Lip sat in his beat-up car, cigarette balanced between his fingers, staring at nothing. His mind wasn’t really on the street in front of him. It was on you.

You weren’t the same. He wasn’t an idiot; he could see it. The way your clothes changed, tighter, darker. The way you spoke, sharper, quicker, like you had to cut before you got cut. You used to laugh more. Now your mouth curled into a smirk instead, the kind that made his stomach twist.

He saw you outside a gas station last week, leaning against a car that wasn’t yours, talking to some guy Lip had never seen before. Tall, older, dressed too clean for the neighborhood. The way he looked at you, Lip wanted to knock his teeth in. But you? You just flicked your lighter, smiled, and got in the car.

Now, you were walking toward him, slow and careless, like the world was in your hands. You slid into the passenger seat without a word, the smell of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume wrapping around him.

“You’re late,” he muttered, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

You scoffed. “Since when do we do ‘on time’?”

Lip didn’t answer. He just looked at you—really looked. Under the streetlights, he could see the faint bruise on your collarbone, half-hidden by your jacket. Your wrist had a fresh cut, shallow but there. He clenched his jaw.

“You’re getting in too deep,” he finally said.

You rolled your eyes. “And you’re still pretending like you care.”

That hit him harder than he wanted to admit.

“I do,” he said, voice low, like he hated saying it out loud.