He Scored My Life A 4 And Hers A 10 novel · Chapter 3 of 32
Chapter 3: The Garage Code
On crutches, Casey walks into her own house with the garage code, takes her quilt, her books, the dog and her robe off Brooke in front of the neighbors, and that night Bryce's video about cutting your fours goes viral with her crash in it.
I showed Ronnie the photo at seven the next morning.
She'd come up at the end of her shift with two coffees.
She looked at it for a long time.
"That's your candle."
"That's my candle."
"The forty-dollar one. The one you wouldn't light at Christmas."
"Yes."
Ronnie set her coffee down very carefully.
"I'm driving you to that house today," she said. "And we're getting your stuff. And if she's still in the tub, I'm pulling the plug."
The hospital let me go at noon on Sunday.
Crutches, a brace from thigh to ankle and a bag of pills.
Ronnie had her wife's minivan because it had the most room.
She'd put the back seat down and laid out pillows.
Wauwatosa looked like a Christmas card.
Our house was the blue colonial on the corner.
My savings had bought the front door, the porch and most of the roof.
Ronnie helped me up the walk.
My key didn't turn.
I tried it again.
"He changed the locks," Ronnie said. "Yesterday. While you were in surgery."
Across the street, the old man at number nine stopped shoveling.
Next door, the twins' mother leaned on her snow blower and watched.
I crutched around the side to the garage.
The keypad was under a little hood of snow.
I brushed it off and typed our code.
The day we moved in, I'd asked Bryce to change it from the builder's default.
He'd said the risk scored a 1.
It was still 1-2-3-4.
The garage door rumbled up.
Ronnie made a noise.
"Oh, that's beautiful. That's the dumbest man in Wisconsin."
The door into the kitchen wasn't even locked.
The house smelled like lavender and somebody else's perfume.
My dog came skidding across the tile with his whole back end wagging.
He was a beagle mix with a gray muzzle and one bent ear. I'd had him since nursing school.
Bryce had scored him a 2. Too much shedding.
I got down on the floor, brace and all, and let him lick my face.
"Hi, buddy. Hi. We're going."
Ronnie hauled boxes from the garage.
I sat on the stairs and pointed.
My nursing books from the shelf in the den. Every one, even the ones from school.
My grandmother's quilt off the back of the couch. Green and white, double wedding ring.
The dog's bed. The dog's bowl. The dog's leash on the hook.
Ronnie carried everything out the garage, past the neighbors.
Then the bedroom door at the top of the stairs opened.
Brooke came down holding the rail with her good hand.
She had on my robe.
My white waffle robe, the one I wore every morning after night shift.
It was belted over her pajamas, and the sleeve was pushed up over her wrist brace.
"Casey," she said softly. "Bryce said you might come. He didn't think you'd break in."
"I used the code."
"He's at the office. He works Sundays." She smiled. "He's really hurt, you know. The ring in the cup. That was so cruel."
"Take off my robe."
She blinked.
"I'm sorry?"
"That's my robe. Take it off."
"Casey, I'm injured. I'm not going to stand here and..."
"You've got one sprained wrist. I've got seven screws. Take it off."
Brooke looked at Ronnie.
Ronnie folded her arms.
Brooke laughed, a little breathless laugh.
Then she untied the belt with one hand and dropped the robe on the stairs at my feet.
"Fine. Keep it. It's a little sad anyway."
I picked it up.
It smelled like her perfume now.
I handed it to Ronnie for the laundry.
"Let's go," I said.
Brooke followed us out through the garage. She stood on the driveway in her pajamas and slippers.
Every neighbor on the block had stopped shoveling.
"You know what you are?" Brooke called after me. "He told me. You're a sad little four. You're the kind of woman people keep because she's easy."
Ronnie stopped walking.
"Ronnie. Don't."
"I'm not gonna hit her." Ronnie turned around anyway. "Hey, Brooke. That's a borrowed bathtub. Rinse it."
The old man at number nine laughed so hard he had to lean on his shovel.
Brooke went red to her hairline and walked back inside.
The garage door came down behind her.
I got in the minivan with my dog in my lap and my grandmother's quilt over both of us.
I didn't cry until Ronnie hit the freeway.
Then I cried the whole way to her house, and she let me, and the dog licked the salt off my chin.
Ronnie's spare room was the size of a closet.
The couch was better.
I slept on it with my leg on three pillows and the dog on my feet.
At eleven that night Ronnie's wife came downstairs in her slippers holding her phone.
She didn't say anything.
She just turned the screen around.
It was a TenScore video.
Bryce, at a white desk, in a soft gray sweater, talking straight to the camera.
The title on the video said "Cut Your Fours."
"Sometimes," Bryce said, "the hardest thing you'll ever do is admit that a relationship scores a four. Not a bad person. A four."
Behind him on the screen, a photo came up.
A crushed silver Corolla against a concrete barrier. Snow on the hood. A fire truck's lights.
The license plate was blurred.
The woman in the driver's seat was blurred.
The counter under the video said 1,000,000 views.
It had been up for six hours.
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