Free Breakable by Tammara Webber

wanted him
dead
, not just whining and bleeding at my feet.
    ‘Don’t call,’ she said. Her voice was so soft and small that I could barely hear the words.
    I thought she didn’t want an ambulance. But no, she clarified that she didn’t want me to call the
police
.
    Incredulous, I asked, ‘Am I wrong, or did this guy just try to
rape
you, and you’re telling me not to call the police?’ She flinched, and I wanted to pull her out of that truck and shake her. ‘Or did I interrupt something I shouldn’t have?’
    Damn my temper. Damn it to hell
.
WHY did I say that
?
    Her eyes glassed with tears, and I wanted to punch myself in the mouth. I forced my breathing to slow. I had to calm down. For her.
For her
.
    Shaking her head, she told me she just wanted to go home. My brain ticked off a hundred reasons why I should argue with her, but I’d been on campus long enough to know how it would go. The frat would close ranks around him. Someone would swear she went willingly. She was a woman scorned, trying to hurt her ex’s frat. She was a liar, a tease, a slut. Administration wouldn’t want it to leave campus. He hadn’t succeeded, so it would be he-said-she-said. Slap on the wrist for him. Social exile for her.
    I would testify … but I had a juvenile record for assault,and I’d just beat the shit out of the guy on the ground. A smart attorney would have me arrested for assaulting
him
, discrediting anything I might contribute.
    The piece of shit on the ground turned over and cussed, and I rolled my shoulders and took slow breaths – in, out, in, out – attempting to convince myself not to stomp his head under the heel of my very solid boot. He’d not bled enough to satisfy the monster inside me.
    It was a close thing.
    She breathed along with me, and I concentrated on her soft breaths. She was trembling, but she wasn’t crying, yet. If she started, I didn’t know what I would do.
    ‘Fine. I’ll drive you,’ I said.
    Without a beat between my words and hers, she said that no, she’d drive herself.
    How many shocks could I handle in one night? It appeared that I was about to find out.
    Like I was going to let her drive.
Right
. I reached down and picked her keys out of the items strewn across the floorboard. Her bag was on its side – knocked there, no doubt, when that shithead shoved her face down into her truck.
    Holy
.
SHIT
. I’ve never wanted someone to jump up and throw a punch at me so badly. I wanted an excuse – any sort of excuse – to end him.
    Scooting closer, she held her hand out for her keys. I stared at her slim fingers. The fingers I’d watched from a distance for weeks. They trembled.
    ‘I can’t let you drive,’ I said.
    These words confused her. I rattled off my justifications: the visible fact that she was shaking – reason enough on its own. I wasn’t sure if she was uninjured. And I assumed she’d probably been drinking, though I hadn’t actually observed a cup or bottle in her hand.
    ‘I have not,’ she said, her brows furrowing and her tone indignant. ‘I’m the designated driver.’
    I shouldn’t have looked over my shoulder and back, asking her who, exactly, she was designated
for
. I shouldn’t have berated her for walking across the parking lot alone, paying no attention to her surroundings – even though these things were true. I definitely shouldn’t have implied that she’d acted irresponsibly, which was the same as telling her she was responsible for the attack.
    I knew who was responsible. He was lying in a bloody heap at my feet, moaning as if either of us should give a shit.
    ‘So it’s my fault he attacked me?’ she gasped, furious. ‘It’s my fault I can’t walk from a house to my truck without one of you trying to
rape
me?’
    One of you
.
    ‘ “
One of you”
? You’re gonna lump me in with that piece of shit?’ I gestured to the guy I’d put on the ground, indignation bubbling to the surface like a chemical reaction, instantaneous and