I Was Never One of Them novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: One Kiss

The letter was in the drawer under the tea towels, exactly where my mother said.

One sheet of lined paper, folded in thirds.

The handwriting was slanted and careful.

*Mrs. Kendrick. I got your cards. I don't deserve them. I won't say sorry, because it's too small a word for what you lost, and it would sound like I wanted something back. If you ever want me to disappear, tell me and I will. N.*

That was all.

I read it three times standing in my mother's kitchen with the tea kettle going cold.

Then I took her car keys off the hook.

"Where are you going?" my mother called from the sofa.

"To ask him something."

"Hazel."

"I'll be careful."

It was a three-hour drive in the dark, with the wipers going and the heater off so I would stay angry.

By the time I turned onto the lake road, the storm had passed.

The stars were out above the pines, sharp as pins.

The cabin light was on.

I did not knock.

I opened the door and found him at the stove with his sleeves rolled up and a pan in his hand.

He looked up, and the pan stopped moving.

"Hazel."

"You wrote to my mother once," I said. "In eight years. One letter."

"Yes."

"Why only once?"

"Because she wrote back every Christmas and I didn't deserve a second one."

"That is not an answer."

"I know."

"Stop saying that!"

I crossed the room.

I do not know what I meant to do.

I think I meant to hit him.

I got as far as putting both hands flat on his chest, and I felt his heart under them going like a fist on a door.

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