I Was Already Gone novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Condition

Roxie's POV

I had gone to get the coats, and instead I got Brecken Hartley running at me with Elliott's guitar case in his arms.

The loading door was the only way out of the wings, and I was standing in it.

"Move," he said.

"No."

"Roxie, move. It's a guitar case."

"It's seven notebooks and a guitar," I said. "Put it down."

He looked at me, and for the first time since I had met him, he was not smiling.

His hair was damp, and his jacket was crooked.

He looked like exactly what he was, a frightened man in a nice coat.

"You don't understand what's at stake," he said.

"Oh, I do. You told me. In a parking lot."

He tried to shoulder past me, and I planted my feet on the concrete and held the door frame with both hands.

I am five foot four.

I have carried a cello up four flights of stairs every day for years.

He did not move me.

Footsteps pounded up the corridor behind him.

Brecken turned his head.

Gus stood at the end of the passage, breathing hard, with the frying pan held out in front of him.

"Hi," Gus said. "I wasn't sure when I'd get my moment."

Brecken looked at the pan, and at me, and at the loading dock behind me, and I saw him do the math.

"This is ridiculous," he said. "I'm taking my case and leaving."

"It isn't your case."

"It's my friend's. He gave it to me."

"He did not."

"You can't prove that."

I let go of the door frame with one hand and took my phone out of my back pocket.

I held it up so everyone could see the screen.

"Funny," I said. "I can prove a lot of things."

I pressed play, and I turned the speaker all the way up.

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