My Best Friend Bought Me a Cursed Life novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Kennel Light

"Daisy?"

Ben was standing now, the bucket tipped over behind him.

I held the paper out to him.

"That's our landline," I said. "At the townhouse. Somebody in my family did this to you."

He took it with his wet glove and read the number.

He just folded the paper in half, very neatly, and set it back on the counter.

"Because of the cat?" he said.

"Because of me."

"Because you come here."

"Because I come here," I said. "Because it's the only place I've been happy since..."

I stopped.

Since I died. Since I came back in a body that isn't mine.

"Since March," I said.

"Hey."

He peeled off his gloves and dropped them in the sink.

"That's not what I asked," he said.

"What did you ask?"

He came across the wet floor until he was standing in front of me.

He was so much taller than me now. When I'd been a cat, he'd been the whole sky.

"I asked why," he said quietly. "Why a Vandermeer, with a fiancé in the paper and a mother who doesn't pay her bills, is on her knees on my floor at midnight with bleach in her hair. And don't say the cat."

The radio was still playing something slow.

I opened my mouth.

I was going to tell him.

I was going to say, You called me Gray.

You warmed your stethoscope in your hand before you put it on me, like you do with every animal.

It was right there on my tongue.

He would think I was insane.

He'd be kind about it, because he was kind about everything.

And then he'd hold the door for me, and I'd never hear that bell again.

"I can't tell you," I said. "Not yet. I'm sorry. It isn't a bad thing. I just can't."

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