He Ranked Her First, I Chose Myself novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Night Before

"For them," I said. "Who's them?"

"The Cantrells." She laughed, and it wasn't a nice laugh. "Who do you think I came here to see?"

"You came to sell it to him."

She didn't deny it.

"I was going to let him have it. Every copy. He makes one phone call to a program director he plays golf with, I get a spot somewhere, anywhere, and the video goes away."

"And?"

"And his assistant came down and told me Mr. Cantrell doesn't take meetings with girls with phones." She looked at the waterfall. "Girls with phones. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor without a diploma, but I'm a doctor."

"I'm not going to feel sorry for you, Tatum."

"I didn't ask you to."

"You signed a statement that I was at his laptop. My mother sat in an auditorium and watched me get handed nothing."

"I know."

"Do you?"

She was quiet.

The waterfall kept going.

"I know," she said again. Quieter.

"Send it to me," I said.

"No."

I stared at her.

"If I send it to you, you play it, and I'm a footnote in your story. The girl who lied and got caught." She put the phone in the pocket of her sweatshirt. "Those are my terms. I don't get spared. I don't get hidden. I come to the board, I play it myself, and I say my own piece. On the record. With my name on it."

"Why?"

"Because the honor council hears my case in September. A lie on the record only comes off with the truth on the record." She swallowed. "And because he stood in that room and told six guys I was his upgrade. Then he told his father I threw myself at him."

"If you're not there at four o'clock on Thursday," I said, "I tell the whole board you have it."

"I'll be there."

"I'm not going to thank you."

"Good," Tatum said. "I'd hate that."

The night before the vote, I couldn't eat.

Fitz made grilled cheese anyway and stood over me until I ate half.

His apartment was hot, with every window open.

An August storm had come through at dinner and left the street steaming.

Sirens came and went across the street.

I sat cross-legged on his bed in his old paramedic T-shirt with a legal pad.

"Order of speakers," I said.

"Doc, it's ten o'clock."

"The welder first. He's the best."

"He's going to say ex-wife's heart."

"He's not allowed to say ex-wife's heart."

"He's going to say it anyway."

"Then his sister. If she can sit up that long. Then the night nurse with the log. Then Tatum."

"Then you."

"Then me." I chewed my pen. "Then you, if they ask about the bar."

"They're not going to ask about the bar."

"They might."

He stood in the middle of the room in jeans and nothing else, holding his father's tie with the tiny ambulances on it.

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