I Queued Three Hours for Her, But They Didn't Wait Three Minutes for Me novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Real Face

The garage smelled like cold concrete and motor oil.

My mother had gone to find her keys, and my father had gone to the bathroom and not come out.

I went out to the garage because I wanted to see it with my own eyes.

Dani sat on an upturned cooler under the one bare bulb.

At her feet were two black garbage bags, knotted at the top.

She had packed in them on purpose.

She looked up when the door opened, and she did not reach for her purse.

"You came to watch," she said.

"I came to see if you'd be crying."

"Not for you." She tilted her head. "There's no point. Nobody's here."

Her face was dry and pale and much older than it looked at the table.

Her hazel eyes were the same, but nothing was happening behind them that she was putting on.

I stood a few feet away, holding the gold ring in my fist.

"I wanted to tell you something," she said. "And I didn't want an audience for it."

"Say it."

"Your dad didn't send me to the lake because I was sick."

"I know that. You said it on the tape."

"No, listen." She picked at the knot on one bag. "He sent me because your mother kept crying about how thin I was. He couldn't stand a woman crying in his house. He found a place that would take me for the summer and called it treatment."

"And you let him."

"It was the first place I ever liked." Her mouth twisted. "Nobody there knew me. I was just a girl on a paddleboard. I didn't have to be anything."

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