I Let Her Ruin Herself novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Visiting Hours

The county jail visiting room had eight stools bolted to the floor in front of a long scratched window.

My mother waited in the car.

She had said she would go in with me, and I had said no, and she had studied my face before she agreed.

Dale came in on the other side in an orange jumpsuit, with a fading bruise under his left eye.

He sat down and picked up the phone.

I picked up mine.

"You came," he said.

"You wrote please."

"Yeah." He rubbed his face with a cuffed hand. "I didn't think you would."

He looked younger up close.

In my first life I had never been this near him again after the ICU.

He had been nineteen then, too, and I had hated him for twelve years.

"You have five minutes," I said. "Tell me what you shouted at the gate."

Dale stared at the counter.

"I'm going to say it, and you're going to think I'm lying."

"Say it."

"Savannah's my girlfriend." His jaw worked. "Eight months. Her dad doesn't know. Her mom doesn't know. Nobody does. She said they'd send her away to school if they found out."

I kept my face still.

"Go on."

"A week ago she tells me you've been running your mouth. That you told her parents about us, and you've been following her, and she needs you scared off." He looked up. "I said I'd talk to you. She said no, that wouldn't work. She said you'd only listen if somebody scared you for real."

"Scared me how?"

"She said grab her on the greenway, make it look rough, and you'd run in to save her. You always do." His voice cracked. "I'd have a knife out to show you, that's all. You see it, you freeze, we leave. Nobody gets cut. She swore."

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