He Thought I'd Forget novel · Chapter 16 of 32

Chapter 16: The Bridge

Jeanine picked up the big shears off her station.

She didn't point them. She just held them.

"You have about one minute," she told Alexis.

She lowered herself into the nearest salon chair like her back hurt, which it probably did.

"He moved me out," she said. "The day after the hearing. Back to my apartment. The one he pays for."

"I'm not crying for you," I said.

"I didn't ask you to." She laughed, small and ugly. "Then the book came out Saturday."

She pulled a copy of She Came Back out of her tote and dropped it on the counter.

"Read the acknowledgments. He thanks his agent. The guy at the hospital coffee cart. Not me. I wrote two chapters of that thing."

"You came here because he forgot to thank you?"

"I came here because I read the court papers." Her voice cracked. "My name is on every prescription. Not his. Mine. He said it was just procedure. He said a fellow signs, it's normal."

"He told me you'd never wake up," she said again. "He said the pills were a kindness. He said you were happier that way, waking up in love with him every morning."

"Did you believe him?"

"I signed them, didn't I."

Jeanine's knuckles went white on the shears.

Alexis opened her tote again and took out a folded sheet of paper.

"I went to his house office last week to look for my fellowship contract," she said. "There's a box in the closet. The year of your crash is written on the side in his printing."

She held the paper out.

"It's a copy. The original's still in the box."

"Why are you giving me this?"

"Because when he goes down, I'm not going down for something he did before I ever met him. I'm not your friend."

"I noticed."

She set the paper on the counter next to the book.

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