Chapter 10: Fire Me

Derrick's POV

I had no right to say it, and I said it anyway.

Then fire me.

She stood against the wet brick with her hair stuck to her face, and I waited for her to tell me to go.

I would have gone.

That was the part I understood, standing on that curb in Astoria with my hands shaking.

I would have gone, and I would have kept watching her from the gate for another three years.

Bethany looked at me for a long time.

"Get in the car," she said. "You're going to catch your death."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't call me that."

I opened the passenger door for her, and she got in with her chin up.

I did not trust my hands, so I put them on the wheel and drove.

For ten minutes neither of us said anything.

The wipers ran, and the heater blew on our wet knees.

I could still taste her.

I had wanted that for three years, and now I had it and she had pushed me off, and I should have felt shame.

I felt only that something in me had come loose.

"What did you do on Sundays?" she asked.

I glanced across.

She was watching the road, not me.

"Sundays?"

"For three years. I want to know what you did."

It was the first thing she had ever asked me that was not an order.

She had asked me for the car, and for the file, and for a coat, and for the time.

She had never asked me a question about myself.

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