Chapter 101 Cries In The Chaos

• Rachel POV
• The roar of Jeremy’s truck engine was a lifeline, a pulse that matched the frantic beat of my heart as I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles white, my eyes burning with tears that refused to fall. My car was gone, reduced to twisted metal after Bonnie’s accident, so I’d taken his, the leather seat still warm with his presence, a cruel reminder of the man I was racing to save. The city blurred past, a smear of neon lights and honking horns, my phone buzzing relentlessly in the passenger seat—calls from Mom, Dad, Bonnie, even Brad, his name flashing with the venom of accusation. I ignored them all, my focus razor-sharp, my only thought to reach the police station, to free Jeremy from the lies Celine had spun, to pull him from the jaws of a nightmare that was swallowing us whole.
• The TV images haunted me—our stolen kisses, our love branded as abuse, Jeremy labeled a predator, a monster. Celine’s hand was in this, her discovery of our affair a match that had set our world ablaze. The evidence against her, the flash drive and documents in my backpack, sat uselessly at home, a weapon I hadn’t wielded in time, and the guilt of that failure gnawed at me, a sharp pain that mingled with the terror of losing Jeremy. My mother’s voice, her horrified sobs—“Did he abuse you, my baby?”—echoed in my skull, a wound that bled with every mile, her disbelief in our love a betrayal almost as deep as Celine’s. I couldn’t talk to her, couldn’t face Bonnie’s concern or Brad’s judgment. I needed Jeremy, needed to see him, to tell him we’d fight this, that our love was stronger than the lies.