mind.
She couldn’t breathe.
“...so then the guy had the nerve to ask for a continuance,” Allan chuckled, shaking his head. “Can you believe it?”
The car slowed for a red light. The hum of the engine dropped to a purr. This was it. The silence between his words was the only opening she would get.
“Allan.” Her voice came out thinner than she intended.
“Hmm?” He glanced over, his smile still in place.
She didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes fixed on her reflection, on the faint outline of Emma in the backseat, visible in the periphery of the glass. “We need to talk.”
The light turned green. He accelerated, the movement smooth and effortless. “Okay. Talk. Is this about the merger? Dad’s been breathing down my neck about it, too.”
“No. It’s not about the merger.” She took a sharp, quiet breath. “It’s about us.”
That got his attention. His grip on the wheel tightened just slightly. “Okay…”
“I think… I think we need to take a break.”
The words hung in the air, stark and simple. The jazz saxophone wailed softly from the speakers, a sudden, inappropriate soundtrack to the collapse of an arrangement.
Allan’s laugh was a short, disbelieving puff of air. “A break? What are you talking about, Kai? From what?”
“From this. From us.” She chanced a glance at him. His profile was confused, his brow furrowed. He genuinely didn’t see it coming. The realization made her feel nauseous.
“Why?” he asked, his tone losing its easy charm, turning practical. “Did I do something? Was it the carnival? I thought we had a good time.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Allan. It’s not you.” The cliché tasted like ash in her mouth, but it was also true. It wasn’t him. It was her. It was the seismic shift that had occurred in a dusty library carrel, the foundation of her world cracking open.
“Then what is it?” he pressed, his voice edged with a frustration he rarely showed her. “You can’t just drop a ‘we need a break’ bomb without a reason, Kai. That’s not how this works. We have plans. Our families have plans.”
Plans. The word was a cage. Her gaze drifted from his tense jaw to the rearview mirror. She needed to see her. She needed an anchor.
Emma was staring straight ahead, her body perfectly still. The shock on her face was not dramatic; it was a deep, frozen stillness. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the back of Allan’s headrest, as if she could bore a hole through it. She wasn’t breathing either.
Seeing her there, so utterly arrested, sent another bolt of that library-born courage through Kai. This was real. It affected someone. It mattered.
“I know about the plans,” Kai said, her voice gaining a sliver of strength. She looked back out the window, away from Allan’s confusion and Emma’s shock. “That’s the problem. I just… I need some space to think. Without all the… noise.”
“Noise?” Allan repeated, incredulous. “What noise? Our life isn’t noise, Kai. It’s a partnership. It’s what we’ve been building toward.”
“I know.” It was all she could offer.
He drove in silence for a full minute, the tension in the car thickening until it was difficult to inhale. He finally flicked on the turn signal, the click-click-click sounding like a countdown. “So that’s it?” he asked, his voice low and flat. “You’ve decided. Just like that.”
Kai’s eyes found the rearview mirror again. Emma had finally moved. She had leaned her head against the window, her face turned away from them, toward the passing darkness. But one hand was pressed flat against the glass, her fingers splayed wide.
“Just like that,” Kai whispered, her answer meant for both of them.
Allan didn’t say another word. He just drove, his knuckles white on the leather wheel. When he pulled up in front of Kai’s apartment building, the stop was abrupt. He didn’t put the car in park. He just sat there, the engine running, staring straight ahead.
Kai fumbled for the door handle. “I’m sorry, Allan.”
He didn’t respond.
She stepped out into the cool night air, the weight of the silence left behind pressing in on her. She hadn’t planned what to do next. She turned, half-expecting Emma to get out with her, to say something, anything.
But Emma remained in the backseat, a silhouette against the lit interior. She was looking at Kai now, her expression unreadable in the shadows, a complex map of shock and something else—something fierce and questioning.
The door was still open. The interior light was on.
Allan’s voice cut through the standstill, cold and final. “Are you getting out, Emma? Or should I take you home too?”
Emma held Kai’s gaze for a heartbeat longer. Then, without a word, she pushed the door open and stepped out onto the curb. The door slammed shut, and Allan pulled away from the curb with a spray of gravel, his taillights disappearing into the stream of traffic, leaving the two of them alone in the buzzing silence of the night.