Punk Love

Or, if I were being honest, I was changing, and Alex was staying exactly the same.

Steadfast and unnerving, and terrifyingly focused on his future plans.

He picked me up with a grim scowl and an air of an asshole looking for a fight that day.

I kissed his lips and ignored the storm brewing inside his car, even as it started picking up speed and body and strength.

“Got everything?” he asked without sparing me a look, his eyes hard on the road. “Food and shit.”

“Not so much shit, but plenty of food.”

That did not earn me a smile. Not even a chuckle.

We talked about the tire. About my parents demanding I start making concrete plans regarding where and what I wanted to study. And about Tom being a sourpuss and basically not leaving his bedroom unless he absolutely had to since he and Jadie broke up.

“I just think it’s bullshit,” Alex grunted, his eyes still on the road. He oozed dangerous energy that day. The kind that told me he was looking for a fight. Alex never looked for fights. Not with me. With me, he was all honey and charm. “He literally ran to her the minute he woke up. Dude was unconscious when he porked Elena. Jadie should’ve let it slide.”

“He slept with someone else,” I gritted my teeth, not wanting to fight, but also not wanting to listen to first-grade BS. “Jadie has every right to ride any dick she wants now.”

“That’s a convenient take on things.” He scowled.

I whipped my head around, pinning him with a glare.

“I’m sorry, Alex, do you have something to tell me?”

“Like what?” he spat out. I didn’t know why we were fighting. I had no idea how this escalated this far.

“Like, are you hooking up with Elena, too? Or anyone else for that matter?”

“No,” he growled, throwing me a disgusted look. “I’ve never cheated on you. I’m just saying, it’d be good to know that if I ever made a mistake…”

“It’s not a mistake if you can predict making it,” I pointed out, cutting into his words.

He let out a humorless laugh.

“All righty, then. And I’m supposed to sit here and pretend you’ve never had an almost oopsie-kiss with Brent that day at the beach party? That you maybe cheated on me with this douche canoe?”

“Never!” I barked out, scandalized. “Brent and I are just friends. We’ve never kissed. He is going through so much with his mom. But obviously, you want to see other people.”

“I don’t want to see other people.” He slammed the brakes all of a sudden, in the middle of the street. The road was empty, but I still gasped. We both unbuckled at the same time and got out of the car. I guess we both needed massive hand gestures to communicate what we had to say to each other.

We rounded the car and stood in front of one another, our stances screaming fight mode.

“What the hell has gotten into you?” I demanded. “It’s like you want to fight me.”

“What the hell has gotten into you?” he spat back, each word filled with malice. “I don’t even recognize you anymore. When was the last time you dressed like Old Honeypie, or read a book by our favorite philosophers, or came to a demonstration, or, I don’t fucking know, DIDN’T EAT DAIRY.”

Ah. There it was. My greatest fear. That all my little personality tweaks over the two years we’d been together were going to pile up, until I was no longer recognizable to him, because deep down—deep, deep down—I’d gotten into this punk rock world for all the wrong reasons. Namely, for him.

“I don’t know what happened to her,” I said softly, taking a step back. “I don’t know where this previous Lara is. Some days I suspect I’ve only been her for you. I’m sorry. I’m just growing up to be…someone different than who you thought I am, I guess.” I rubbed at my chin. I had a stubborn pimple, and I scraped it off, leaving a trail of blood behind it. “Look, we need to talk.”

“No, shit.” He snorted out, turning his back to me and pacing toward the back of the car, raking his hands through his hair, the same Mohawk he had when we’d first met.

Then it occurred to me.

I looked at the front wheel on the driver’s side.

Back at Alex.

At the wheel again…

“You didn’t have a flat tire,” I said, not asked.

He froze in his spot, his back still to me.

I knew Alex’s Volvo inside and out. Every dent and little scratch on it. After all, we spent so much time there. And I happened to know there was a splash of old white paint smeared across the front wheel of his car. The same tire he told me he had to replace.

“Answer me.” My voice hardened, my mind kicking into overdrive.