He Mistook Me for My Roommate, So I Called a Stranger Husband novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Read It Again

Brett was sitting on the curb outside the boxing gym with his team jacket zipped to the chin.

He hadn't shaved.

Roxie stood over him with her hands taped and her arms folded.

"If he touches you," she said when I walked up, "I will break something expensive."

"I'm not here to touch anybody," Brett said.

He stood.

He looked younger without the smile, and smaller.

"Five minutes," he said to me. "Please."

"Say it in front of Roxie."

"Fine."

Roxie leaned on the wall and didn't move.

Brett pushed his hands into his pockets.

"Dad's making me vice chairman on the fifteenth," he said. "I have to give a speech. I've been trying to write it for a week."

"And?"

"And I sit down and I can't." His voice shook. "I can write my own name. I can't write a sentence that sounds like anything."

"Zara has a laptop."

"Zara's sentences sound like Zara."

"That's not an insult, Brett."

"I know." He rubbed his face with both hands. "June, I've been reading them."

I didn't move.

"Your messages," he said. "Every night. I know I should've deleted the chat. I couldn't. I read the one from March, the one before the final, and it's the only thing that makes me feel human."

"Is this an apology?"

"It's a confession."

"They're not the same."

Roxie made a small sound that might have been a laugh.

Brett took a step toward me.

"If I'd met you first," he said, "properly, in a room, I'd have picked you. I swear. I only picked her because I had the wrong picture."

"You met me first for six months."

"Online."

"That's the only way I ever lived in your head."

"That's not fair."

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