First, Last, and in Between by Jamie Bennett

Author:Jamie Bennett [Bennett, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Rory

Cal’s weathered face was creased in what I thought was confusion. His mouth moved and I pulled off my ear protection to hear him.

“…wrong!” he was telling me emphatically.

“Why do you talk when I have these on?” I asked. “Say again?”

“I think it’s that little girl who was here before,” he said. I realized that he wasn’t confused; he looked worried.

He meant that Isobel was here, because no one else had visited me at the woodshop. I didn’t want to see her. I’d spent just about every moment since I’d hung up the phone with her regretting that I’d ever found her in the first place. I was just so…

It was hard to put a name to it. But I didn’t want to deal with her now. Ever again.

“She’s at the door,” Cal said. “Go,” he told me, and he sounded oddly urgent. I gave him a look as I pushed back my bench.

“All right, keep your pants on.” I took my time removing my apron and safety glasses as Cal watched me. “What’s the matter with you?” I finally asked him.

“Somebody worked her over pretty good,” he told me.

I got to the steel door before I knew I was running and pulled it open, almost pulled it off the building. Isobel was walking back toward her little car, her blonde hair swirling in the wild spring wind.

“Hey!” I ran towards her, sprinted, but she stopped and waited, and then when I reached her and said her name, she turned around to face me.

Worked her over. Yeah, somebody had. Red rage rose up in me, like a haze over my eyes, like it was filling my throat and choking me. “What in the hell happened to you?” I asked. I yelled it.

“I’m ok,” she told me, just like she had assured me that her heart arrythmia wasn’t any big deal. “I’m ok now.”

Her face…

“Rory, can you let go of my arms?”

I was gripping her, I realized, almost holding her off the ground. I let her go and she rubbed her biceps where my fingers had dug in. “Did I hurt you?” I asked. Hurt her more, I meant.

Isobel shook her head, studying her shoes.

“Did your boyfriend do this?” I asked. “Did he do this to you? Was it him? Kash?” I was trying to keep my voice calm but it wasn’t, because I wasn’t. The words got louder and louder until I yelled his name at the end.

“I—” She broke off, biting her lip, still staring hard at the ground. “Does it matter? It happened, it’s done.”

“I’m going to fucking kill him. I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”

Horror sufficed her battered face as she looked up at me. “Don’t say that! Don’t even think that!”

“No, of course not,” I told her, and made a herculean effort to say it soothingly. “It was a figure of speech.”

Isobel just kept looking at me, shaking her head. We both knew what had gotten me sent to Adrian. “I didn’t want to make you upset,” she said.

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