After a Year of Silence novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: I'm the One Who Says It

I did not sleep, and at six in the morning Quentin woke up on my couch with my blanket over his legs.

I was sitting in the armchair across from him with a cup of cold tea.

"You talked in your sleep," I said.

He rubbed his face.

"I did not."

"You asked if I had read the letters."

He went still.

"What letters?" I said.

He sat up slowly.

"I wrote to you on the first of every month," he said. "Twelve letters. I handed each one to Gwen because she was in the building and I was not. She said she gave them to you."

"I never got one."

"She told me you sent them back. Unopened. She said you asked her to stop bringing them."

I put the cup down very carefully.

"I never saw an envelope, Quentin."

"Then where are they?"

"I don't know."

For a moment neither of us said anything.

I watched him work through it, and I watched the work get worse.

"It could be a mistake," I said. "A mix-up. She could have lost them."

"Twelve of them?"

"She sat on my kitchen floor for a week after my father died."

"I know."

"She brought soup."

"I know, Harper."

"I'm not going to accuse the one person who stayed with me because of something you said in your sleep."

He nodded slowly.

"Then we find out first," he said. "Quietly. We say nothing to her until we know."

"Agreed."

"And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime," I said, "there's a staff meeting at ten."

He looked at me.

"I'm going to tell them myself," I said. "My way, on my terms."

"That's term three," he said. "I'm not announcing anything."

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