Plowed by My Stepfather novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Nine Voicemails

Gretchen's POV

I had found them at ten that night, in a folder I didn't know my phone had.

Blocked Messages. Nine of them.

Dean got out of the truck and crossed the grass and stopped three feet away.

He didn't touch me.

"Play them," he said. "I'll stand here."

"Sit with me."

We sat on the porch step, with the yard lamp buzzing over us and moths knocking against it.

I held the phone between us and pressed the first one.

"Gretchen, it's Dean. Your mother's asking for you. Please call me back."

December second.

I pressed the next.

"It's me again. She had a bad night. She asked if you were coming for Christmas."

Dean's voice was low and careful, and I could hear the kitchen clock behind it.

December fourteenth.

I pressed the next.

"She told me not to call you. I'm calling anyway. Please pick up."

I covered my mouth.

Dean looked out at the dark field.

The Christmas Eve message was ten seconds long.

"Merry Christmas, kid. She wishes you'd come. I'll leave the porch light on."

"She told me not to come," I said. "She said she had the flu and didn't want to make me sick."

"I know."

"I stayed in Des Moines. Kent took me to his parents'."

"I know."

I pressed the next one, and the next.

By the seventh, Dean's voice had stopped being careful.

"The doctor says weeks. Maybe less. Gretchen, please."

January eighth.

"The doctor says days. I'll come and get you myself if you'll tell me where you are."

I was crying so hard that I couldn't see the screen.

The last one was timestamped 4:12 on the morning of January tenth.

It was not a long message.

I heard him breathe in once.

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