15 Days Before I Left Him novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Ask Nothing

Clara's POV

Raylan came through the apartment door at five with blood dried along his cheekbone.

I was at the counter with the hospital's visiting hours open on my phone.

"Sit," I said.

He sat on the arm of the sofa, and I wet a dish towel and cleaned the cut.

It was my turn to be careful with his face.

"Roscoe," I said.

"He swung first."

"And you let him."

"Twice." He winced when I pressed. "Then I held him against a filing cabinet and told him you weren't a debt."

My hand stopped.

"You told him what?"

"I told him you weren't coming back to pay anything. I didn't tell him the pond."

He watched me.

"He asked me what I knew. I said to ask our mother."

"That was mine to say."

"And I didn't say it."

"You decided what to tell him, Raylan." The towel was shaking in my hand. "You went to his office and decided."

"I did."

"That is exactly what he does."

He took that without a word.

Then something I had carried since the motel came up my throat before I could stop it.

"Seventeen years," I said. "You knew the whole time. You were at our engagement dinner. You raised a glass and drank to us."

"Clara."

"You knew whose life that was, and you watched me put on his ring."

My voice cracked.

"You had five years to say a word. I had to sit on an empty playground to hear you say you were sorry."

Raylan stood up.

He did not come closer, and he did not look away.

"Yes," he said. "I did."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because you asked me not to, and every year I told myself you'd say it when you were ready."

His voice was rough.

"And if I said it, I would have had to say why I couldn't stand to be in the room when you married him."

I stared at him.

"So it's guilt," I said. "That's what the car and the apartment and the fists are. You're paying for the sixteen-year-old."

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