My Brother Left Me With the Man He Told Me to Stay Away From, and Then Didn't Come Back novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Rule Number One

The storm came in off the Gulf on Thursday night, the way they do in May, with no warning but a green sky and a smell like pennies.

I was on Despina's back porch when it hit.

I had been there for an hour.

The house was too small for the two of us and the thing we were not saying, and the porch was the only place at the end of the day where I could breathe.

It was a deep screened room with a swing and a row of tomato plants in coffee cans.

Rain came down all at once, hard enough that the roof drummed.

Lightning lit the yard white and showed me the grapevine whipping in the wind.

I heard the kitchen door open behind me.

I knew his step by now.

"You'll get wet," Laz said.

"It's a screen porch," I said.

"The wind comes through," he said.

"Then I'll get wet," I said.

He came and stood at the other end of the swing, not sitting.

He had taken off his jacket, and his shirt was open at the throat.

The rain had blown through the screen and was beading on his forearms.

He did not seem to notice.

It was ten days since the night at the gate.

Ten days of breakfasts with his grandmother between us, and of him driving behind my car to work and sitting outside the practice in the Suburban until I came out.

Ten days of the closed door at the end of the hall.

He had not touched me.

He had not touched me once, not my elbow, not the small of my back at a door, not a hand passed over a plate.

I had counted.

"I want to ask you something," I said.

"Ask."

"Is the rule failing?"

He was quiet for so long that thunder rolled over the house and finished.

"Which rule?"

"You know which one."

"Yes," he said.

I looked at him.

I had not expected him to say it.

I had expected the flat voice and the mouth that gave nothing away.

"It's failing for your brother's sake," he said.

"Because I told him I'd keep you safe, and every night I lie in that room and think about a thing that isn't safety.

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