My Ex Threw Me Away, Now He's Bleeding for Me novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Opening Night

I stood on the bottom step and looked at Reid's face in the gray light.

"Not here," I said.

"Margo, please."

"You didn't say a word to me for two years that wasn't about what I owed you. You don't get to say this one on a stoop at five in the morning, so I can keep it secret for you."

"Then where?"

"Where you said the other thing. In front of everyone. The senior exhibition opens at seven tonight."

He looked at Nell.

Nell looked at the black eye.

"Go to a hospital," she said. "Get that lip stitched. Then be there."

He nodded once and walked off down the street with one hand against the wall.

At seven that night the Garrity Gallery was full.

The Foundation's trustees stood in a line by the champagne, with Warren Garrity at the center in a charcoal suit.

The dean was there, and the gallery director, and six of my professors in their good jackets.

Paige stood beneath her screen in a white dress with a silver ribbon pinned to the front.

The Bell Prize jury sat in a row of folding chairs with clipboards on their knees.

I was in the back with Nell when Gideon came in.

He wore a clean shirt and no cameras.

He stopped in front of me with a small black drive held out on his palm.

"Every frame I took, and the full time stamps," he said. "A second copy, so nobody can say it went missing. The police have the first."

I looked at the drive and then at him.

"I haven't decided anything about you."

"I know," he said. "That's not what this is for."

I took it.

Our fingers didn't touch.

I walked straight to the director, who was adjusting her microphone near the jury.

"I'm asking for ten minutes at the screen beside Paige's," I said. "If the Bell Prize is about consent, the jury should see the record."

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