The Summer I Left novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Three Seconds

Two ushers walked Brynn out through the side door.

She did not fight them. She held her phone against her chest and looked at nothing.

Behind her, the treasurer was already on the phone with the sheriff's office.

I did not wait to see the rest.

I went up the stairs and out into the church parking lot, and the cold air hit my face.

Eddie came out behind me with his jacket sleeves riding up his wrists.

"Do you want me to go away or stay?" he said.

"Stay."

"Okay. I'm staying. I'm going to stand over here and be furniture."

He stood by a pickup truck and looked at the sky.

The side door opened again.

Dennis and Carol came out together.

Dennis stopped ten feet from me. Carol stopped beside him, with her purse clutched in both arms.

For a while, nobody said anything.

"Drew," Carol said. "We didn't know. About any of it."

"You knew I was in a closet."

She flinched.

"You knew I was wearing a mask in my own house."

"We were trying to keep Nate calm. The therapist said..."

"The therapist said she told Brynn to stop filming in July," I said. "You didn't ask her anything else."

Dennis's jaw worked.

"I threw your suitcase down the stairs," he said.

"Yes."

"I put my hand on you. I said you weren't my son."

"You said I was an outsider. You said it in a hospital, where you thought I couldn't hear."

His eyes closed.

"I'm not asking you to say it's all right," he said, rough. "I don't know what I'm asking."

I looked at the two of them.

I had come to this lot a hundred times as a kid, in the back seat, falling asleep against the window.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Summer I Left from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.