The Unsent Appeal novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Eyes on the Road

Briana's heels were still ringing on the stairs in my head, and so was what she hadn't said about Dean.

Elliott had let me sit with it all day. Then he said I needed one thing that belonged only to me.

"Get in," he said. "Driver's side."

It was ten at night, and we were in the back lot of the community college where he taught.

The building was dark, the lot was empty, and the only light came from one pole at the far end.

I looked at his truck.

"I can't."

"You can sit down in a seat. That's all I'm asking for right now."

I got in on the driver's side and put my hands on the wheel.

They were cold. They shook.

Elliott walked around the hood, favoring his left leg, and climbed in beside me.

"Your probation ended five years ago," he said. "Your license is waiting for you at the registry. You never asked."

"I never thought I'd get to."

"Who told you that?"

"Nobody had to. I was the one who hit a man."

He didn't answer for a moment.

"Put your foot on the brake," he said.

I did.

"Now the key."

The engine turned over under me, big and loud, and my whole body went rigid.

I was twenty-one again, with a wet windshield and my brother laughing in the next seat, reaching for the radio.

"Rose."

"I'm here."

"Where are you?"

"In a truck with you," I said. "In a parking lot."

"That's right. Nothing's moving. Look at the pole at the end of the lot, and tell me when you're ready."

I took one breath, then another.

"Ready."

"Foot off the brake. Slowly."

The truck rolled forward at a walking pace, and I steered it in a long, wobbling curve around the empty lot.

I made two full circles.

On the third, I stopped saying my own name in my head, and I started to feel the road under the tires.

"Faster," Elliott said.

"I'm doing fifteen."

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