Chapter 6: Inside the Coat

I spent the rest of the night trying to leave.

I walked the fence line twice.

I tried the back gate, the garage, the kitchen window and the roof.

Every way out ended in the same thick, warm air.

By dawn I was sitting on the porch steps with my head against a post, too tired to cry.

Winslow came out at seven in his gray suit.

He had a travel mug in one hand.

He stopped at the coat rack in the hall and looked at my beige coat.

Then he took it down and folded it over his arm.

I followed him without thinking, and my hand brushed the sleeve.

For a moment I felt it.

Wool, and the lining, and a small hole in the left pocket where I kept my keys.

It pulled at me, gently, and I felt myself lean toward it.

I let go of the porch post and slid into the coat.

It was not a decision.

It was a door that stood open, and I went through it.

Winslow laid the coat on the passenger seat of his car and backed out of the drive.

The gate swung open.

I passed through it riding in the folds of my own coat, and nothing stopped me.

I looked back through the sleeve at the house getting smaller.

I could leave.

As long as something of mine was carried, I could leave.

Winslow drove with one hand and kept the other on the coat.

He did not seem to know he was doing it.

At a red light he said, quietly, "You'll be cold."

I could not answer.

I wanted to say, Then come and find me.

The company headquarters was a glass tower near the lake.

Winslow carried the coat into the elevator.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Counted My Lies Until I Died, Then Begged Me to Wake from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.