He Left Me Broken, Now He Wants Me Back novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Ledger

Graham's POV

I drove Daphne home after the pie, as I'd said I would.

She did not speak until her building.

"You put me on a stool," she said then. "Like a stranger."

"You came to a dinner I'd asked you not to come to."

"I was frightened. I couldn't get a cab."

She looked at me.

"I've never once had to ask you for a cab, Gray. Not in eight years."

She was right about that. I had come for every call.

I'd driven forty minutes in a snowstorm once to bring her an inhaler she could have bought across the street.

I walked her to her door and said good night.

Then I sat in my car in front of the building with the engine off, and I thought about my hand.

My thumb still held the shape of Jo's wrist.

I had felt her pulse jump under it.

I'd had to look at her mouth to stop myself leaning across the table.

I was thirty-four years old, and I had never wanted to cancel a dinner less.

I did not go home.

I went to the hospital and sat in the doctors' lounge with a cold coffee and a folded paper from my wallet.

It was my discharge note from the ER, eight years old, worn soft.

I had not read it in years.

Patient Ellery, G. Driver, single-vehicle collision. Closed head injury, loss of consciousness of approximately twenty minutes. Retrograde amnesia for the events preceding the collision. Advise follow-up.

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