The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett

Author:Jamie Bennett [Bennett, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

“Gaby. Gaby, are you asleep?”

I jerked my head up from where it had drooped down and rested on the old-fashioned cash register in Holliday Booksellers. I had hit a few buttons with my forehead, apparently, and the little display said, “NO SALE.”

“I’m not asleep,” I told Hallie. “Sorry, I’m not asleep anymore.”

She put a stack of books onto the counter next to me. “Another late night? How long are you going to keep doing that hotline?”

Marley picked up her own head from where she had been looking at her phone under the counter rather than at the science text on the top of it. “What hotline?”

“I answer calls for help at night,” I explained.

“What, like Batman or something? You wait for a light to shine in the sky?”

That made Hallie laugh but it made me think of Ben, who had been my own personal Batman on Friday night. He’d cleaned my car and gotten me ice and made me laugh with his stories about Tess—

“It’s pretty serious, actually,” Hallie was saying when my mind settled back on the conversation. She looked at me, waiting for me to take over.

“I answer calls on an abuse hotline,” I said. “For women to call, if they need help.”

“Seriously?” Marley stared. “That was what you were doing on the phone at night when you stayed at our house? I thought you were getting paid for…” She glanced over at Hallie and trailed off, and whatever she thought I’d been up to, it was probably bad. “How did you start doing that? Why?”

“I saw a sign posted at the yoga studio my sister-in-law goes to that they needed volunteers.” My mom had thought it would be a good idea for me to take a class with Kristi so we would have a common interest, but her only interest that day had been to show me how I was really bad at yoga. “I did a lot of training for it,” I explained. “I had to get a certification. They don’t just stick you on the phone and let you say whatever. I thought I’d give it a try because, um, well…” Now I trailed off, because it was hard to explain to Marley.

“Penance,” Hallie said. “You wanted to pay something back, but you have, Gaby.”

I shrugged, knowing that wasn’t true. I could spend the rest of my life listening to those heartbreaking stories to help other women and it would never even out what I had been doing to Shep’s wife.

Marley looked back and forth between us. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Somebody better explain, like, now.”

But her foster dad came in then, carrying several big boxes, and Marley had to go help him stock the shelves.

“Gaby, you’re going to have to forgive yourself at one point,” Hallie told me seriously. “You made a mistake and believed a big asshole when he told you lies. And you got fired, and your heart broken, and you’re miserable.”

Hallie pretty much told it as she saw it.

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