I've Died Here Before novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Eight Times

I got out of bed in his shirt and sat down on the floor next to him.

The carpet was cold.

His shoulder was warm.

"Ask me," Holden said.

"Eight," I said. "What does it mean?"

He kept his eyes on the door.

"The night of September twelfth," he said. "You die at 8:44, at the pier, in the Hudson. Dean walks you to the rail. I've seen it eight times."

I didn't breathe.

"Then I wake up at seven that morning in my own bed, and it's Thursday again, and you're asleep next to me, and the gossip pages are lighting up about Giselle."

"That's not possible."

"I know."

"I'd remember."

"You don't. Nobody does. Only me."

"And her," the voice said, very quietly, in my head.

"And her," I said aloud.

Holden turned his head.

His face was open and so tired that I had to look at his hands.

"Her?"

"The voice. The one I told Hattie about. It's me. It's all eight of me." I swallowed. "It woke up on the pier when you didn't come."

He stared at me.

"It's here?"

"It's here. It's furious."

"I'm furious," the voice said. "Tell him, if he's really been through it, tell him to say what I said, the first time Dean pushed me."

I repeated it.

Holden shut his eyes.

"You said, 'Holden will be here in a minute,'" he said. "All eight times. You said it to Dean's face, and then you went over."

It was exactly what the voice had been about to say.

Neither of us spoke.

Then the voice said, "That's the one."

The room swam, and I put my hand over my mouth.

Holden caught me by the shoulders.

"Addie. Breathe."

"You let me go to the pier."

"No."

"You let me go eight times."

"I tried," he said. "God, I tried."

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