They Threw Me Away at Twelve, So I Came Home Undefeated novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Gumdrops

At midnight, someone tapped on my window.

I was awake, sitting on the floor with my back against the bed and my phone dark in my hand.

My room was on the second floor.

The trellis outside it had held my weight when I was nine and would not have held Rhett's now.

I crossed the room and drew the curtain back.

Perry hung on the other side of the glass with one hand on the ivy and the other holding a paper bag.

I opened the window and stood back.

He climbed in, careful and quiet, and straightened up.

He was taller than I was by a head.

His eyes were red.

"They're watching the front and the gate," he said. "Nobody's watching the garden wall. Rhett gets bored by midnight."

"Why are you here?"

He held out the bag.

I took it without thinking.

It was full of gumdrops, every color, loose.

"I bought them this afternoon," he said. "I didn't know what else to bring."

I dropped the bag on the bed.

"You don't get to bring me candy," I said.

"I know."

"You don't get to climb in my window and look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're the one it happened to."

His face went white and then flat.

"Okay," he said. "Say it."

"You want me to say it?"

"I've waited five years for you to say it."

So I did.

"You pulled over at a truck stop in the rain. You said, 'Wait here, Jellybean. Someone's coming to get you.' You gave me forty dollars and your sandwich and you drove off."

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