Chapter 13: What He Did

I didn't scream.

I wanted to, and I couldn't find the breath for it.

"Say it again," I said.

"I shot you."

"I heard that part."

The boy was a dozen steps away behind the barrier, turning the water bottle in his hands.

I kept my voice low for him.

"You knew," I said. "At the gate. When you said Brent's name before I did."

"Yes."

"You knew when you brought fuel. You knew when you held the ladder."

"Yes."

"You knew in the hayloft."

His jaw moved.

"Yes."

"I told you I was afraid of doing it again." My voice cracked on the last word and I hated it. "You held my face and told me I wasn't wrong."

"I meant it."

"You let me ask you to touch me!"

He didn't flinch.

He didn't say it was mercy, or that I'd been screaming, or that the fourth one was already on me.

He had said all that once, and now he stood there with his glove in his hand and let me have the rest.

That made it worse.

"I lay on that road a long time," I said. "Longer than you remember. I watched you aim. I thought somebody had finally come."

"Devon."

"Then I woke up on my couch, and for one second I wanted to thank the man who did it."

I stopped.

That was not what I had meant to say.

Conroy shut his eyes.

"You were the one person who knew what happened to me," I said. "And every day you stood at my gate and let me find out alone."

"I was trying to find the words."

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