Amber turned to the window while Eric pulled the car out to the street. She'd faced him before because anything else would be backing down, but since they were in the middle of a necessary pause, she'd look at the scenery. The grey buildings and scrawny trees were less likely to make her fly off the handle than Eric's continued scowl, the whiteness of his knuckles from clenching the wheel too tight.

She'd thought the argument was over. They'd reached a sort of consensus, that they could each see things their way. Amber thought it was a good verdict to reach, with both of them getting to stay who they were. No unrealistic expectations that they'd radically change personalities to fit the others' image of them.

If before her anger had been fire, Amber cooled to an icy fury. "Cute, but it's not like that." He'd better not start linking everything to what she'd said last night, making her every action about her control issues. If she were that obsessive, would she have let them take Eric's car? Would she hit on strangers and take them home? "Don't psychoanalyze if you don't know a thing about me. I don't make anyone hate me, I just let everyone know how I am. If they don't like it, big deal. I'm not going to pretend what I'm not." Amber threw Eric a pointed gaze. "I don't hide myself behind false niceties, opening doors just to make people like me." Amber knew that while in most fights returning an equivalent insult was good a tactic, it wasn't a good idea when talking to your partner. But it was a deeply-ingrained reaction, and she couldn't have stopped herself even if she'd wanted to.

Amber recognized this part of town and realized that they were too far from the hospital to get there on time. "We're going to be late, go faster," Amber insisted.