He’s sweaty and spent. I’m empty and hollow.

Crawling off me, he sits upright and lifts his ass off the seat to pull up his jeans. His buckle clinks while he fastens it.

I sit up too, then slide my skirt back down. I take off my ruined panties, using them to wipe away the cum that’s seeping out of me.

Removing his cap, Luca slides a hand over his hair before placing it back on. Then he looks at me. “What the fuck are we doing?”

His cum keeps leaking out of me. I toss my soaked panties down in the footwell. “You tell me, Luca.”

“Hell if I know. I just want the fucking pain gone.”

There’s a thick lump clogged in my throat, and when I look at Luca, his Adam’s apple jumps. He shares my pain. I’ve never had that before, someone who understands me, and I don’t know how to handle it.

“This was a mistake.”

“Yeah, it was,” he agrees, shifting on the seat. He grabs my ankles and pulls me down, crawling over me. His fingers slide over my swollen pussy, and he shoves a digit inside my tight heat. I’m sore from when he entered me earlier before I was sufficiently wet. I don’t care. I just want to forget. If Luca wants to hurt me to dull his own pain, I’ll spread my legs like a whore in the back of his car.

“I keep thinking,” I whisper while he continues fingering me, “how do we ever move on? My grades are failing. I’m supposed to go to college, but I can’t make myself care about any of it. I just want to disappear.”

“We’re a mess,” he replies, leaning down to suck my bottom lip between his teeth. “Fuck, your pussy is tight. Do you like it when I finger you?”

“I like how my body responds.” My hips lift off the damp leather, chasing his touch, rolling in time with his pumps. “I don’t like how I feel on the inside, the suffocating darkness…”

His response is a second finger as he whispers, “Come with me to the trial. I need you there.”

“But Grayso—”

“Fuck Grayson!” Unbuckling his belt, he flips me over onto my front and yanks my skirt up to my waist. “It’s you and me.” He enters me from behind, slamming his hips home hard and pulling on my hair as if it soothes him to punish me for letting him talk me into leaving that night. “No one else gets it, Willow. They didn’t see them fight. Grayson didn’t do wrong by his daughter. But you and I, we abandoned our best friends.” His warm breath heats my damp neck. “I could fuck you all day long. You have no fucking idea how good you feel.”

I squeeze my eyes shut as he takes me harder, the fabric of his puffer vest rustling behind me. There’s nothing sweet or gentle about this union. We’re not in love. We barely even like each other. This is two lost souls soaking up each other’s pain. Fucking like rabbits in his steamed-up Toyota to the soundtrack of slapping skin and moans.